Climate Coalition Research Articles

Technology spillovers and stability of international climate coalitions

Cooperation in international environmental agreements appears difficult to attain because of strong free-rider incentives. This paper explores how different technology spillover mechanisms among regions can influence the incentives to join and stabilise an international agreement. We use an applied modelling framework (STACO) that enables us to investigate the stability of partial climate coalitions. Several theories on the impact of technology spillovers are evaluated by simulating a range of alternative specifications. We find that spillovers are a good instrument to increase the abatement efforts of coalitions and reduce the associated costs. In our setting, however, they cannot overcome the strong free-rider incentives that are present in larger coalitions, i.e. technology spillovers do not substantially increase the success of international environmental agreements. This conclusion is robust with respect to the specification of technology spillovers.

Technology Spillovers and Stability of International Climate Coalitions

Cooperation in international environmental agreements appears difficult to attain because of strong free riding incentives. This paper explores how different technology spillover mechanisms among regions can influence the incentive structures to join and stabilize an international agreement. We use an applied modeling framework (STACO) that enables us to investigate stability of partial climate coalitions. Technology spillovers to coalition members increase their incentives to stay in the coalition and reduce abatement costs, which leads to larger global payoffs and a lower global CO2 stock. Several theories on the impact of technology spillovers are evaluated by simulating a range of alternative specifications. We find that while spillovers are a good instrument to improve stability of bilateral agreements, they cannot overcome the strong free rider incentives that are present in larger coalitions. This conclusion is robust against the specification of technology spillovers.

The stability likelihood of an international climate agreement

Results derived from empirical analyses on the stability of climate coalitions are usually very sensitive to the large uncertainties associated with the benefits and costs of climate policies. This paper provides the methodology of Stability Likelihood (SL) that links uncertainties about benefits and costs of climate change to the stability of coalitions. We show that the concept of SL improves upon the robustness and interpretation of stability analyses. Moreover, our numerical application qualifies conclusions from a recent strand of literature based on stylised models with ex-ante symmetric players that learning has a negative impact on the success of coalition formation in context of uncertainty.

Climate Coalitions: A Theoretical and Computational Appraisal

Using an updated version of the CWS model (introduced by Eyckmans and Tulkens in Resource and Energy Economics 2003), this paper intends to evaluate with numbers the respective merits of two competing notions of coalition stability in the standard global public goods model as customarily applied to the climate change problem. After a reminder of the model structure and of the definition of the two game theoretical stability notions involved - namely, core stability and internal-external stability, the former property is shown to hold for the grand coalition in the CWS model only if resource transfers of a specific form between countries are introduced. It is further shown that while the latter property holds neither for the grand coalition nor for most large coalitions, it is nevertheless verified in a weak sense that involves transfers (dubbed potential internal stability) for most small coalitions. The reason for this difference is brought to light, namely the differing rationale that inspires the transfers in either case. Finally, it is shown that the stable coalitions that perform best (in terms of carbon concentration and global welfare) are always composed of both industrialized and developing countries. Two sensitivity analyses confirm the robustness of all these results.

Post-Kyoto? Post-Bush? Towards an effective ‘climate coalition of the willing’

Weak early compliance with the Kyoto Protocol's current emissions reduction targets and the longer term impact of the US's defection point to emerging problems for the Protocol's effectiveness and legitimacy. This article argues that such problems could in part be addressed by shifting the emphasis of negotiations over the Protocol's second commitment period away from attempts to reengage the United States. Instead, these negotiations and key actors like the European Union should aim for a framework and ‘culture of compliance’ that actively engage the ‘emergent major emitters’, China, India and Brazil, either by including them in the Protocol's Annex B list of states, or in a new annex created specially to accommodate them.

Stability of Climate Coalitions in a Cartel Formation Game

This paper analyses the formation and stability of coalitions to form international environmental agreements. We present and apply the Stability of coalitions model to assess the internal and external stability of all possible coalition structures in a cartel formation game; first under the assumption that no transfers take place and second for a transfer scheme. One important novelty of this paper is the analysis of the incentive structure of twelve regions for all possible combinations of (cartel) coalitions in an empirical setting with asymmetric regions. We show that stable coalitions can emerge only if benefits from global abatement are sufficiently high or if an appropriate transfer scheme is introduced.

Parallel Climate Blocs: Incentives to Cooperation in International Climate Negotiations

There are increasing signals that countries that negotiate on GHG emission control are unlikely to sign and ratify a single climate protocol, even though almost all countries have subscribed the UNFCCC convention that sets the framework of international climate cooperation. In addition to the US decision not to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, New Zealand and Australia recently led to the formation of a new alliance in which technological cooperation is the main tool to achieve GHG emission control. In the U.S., some States on the Eastern coast are negotiating to adopt emission reduction targets and to establish a permit market despite the opposition of the federal government. Cooperation on climate policy is also the objective of recent negotiations between ASEAN countries. Given this background, this paper aims at examining whether the aforementioned events are simply the noise of a political process leading to a global agreement on climate change control or are instead consistent with some basic economic incentives that are pushing countries towards the formation of two (or more) parallel climate blocs. To this aim, this paper uses a well known integrated assessment climate-economy model to evaluate the incentives to cooperation in climate negotiations for the main world countries. A game-theoretic framework is adopted to analyse a country’s incentive to belong to a climate coalition. In our setting, a given country can either join one of the existing climate coalitions or can propose a new one or can decide to free-ride on the other countries’ cooperative abatement effort. We then analyse the characteristics of the main possible outcomes and assess which outcomes are most likely to prevail in future negotiations, at least as far as economic incentives are concerned.

