Towards a more effective climate policy on international trade

Dietzenbacher, Erik ; Cazcarro, Ignacio ; Arto, Iñaki

Resumen: In the literature on the attribution of responsibilities for greenhouse gas emissions, two accounting methods have been widely discussed: production-based accounting (PBA) and consumption-based accounting (CBA). It has been argued that an accounting framework for attributing responsibilities should credit actions contributing to reduce global emissions and should penalize actions increasing them. Neither PBA nor CBA satisfy this principle. Adapting classical Ricardian trade theory, we consider ex post measurement and propose a scheme for assigning credits and penalties. Their size is determined by how much CO2 emissions are saved globally due to trade. This leads to the emission responsibility allotment (ERA) for assigning responsibilities. We illustrate the differences between ERA and PBA and CBA by comparing their results for 41 countries and regions between 1995–2009. The Paris Agreement (COP21) proposed new market mechanisms; we argue that ERA is well suited to measure and evaluate their overall mitigation impact.

Idioma: Inglés

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-14837-5

Año: 2020

Publicado en: Nature Communications 11 (2020), 1130 [11 pp.]
ISSN: 2041-1723

Factor impacto JCR: 14.919 (2020)

Categ. JCR: MULTIDISCIPLINARY SCIENCES rank: 4 / 73 = 0.055 (2020) - Q1 - T1

Factor impacto SCIMAGO: 5.559 - Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology (miscellaneous) (Q1) - Physics and Astronomy (miscellaneous) (Q1) - Chemistry (miscellaneous) (Q1)

Financiación: info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/MICINN/RTI2018-099858-A-100
Financiación: info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/MINECO/MDM-2017-0714

Tipo y forma: Article (Published version)