IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aen/journl/ej40-1-ritz.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Political Economy of a Carbon Price Floor for Power Generation

Author

Listed:
  • David M. Newbery, David M. Reiner, and Robert A. Ritz

Abstract

The EU carbon price lies well below estimates of the social cost of carbon and "target-consistent" carbon prices needed to deliver ambitious targets such as the 40% reduction target for 2030. In light of this, the UK introduced a carbon price floor (CPF) for its electricity sector in 2013 and the new Dutch Government has recently made a similar commitment, while successive French Governments have called for an EU-wide CPF. This paper analyzes the impacts and design of a power-sector CPF, both at the EU and national level, using a political-economy approach. We find a good case for introducing such a price-based instrument into the EU ETS. We suggest that a CPF should be designed to "top up" the EUA price to 25-30/tCO2, rising annually at 3-5% above inflation, at least until 2030. We argue that the new EU Market Stability Reserve enhances the value of a CPF in terms of delivering climate benefits, and discuss the potential for a regional CPF in North-West Europe. We also review international policy experience with price floors (and ceilings).

Suggested Citation

  • David M. Newbery, David M. Reiner, and Robert A. Ritz, 2019. "The Political Economy of a Carbon Price Floor for Power Generation," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1).
    • Handle: RePEc:aen:journl:ej40-1-ritz
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.iaee.org/en/publications/ejarticle.aspx?id=3275
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to IAEE members and subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brian C. Murray & Peter T. Maniloff & Evan M. Murray, 2015. "Why Have Greenhouse Emissions in RGGI States Declined? An Econometric Attribution to Economic, Energy Market and Policy Factors (Payne Institute Policy Brief)," Payne Institute Policy Briefs 2014-04, Colorado School of Mines, Division of Economics and Business.
    2. A. Denny Ellerman & Claudio Marcantonini & Aleksandar Zaklan, 2016. "The European Union Emissions Trading System: Ten Years and Counting," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 10(1), pages 89-107.
    3. Pizer, William A., 2002. "Combining price and quantity controls to mitigate global climate change," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(3), pages 409-434, September.
    4. Samuel Fankhauser & Cameron Hepburn & Jisung Park, 2010. "Combining Multiple Climate Policy Instruments: How Not To Do It," Climate Change Economics (CCE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 1(03), pages 209-225.
    5. Newbery, David, 2018. "Shifting demand and supply over time and space to manage intermittent generation: The economics of electrical storage," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 711-720.
    6. repec:dau:papers:123456789/10174 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ambec, Stefan & Coria, Jessica, 2021. "The informational value of environmental taxes," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 199(C).
    2. David M. Newbery & David M. Reiner & Robert A. Ritz, 2018. "When is a carbon price floor desirable?," Working Papers EPRG 1816, Energy Policy Research Group, Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge.
    3. Quemin, Simon & Trotignon, Raphaël, 2021. "Emissions trading with rolling horizons," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    4. Grischa Perino & Robert A. Ritz & Arthur van Benthem, 2019. "Overlapping Climate Policies," NBER Working Papers 25643, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Perino, G. & Ritz, R. & Van Benthem, A., 2019. "Understanding overlapping policies: Internal carbon leakage and the punctured waterbed," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1920, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    6. Downar, Benedict & Ernstberger, Jürgen & Reichelstein, Stefan & Schwenen, Sebastian & Zaklan, Aleksandar, 2021. "The impact of carbon disclosure mandates on emissions and financial operating performance," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 26(3), pages 1137-1175.
    7. Schmidt, Klaus M. & Herweg, Fabian, 2021. "Prices versus Quantities with Morally Concerned Consumers," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 272, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    8. Schmidt, Klaus & Herweg, Fabian, 2021. "Prices versus Quantities with Morally Concerned Consumers," VfS Annual Conference 2021 (Virtual Conference): Climate Economics 242371, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    9. Stéphane Poncin, 2018. "Energy policy tools in Luxembourg - Assessing their impact on households’ space heating energy consumption and CO2 emissions by means of the LuxHEI model," DEM Discussion Paper Series 18-23, Department of Economics at the University of Luxembourg.
    10. Johan Lilliestam & Anthony Patt & Germán Bersalli, 2021. "The effect of carbon pricing on technological change for full energy decarbonization: A review of empirical ex‐post evidence," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 12(1), January.
    11. Gonçalves, Jorge & Costa, Manuel Luís, 2022. "The political influence of ecological economics in the European Union applied to the cap-and-trade policy11This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commerc," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 195(C).
    12. Benedikt Downar & Jürgen Ernstberger & Hannes Rettenbacher & Sebastian Schwenen & Aleksandar Zaklan, 2019. "Fighting Climate Change with Disclosure? The Real Effects of Mandatory Greenhouse Gas Emission Disclosure," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1795, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    13. Fabian Herweg & Klaus M Schmidt, 2022. "How to Regulate Carbon Emissions with Climate-Conscious Consumers," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 132(648), pages 2992-3019.
    14. Yolanda Fernández Fernández & María Angeles Fernández López & David González Hernández & Blanca Olmedillas Blanco, 2018. "Institutional Change and Environment: Lessons from the European Emission Trading System," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-16, March.
    15. Burtraw, Dallas & Holt, Charles & Palmer, Karen & Shobe, William M., 2020. "Quantities with Prices: Price-Responsive Allowance Supply in Environmental Markets," RFF Working Paper Series 20-17, Resources for the Future.
    16. Edenhofer, Ottmar & Flachsland, Christian & Kalkuhl, Matthias & Knopf, Brigitte & Pahle, Michael, 2019. "Optionen für eine CO2-Preisreform," Working Papers 04/2019, German Council of Economic Experts / Sachverständigenrat zur Begutachtung der gesamtwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung.
    17. de Perthuis, Christian & Trotignon, Raphael, 2014. "Governance of CO2 markets: Lessons from the EU ETS," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 100-106.
    18. Fankhauser, Samuel & Hepburn, Cameron, 2010. "Designing carbon markets. Part I: Carbon markets in time," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(8), pages 4363-4370, August.
    19. Elisabetta Cornago & Renaud Foucart, 2014. "Instrument Choice and Cost Uncertainty in the Electricity Market," Working Papers ECARES ECARES 2014-13, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    20. John Stranlund, 2015. "A Note on Correlated Uncertainty and Hybrid Environmental Policies," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 61(4), pages 463-476, August.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F0 - International Economics - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aen:journl:ej40-1-ritz. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: David Williams (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iaeeeea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.