Taschini, Fankhauser, Hepburn Auctions to promote GHG abatement 1：（Taschini Fankhauser,赫本拍卖促进温室气体减排1）.pdfVIP

Taschini, Fankhauser, Hepburn Auctions to promote GHG abatement The role of auctions in promoting GHG abatement in emerging markets 1 Luca Taschini, Sam Fankhauser and Cameron Hepburn 1 Introduction There is growing activity on climate change policy around the world, much of it in emerging markets (Townshend et al 2013). Whether or not this momentum will result in a new global deal on climate change is uncertain. What is clear is that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are increasingly managed around the world. Moreover, when countries embark on GHG abatement, economic instruments like carbon markets are often the measure of choice. Numerous emerging countries have turned to economic instruments to put a price on emission reductions and incentivize low carbon investments: China, South Korea, and South Africa, among others. The main attraction of economic instruments is that they assign to markets, rather than government officials, the task of finding the most cost-effective way of achieving the environmental objective. Yet the instruments themselves are constructs of public policy, designed by the same officials we distrust to find the right abatement solutions. It is therefore a natural question to ask whether some of the core features that define these instruments (such as the allocation of permits in a trading scheme) could also be determined by markets. The goal of this paper is to explore how auctions, as a key market mechanism, may help to improve the performance of economic instruments to stimulate GHG abatement. We identify three principal areas where future legislation aimed at promoting low-carbon investments and reducing c