Climate Change Economics

Last year, Chile updated its Nationally Determined Contributions, moving from intensity-based emissions reductions to an effective emissions target. This paper aims to assess the economic and environmental impacts of this change in the current context of high uncertainty Chile faces with social protests and the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the computable general equilibrium model GEMINI-E3, we performed a sensitivity analysis assuming different levels of economic growth through 2030. Though at first glance the revised commitments appear more ambitious, we found that they could lead to higher emissions in low-growth scenarios. The results show that intensity-based emissions targets indeed become less stringent when assuming high levels of economic growth and thus may result in highly uncertain effective emissions in 2030. On the other hand, given the uncertainty surrounding Chilean economic growth, the updated commitments would be politically more amenable as it would lead to lower welfare losses. In addition, we analyze different redistribution schemes of a CO₂ tax and we show that a per capita redistribution rule makes the CO₂ tax more progressive and thus fiscally more acceptable.

This paper analyzes the determinants of adaptation options in pastoral drylands and investigates whether adaptation strategies can be used jointly. We assume that decisions can be made jointly as complements or substitutes and investigates whether herders in Senegal adapt to climate change by pursuing multiple strategies. We use a multinomial probit model with primary data collected from 410 herders of Senegalese drylands to identify adaptation determinants. Results show that 73.7% of the surveyed households rely on at least one adaptation strategy including storage of livestock feed, increased mobility, changes in water management, diversification of activities and changes in herd composition. Moreover, we notice that adaptation decisions of pastoral households can be taken jointly and those with mobility do not pursue other adaptation strategies, while those lacking mobility undertake multiple strategies. The diversity of factors explaining adaptation calls for targeted policies that promote adaptation strategies to strengthen the resilience of pastoralists.

The transportation sector is experiencing a period of unprecedented and disruptive change from the rapid improvement in the performance and cost of battery electric vehicles (BEVs). We quantify the carbon mitigation cost impact from transport electrification with BEVs under policies to limit the Earth surface temperature change to $2^{\circ }$C. Our results show that the reduction in carbon mitigation costs from transport electrification is as high as 40%. While BEVs without decarbonization policies merely shift the sources of emissions, aggressive BEV adoption with policies dramatically reduces the cost of addressing climate change because power sector decarbonization costs are capped by a broad range of emission-free power technologies. The decarbonization of electricity caps road transport decarbonization costs with BEVs. Without BEVs, transportation decarbonization costs escalate as the liquid fuel costs rise sharply with carbon penalties on fossil fuels and large-scale biofuels production. Electrification of transport with BEVs transforms a “problem” sector into a major part of the climate solution.

Climate change mitigation efforts, which require the transition away from carbon-intensive activities, can pose financial risks for owners of fossil fuel assets and investors that the finance companies are engaged in greenhouse gas-emitting activities. For instance, fossil fuel extraction may be significantly scaled-back, and coal-power plants may be idled or even phased out prematurely, thus becoming stranded assets for the shareholders. Using a global general equilibrium model with detailed energy sector and capital stock structures, we estimate the corresponding stranded assets under various emissions mitigation scenarios. Our findings reveal that, depending on the policy scenario, the global net present value of unrealized fossil fuel output through 2050 relative to a “no policy” scenario is between 21.5 and 30.6 trillion USD, and that of stranded assets in coal power generation is between 1.3 and 2.3 trillion USD. The analytical framework presented in our study complements existing research, in which macroeconomic variables required for estimating the stranded assets are often derived from models with more simplified assumptions. Therefore, individual firms and financial institutions can combine our economy-wide analysis with details on their own investment portfolios to determine their climate-related transition risk exposure.

Understanding the triggers of individual adaptation behavior is critical for empowering those who are highly vulnerable to climate change. This study explores the effect of ambiguity aversion on adaptation behaviors in the context of climate change. We conduct a field survey among 230 rice farmers in northeastern Thailand to examine the association between elicited ambiguity aversion and the implementation of climate change adaptation. We find that ambiguity aversion does not encourage farmers’ adaptation behaviors and can even discourage the uptake of adaptation strategies. The role of ambiguity aversion varies depending on the characteristics of the adaptation strategy: ambiguity-averse farmers are less likely to adopt adaptation strategies that entail shifts from the status-quo. A deliberate approach is needed to understand farmers’ adaptation behaviors outside the laboratory setting and to reduce ambiguity in the results concerning adaptation to increasing climate risk.

Under the pressure of economic uncertainty and environmental protection in the post-COVID-19 era, achieving a new round of employment dividends has become one practical choice. Using the panel data of 30 Chinese provinces from 2007 to 2019, this study estimates the employment outcomes of carbon ETS pilots based on the difference-in-differences model. The findings of this study indicate the following: (1) Carbon ETS pilots can positively increase employment scales with an average effect of 7.12%. (2) This promoting effect will become more significant in provinces with high education levels, provinces with high average wages, and eastern region provinces. But there is no obvious difference between gender. (3) This positive effect can be transferred and enhanced by market competition and energy consumption. At the crossroads of green economic recovery, it will be greatly beneficial to formulate the national carbon market development roadmap under the carbon neutrality strategy.