Incentivizing a carbon-free economy: a method to identify free-riders

Abstract: Top-down approaches to reducing global carbon dioxide emissions have so far met with limited success, even though most countries accept the urgency of mitigating climate change and have entered into various agreements that should help reduce emissions. This article does not dismiss the importance of such "top-down" agreements for developing rational strategies to achieve declining total emissions, but it suggests a complementary approach to encourage immediate "bottom-up" progress on climate goals that do not need to wait for global cooperation. This paper develops a framework to identify free-riding behavior among countries that use three readily measured parameters of the country’s economy: carbon intensity, rate of change of the carbon intensity, and per capita GDP. It then goes on to propose a simple formula to calculate trade sanctions against a free-riding country that could be used in bilateral actions to incentivize carbon emissions reductions. The paper argues that the val

Object Details

• Location: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Extent: Online-Ressource
• Language: Englisch
• Notes: Veröffentlichungsversion ; begutachtet (peer reviewed) ; In: Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy ; 15 (2020) 2 ; 68-85

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Natürliche Ressourcen, Energie und Umwelt

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (where): Mannheim
• (who): SSOAR, GESIS – Leibniz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften e.V.
• (when): 2020
• Creator: Browne, Joshua ; Lackner, Klaus ; Villarreal, Diego ; Brennan, Sarah

Further information

• DOI: 10.18288/1994-5124-2020-2-68-85
• URN: urn:nbn:de:101:1-2406280706246.589663152746
• Rights: Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Last update: 25.03.2025, 1:56 PM CET