9th Energy Economics Policy Seminar
Climate change and international environmental agreements
Date: 26 September 2012
Venue: Netherlands Competition Authority, Muzentoren, The Hague On Wednesday 26 September 2012, the 9th seminar on Energy Economics Policy Issues took place. This seminar series is organized by CPB, NMa and TILEC/Tilburg University, in cooperation with the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation (E&LI) and BAEE. The aim of the seminars is to create a discussion platform for Dutch energy economists and to bridge the gap between policy makers and academics. It intends to improve the economic foundation of the Dutch and European energy policy, and ensure that economic research is better aligned with the specific needs of the energy debate. The topic for the ninth seminar was "Climate change and international environmental agreements”. The European Commission (1996) and the Copenhagen Accord (2009) have adopted the goal to limit the global atmospheric temperature increase to 2°C above pre-industrial levels. This will hopefully prevent the world from reaching perilous levels of climate change. To reach this goal, global CO2 emissions need to be reduced drastically by the middle of this century. However, because abating CO2 emissions is costly, while its benefits are disperse and far in the future, standard economic theory predicts that individual countries will not find it in their interest to cut emissions to the socially efficient level. If we want to avoid such an outcome, international environmental agreements, such as the Kyoto protocol (1997), in which individual countries commit to cut emissions are necessary. However, the Koyto protocol is generally not seen as a success on all fronts. It is often claimed that it did not achieve significant emission reductions, lacked good enforcement mechanisms, missed a clear long-term goal, focused too little on innovation and did not sufficiently involve developing countries. In this seminar we discussed the challenges for reaching an effective and equitable climate change agreement and look at the following questions:
We were very happy to welcome two renowned keynote speakers, who sheded some light on those questions. The first keynote speaker was Scott Barrett of Colombia University, who has written two books and numerous articles on international environmental agreements. The second keynote speaker was Cathrine Hagem who leads a team of researchers at Statistics Norway studying the design of international environmental agreements. After both lectures, two experts kicked off the debate. The first discussant was Ton Manders, deputy head climate, air and energy of the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL). Erwin Mulders, the deputy unit manager international climate change at the Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment was the second discussant. Program
Remark
To enable free discussions, the Chatham-House rule applies to this Seminar: “When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed” Organization Machiel Mulder (NMa / University of Groningen / BAEE) Bert Willems (Tilburg University / BAEE) Gijsbert Zwart (CPB / Tilburg University) |
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