Coalition Formation under Uncertainty: The Stability Likelihood of an International Climate Agreement

Results derived from empirical analyses on the stability of climate coalitions are usually very sensitive to the large uncertainties associated with the benefits and costs of climate policies. This paper provides the methodology of Stability Likelihood that links uncertainty about benefits and costs of climate change to the stability analysis of coalitions in a stochastic, empirical setting. We show that the concept of Stability Likelihood improves upon the robustness and interpretation of stability analysis. Our numerical application is based on a modified version of the climate model STACO. It turns out that the only non-trivial coalition structure with a relatively high Stability Likelihood (around 25 percent) is a coalition between the European Union and Japan, though quantitative results depend especially on the variance in regional benefits from abatement.

Trade Policy to Control Climate Change: Does the Stick Beat the Carrot?

Trade and climate change policies are closely related. We consider in a general equilibrium model the role of trade restrictions and energy-efficient technology transfers for the stabilisation of the Kyoto climate coalition. We find that a trade restriction policy leads to economic losses for a large number of countries and would not be suited to convince the United States to return to the Kyoto Protocol. The technology transaction via trade, however, induces major positive economic effects for participating economies as well as considerable reductions in emissions. Therefore, the claim that trade restrictions should be used as a stick to force countries to cooperate in climate change control is not supported in this study. Rather, the benefits of R&amp;D spill-overs should be used as an incentive to promote participation. <bold>Zusammenfassung</bold> Internationaler Handel und Klimapolitik sind eng miteinander verknüpft. Mithilfe eines allgemeinen Gleichgewichtsmodells untersuchen wir, welche Rolle Handelseinschränkungen sowie Transfers von energieeffizienten technischen Innovationen für die Stabilisierung der Klimapolitik unter dem Kyoto-Protokoll spielen können. Handelseinschränkungen führen zu einer Verschlechterung der Handelsbilanz für die Mehrzahl der Länder und Regionen weltweit. Sie sind daher nicht geeignet, die USA zu einer Rückkehr in die Klimakoalition zu bewegen. Der Transfer neuer Technologien führt hingegen zu positiven ökonomischen Effekten in den beteiligten Ländern und darüber hinaus reduziert er auch stärker die Emissionen. Die Forderung, Klimaschutz durch Handelsrestriktionen zu erzwingen, kann somit nicht unterstützt werden. Vielmehr sollten technologische Kooperationen als Anreiz eingesetzt werden.

Regional and Sub-Global Climate Blocs. A Game-Theoretic Perspective on Bottom-up Climate Regimes

No international regime on climate change is going to be fully effective in controlling GHG emissions without the involvement of countries such as China, India, the United States, Australia, and possibly other developing countries. This highlights an unambiguous weakness of the Kyoto Protocol, where the aforementioned countries either have no binding emission targets or have decided not to comply with their targets. Therefore, when discussing possible post-Kyoto scenarios, it is crucial to prioritize participation incentives for all countries, especially those without explicit or with insufficient abatement targets. This paper offers a bottom-up game-theoretic perspective on participation incentives. Rather than focusing on issue linkage, transfers or burden sharing as tools to enhance the incentives to participate in a climate agreement, this paper aims at exploring whether a different policy approach could lead more countries to adopt effective climate control policies. This policy approach is explicitly bottom-up, namely it gives each country the freedom to sign agreements and deals, bilaterally or multilaterally, with other countries, without being constrained by any global protocol or convention. This study provides a game-theoretic assessment of this policy approach and then evaluates empirically the possible endogenous emergence of single or multiple climate coalitions. Welfare and technological consequences of different multiple bloc climate regimes will be assessed and their overall environmental effectiveness will be discussed.

Emission trading regimes and incentives to participate in international climate agreements

AbstractThis paper analyses whether different emission trading regimes provide different incentives to participate in a cooperative climate agreement. Different incentive structures are discussed for those countries, namely the US, Russia and China, that are most important in the climate negotiation process. Our analysis confirms the conjecture that, by appropriately designing the emission trading regime, it is possible to enhance the incentives to participate in a climate agreement. Therefore, participation and optimal policy should be jointly analysed. Moreover, our results show that the US, Russia and China have different most preferred climate coalitions and therefore adopt conflicting negotiation strategies. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

Climate coalitions and international trade: assessment of cooperation incentives by issue linkage

This paper investigates climate control coalition games. It studies whether incentives exist for non-cooperating nations like the USA to join a coalition based upon issue linkage. Issue linkage is considered through increased R&D expenditures triggering improved technological innovations that advance energy efficiencies. Model calculations demonstrate that incentives exist for non-cooperating countries like the USA to join a climate control coalition if nations cooperate on technological innovations. Restrictions on trade such as sanction mechanisms against non-cooperating countries are not necessarily an incentive to join a coalition. Technological spillover effects lead to improved economic situations and increased energy efficiencies in non-cooperating countries.

