Embodied Carbon Tariffs

Presenter
Jared C. Carbone, Associate Professor, Department of Economics, University of Calgary

Abstract
In a world where the prospects of a global agreement to control greenhouse gas emissions are bleak, the idea of using trade policy as an implicit regulation of foreign emission sources has gained many supporters in countries contemplating unilateral climate policies. Embodied carbon tariffs tax the direct and indirect carbon emissions embodied in imported goods. The appeal seems obvious: as OECD countries are, on average, large net importers of embodied emissions from non-OECD countries, carbon tariffs could substantially extend the reach of OECD climate policies. We investigate this claim by simulating the effects of embodied carbon tariffs with a computable general equilibrium model of global trade and energy use. We find that embodied carbon tariffs do effectively reduce carbon leakage. However, the scope for improvements in the global cost-effectiveness of unilateral climate policy is limited. The main welfare effect of the tariffs is to shift the burden of OECD climate policy to the developing world.

Date
Thursday, November 10, 2011
12:00 - 1:30 p.m.

Lunch will be provided.

Location
7th Floor Conference Center
1616 P St. NW
Washington, D.C. 20036

All seminars will be in the 7th Floor Conference Room at RFF, 1616 P Street NW. Attendance is open, but involves pre-registration no later than two days prior to the event. For questions and to register to an event, please contact Khadija Hill at [email protected] (tel. 202-328-5174). Updates to our academic seminars schedule will be posted at www.rff.org/academicseminarseries.