Washington Post: "The Willow Oil Project Debate Comes Down to This Key Climate Change Question"
An article about the debate between curbing fossil fuel supply or demand to meet US decarbonization goals feature research and insight by RFF Fellow Brian Prest about "leakage."
Brian Prest, an economist at the environmental group Resources for the Future, says that policies like electric vehicle tax credits or investments in clean energy can have unintended effects...
“If we use less gas in US vehicles, that makes it cheaper for folks in other countries to consume more oil,” said Prest. “It’s conceptually symmetric.”
In a report published last year by Resources for the Future, Prest argued that the best approach is “both/and." If the United States encouraged consumers to shift away from fossil fuels, while at the same time taking careful measures to reduce extraction of oil and gas, fossil fuel prices would stay roughly constant — thus preventing “leakage” and leading to lower emissions overall. (His analysis doesn’t include possible external price shocks that could affect the oil market.)