Stability of Climate Coalitions in a Cartel Formation Game

We empirically test stability of climate change coalitions with the STAbility of Coalitions model (STACO). The model comprises twelve world regions and captures important dynamic aspects of the climate change problem. We apply the stability concept of internal and external stability to a cartel formation game. It is shown that only if benefits from global abatement are sufficiently high, stable coalitions emerge, though they only marginally improve upon the Nash equilibrium. We explain this phenomenon by analyzing the individual incentive structure of all regions and relate our results to the predictions of theory. Kyoto-Protocol, Cartel formation game, Non-cooperative game theory

Emissions Trading Regimes and Incentives to Participate in International Climate Agreements

This Paper analyses whether different emission trading regimes provide different incentives to participate in a cooperative climate agreement. Different incentive structures are discussed for those countries, namely the US, Russia and China, that are most important in the climate negotiation process. Our analysis confirms the conjecture that, by appropriately designing the emission-trading regime, it is possible to enhance the incentives to participate in a climate agreement. Therefore, participation and optimal policy should be jointly analysed. Moreover, our results show that the US, Russia and China have different most preferred climate coalitions and therefore adopt conflicting negotiation strategies.

Bonn's Climate Summit

Accusations, warnings, and predictions flew around in a flurry prior to the U.N. Conference on Climate Change negotiations that began in Bonn, Germany on July 19.Glenn Kelly, executive director of the industry‐supported Global Climate Coalition (GCC), predicted that a coordinated bashing of the United States for President George W. Bush's opposition to the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas reductions would be followed by cooler thinking. “It has to play out,” he said. “I liken it to a World Wrestling Federation match: it looks painful, but in the end it's all show and drama.”

Climate Coalitions in an IntegratedAssessment Model

An analytically tractable approximation of a numerical model is used toinvestigate coalition formation between nine major world regions withregard to their policies for greenhouse gas emission reduction. Fullcooperation is not individually rational. Assuming non-transferableutility, side payments do not ensure full cooperation either. Withoutside payments, the largest stable coalitions are small and consist ofsimilar regions. With side payments, the largest stable coalitionsexclude either the main culprits or the main victims of climate change.In all cases, optimal emission control is modest.

Technology Diffusion and the Stability of Climate Coalitions

Free-riding is a major problem for international climate policy. A country can take advantage of other countries' emission reduction without contributing to abatement policies itself. Game theory suggests that issue linkage may help to overcome free-riding. Earlier studies suggest that if negotiations on greenhouse gas emission reduction are coupled to negotiation on technology transfer, the incentives to co-operate increase. This study confirms that finding. A country has less reason to free-ride if free-riding implies that the countries loses access to desirable, foreign technologies. We also show that, in many cases, it hurts to deny another country access to domestic technologies, if that country retaliates by withholding its technologies. We further show that the losses of withholding abatement technologies are small relative to the gains of free-riding. So, linking greenhouse gas emission reduction with technology diffusion helps to deter free-riding, but only a little bit, and only if the two issues are automatically linked.

INDUSTRY ACTS ON CLIMATE CHANGE

News Analysis Although Congress hasn't passed legislation affecting greenhouse gas emissions and global climate change, some large corporations are taking concrete steps to address the issue. Over the past two years, U.S. companies from a broad range of business sectors have begun to make strong commitments to reduce their own emissions of greenhouse gases and to invest in renewable energy technologies. At the same time, a number of firms have resigned from the Washington, D.C.-based Global Climate Coalition (GCC)—the industry trade group best known for public relations campaigns that oppose the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and are designed to raise doubts about the reality of global warming. U.S. companies are making these moves for a variety of reasons. First, they are finding it harder and harder to brush aside the reality of climate change. Nearly all scientists who have published research on this issue agree that the ...

Climate Coalitions: The Science and Politics of Climate Change

Climate Coalitions: The Science and Politics of Climate Change

Climate-change talks: Only modest progress made in Buenos Aires

After two weeks of United Nations-sponsored negotiations in Buenos Aires, diplomats from 160 countries agreed to finalize rules by late 2000 for emissions trading and other market-based mechanisms to cut greenhouse gas emissions. They also set a strict timetable for devising rules for enforcing the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. One day before the scheduled end of the meeting, Nov. 12, the U.S. became the last major industrialized power to sign the protocol. This step elicited praise from Democratic members of Congress and from some business interests, while provoking alarm among Republican members of the congressional delegation to the talks and the Washington, D.C.-based Global Climate Coalition (GCC), which represents oil, coal, chemical, and automotive firms. Connie Holmes, GCC chairman, said in a press release: By directing that the Kyoto protocol be signed, [President Bill Clinton] has given away negotiating leverage because the treaty commits the U.S. ...