Design Elements for a Successful CO2 Trading Program
This page finalized October 5, 2006.
Chair’s Air Pollution Seminar Series
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Friday, October
20, 2006
10:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
Sierra Hearing Room, Second Floor
1001 I Street, Sacramento
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Webcast
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Design
Elements for a Successful CO2 Trading Program
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Dallas Burtraw
Senior Fellow, Resources for the
Future
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Previous experience with regulation of conventional
pollutants (SO2 and NOx) in
the U.S. and CO2 in Europe indicate that cap and trade programs can be successful
in achieving environmental goals. Evidence suggests these approaches can achieve significant cost savings compared
to prescriptive approaches to regulation. Given the depth of emission reductions that may be required in the future,
cost effectiveness in regulatory programs is probably essential for success. However, market based policies have
not always proven successful in environmental or economic terms. And like any policy, they interact with other
public policy goals and regulatory programs and they create their own set of winners and losers.
This presentation will review basic design features that contributed to the success of previous emission trading
programs, as well as offer a critical evaluation of those programs. Among key issues to be reviewed are the legal
framework and regulatory authority, transparency, monitoring and enforcement, and how well the programs enable
spatial and temporal flexibility in compliance, and the effect of flexibility on the environmental outcome. A key
issue that has emerged in the application of a CO2 trading program is separation between the point of compliance
responsibility in the program and the initial distribution of emission allowances, which can entail the creation
and transfer of billions of dollars per year in value. The potential implementation of a state-level program in
California raises specific issues and opportunities. |
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| Dr. Burtraw is a Senior Fellow at Resources for the Future. Dr. Burtraw earned a Ph.D. in Economics
from the University of Michigan in 1989. He also has a Master in Public Policy degree from the University of Michigan
and a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of California, Davis. Dr. Burtraw has studied the design of
incentive-based environmental policies in the electricity industry and has authored extensively on the performance
of emission trading programs in the U.S. for sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, and on the performance of the
European Union Emission Trading System for carbon dioxide. He currently serves on the EPA Advisory Council on Clean
Air Compliance Analysis, and on the National Academies of Science Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology. |
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For more information on this
Seminar please contact Fereidun Feizollahi at (916) 323-1509 or send email to: ffeizoll@arb.ca.gov
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For a complete listing of
the ARB Chairman's Series and the related documentation for each one of the series please check this page
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Note: for a print friendly
version of this page please click on the "Print Friendly" option at the very top of this page.
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Main Seminar Series Page
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Research
Activities
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