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Confronting the carbon pricing gap: Second best climate policy

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  • Katheline Schubert

    (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement)

  • Aude Pommeret

    (IREGE - Institut de Recherche en Gestion et en Economie - USMB [Université de Savoie] [Université de Chambéry] - Université Savoie Mont Blanc)

  • Francesco Ricci

    (CEE-M - Centre d'Economie de l'Environnement - Montpellier - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - Institut Agro Montpellier - Institut Agro - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement - UM - Université de Montpellier, UM - Université de Montpellier)

Abstract

Confronted with political opposition to the implementation of efficient carbon pricing, climate policy relies on alternative policy interventions, at a cost in terms of welfare and public finance. In order to evaluate this cost, this paper studies, in the context of the energy transition, second best climate policies constrained to keeping a constant level of the carbon tax and combining it with subsidies to carbon-free electricity generation. This subsidies can take the form of a feed-in premium paid to electricity produced from carbon-free sources, or of subsidies to investment in green capacity. Within a stylized dynamic model where energy may be produced with fossil or carbon-free sources and climate policy aims at satisfying a carbon budget, we define and characterize the carbon pricing gap. We show that if the constant carbon tax is small and therefore the carbon pricing gap large, the subsidy to carbon-free sources should be so large to foster rapid build up of green capacity that it would imply large investment costs and huge financial burden on the public budget, and a large welfare loss. We calibrate the model to the European energy market to obtain orders of magnitude of the effects.

Suggested Citation

  • Katheline Schubert & Aude Pommeret & Francesco Ricci, 2023. "Confronting the carbon pricing gap: Second best climate policy," Working Papers halshs-04075395, HAL.
  • Handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-04075395
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-04075395v1
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christoph Böhringer & Knut Rosendahl, 2010. "Green promotes the dirtiest: on the interaction between black and green quotas in energy markets," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 37(3), pages 316-325, June.
    2. Jean-Pierre Amigues & Ujjayant Chakravorty & Gilles Lafforgue & Michel Moreaux, 2022. "Comparing Volume and Blend Renewable Energy Mandates under a Carbon Budget," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 147, pages 51-78.
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    Cited by:

    1. Antoine Bouët & Erica Perego & Vincent Vicard & Mathieu Fouquet & Alexandre Godzinski & Frédéric Ghersi & Sébastien Jean & William l'Heudé & Vincent Aussilloux & Romain Schweizer & Christophe C. Gouel, 2023. "Les incidences économiques de l'action pour le climat. Compétitivité," CIRED Working Papers hal-04248556, HAL.
    2. repec:hal:cesptp:hal-04248556 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Eichner, Thomas & Schopf, Mark, 2024. "On breadth and depth of climate agreements with pledge-and-review bargaining," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Energy transition; Carbon tax; Subsidies; FIP; Carbon-free energy; Policy acceptability;
    All these keywords.

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