Policies to Reduce CO2 Emissions: Fallacies and Evidence from the United States and California

Granados, José A. Tapia and Spash, Clive L. (2019) Policies to Reduce CO2 Emissions: Fallacies and Evidence from the United States and California. SRE - Discussion Papers, 2019/04. WU Vienna University of Economics and Business, Vienna.

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Abstract

Since the 1990s, advocates of policy to prevent catastrophic climate change have been divided over the appropriate economic instruments to curb CO2 emissions-carbon taxes or schemes of emission trading. Barack Obama claimed that policies implemented during his presidency set in motion irreversible trends toward a clean-energy economy, with the years 2008-2015 given as evidence of decoupling between CO2 emissions and economic growth. This is despite California being the only state in the USA that has implemented a specific policy to curb emissions, a cap-and-trade scheme in place since 2013. To assess Obama's claims and the effectiveness of policies to reduce CO2 emissions, we analyze national and state-level data from the USA over the period 1990-2015. We find: (a) annual changes in emissions strongly correlated with the growth conditions of the economy; (b) no evidence for decoupling; and (c) a trajectory of CO2 emissions in California which does not at all support the claim that the cap-and-trade system implemented there has reduced CO2 emissions.

Item Type:	Paper
Keywords:	Climate change, Cap-and-trade, Carbon emissions trading, Decoupling, Economic growth
Divisions:	Departments > Sozioökonomie
Depositing User:	ePub Administrator
Date Deposited:	20 May 2019 12:43
Last Modified:	22 Oct 2019 00:41
URI:	https://epub.wu.ac.at/id/eprint/6961

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