Escaping the climate policy uncertainty trap: options contracts for REDD+

Climate policy uncertainty significantly hinders investments in low-carbon technologies, and the global community is behind schedule to curb carbon emissions. Strong actions will be necessary to limit the increase in global temperatures, and continued delays create risks of escalating climate change damages and future policy costs. These risks are system-wide, long-term and large-scale and thus hard to diversify across firms. Because of its unique scale, cost structure and near-term availability, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation in developing countries (REDD+) has significant potential to help manage climate policy risks and facilitate the transition to lower greenhouse gas emissions. ‘Call’ options contracts in the form of the right but not the obligation to buy high-quality emissions reduction credits from jurisdictional REDD+ programmes at a predetermined price per ton of CO₂ could help unlock this potential despite the current lack of carbon markets that accept REDD+ for compliance. This approach could provide a globally important cost-containment mechanism and insurance for firms against higher future carbon prices, while channelling finance to avoid deforestation until policy uncertainties decline and carbon markets scale up.

Key policy insights

• Climate policy uncertainty discourages abatement investments, exposing firms to an escalating systemic risk of future rapid increases in emission control expenditures.

• This situation poses a risk of an abatement ‘short squeeze,’ paralleling the case in financial markets when prices jump sharply as investors rush to square accounts on an investment they have sold ‘short’, one they have bet against and promised to repay later in anticipation of falling prices.

• There is likely to be a willingness to pay for mechanisms that hedge the risks of abruptly rising carbon prices, in particular for ‘call’ options, the right but not the obligation to buy high-quality emissions reduction credits at a predetermined price, due to the significantly lower upfront capital expenditure compared to other hedging alternatives.

• Establishing rules as soon as possible for compliance market acceptance of high-quality emissions reductions credits from REDD+ would facilitate REDD+ transactions, including via options-based contracts, which could help fill the gap of uncertain climate policies in the short and medium term.

     

The global impacts of US climate policy: a model simulation using GCAM-TU and MAGICC

To assess the potential impacts of the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, this study applied GCAM-TU (an updated version of the Global Change Assessment Model) to simulate global and regional emission pathways of energy-related CO₂, which show that US emissions in 2100 would reduce to ?2.4?Gt, ?0.7?Gt and ?0.2?Gt under scenarios of RCP2.6, RCP3.7 and RCP4.5, respectively. Two unfavourable policy scenarios were designed, assuming a temporary delay and a complete stop for US mitigation actions after 2015. Simulations by the Model for the Assessment of Greenhouse-gas Induced Climate Change (MAGICC) indicate that the temperature increase by 2100 would rise by 0.081°C–0.161°C compared to the three original RCPs (Representative Concentration Pathways) if US emissions were kept at their 2015 levels until 2100. The probability of staying below 2°C would decrease by 6–9% even if the US resumes mitigation efforts for achieving its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) target after 2025. It is estimated by GCAM-TU that, without US participation, increased reduction efforts are required for the rest of the world, including developing countries, in order to achieve the 2°C goal, resulting in 18% higher global cumulative mitigation costs from 2015 to 2100.

Key policy insights

• President Trump’s climate policies, including planned withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, cast a shadow on international climate actions, and would lower the likelihood of achieving the 2°C target.

• To meet the 2°C target without the US means increased reduction efforts and mitigation costs for the rest of the world, and considerable economic burdens for major developing areas.

• Active state-, city- and enterprise-level powers should be supported to keep the emission reduction gap from further widening even with reduced mitigation efforts from the US federal government.

     

Empirical calibration of climate policy using corporate solvency: a case study of the UK’s carbon price support

Emission reductions improve the chances that dangerous anthropogenic climate change will be averted, but could also cause some firms financial distress. Corporate failures, especially if they are unnecessary, add to the social cost of abatement. Social value can be permanently destroyed by the dissolution of organizational capital, deadweight losses paid to liquidators, and unemployment. This article proposes using measures of corporate solvency as an objective tool for policy makers to calibrate the optimal stringency of climate change policies, so that they can deliver the least loss of corporate solvency for a given level of emission reductions. They could also be used to determine the generosity of any compensation to address losses to corporate solvency. We demonstrate this approach using a case study of the UK’s Carbon Price Support (a carbon tax).

Key policy insights

• Solvency metrics could be used to empirically calibrate the optimal stringency of climate policies.

• An idealized solvency trajectory for firms affected by climate change policy would cause corporate solvency to initially decline – approaching but not exceeding ‘distressed’ levels – and then gradually improve to a new ‘steady state’ once the low-carbon transition had been achieved.

• In terms of the UK’s Carbon Price Support, corporate solvency of energy-intensive industries was found to be stable subsequent to its introduction. Therefore, the available evidence does not support its later weakening.

     

京津冀城市群水资源开发利用的时空特征与政策启示

京津冀城市群是中国在国际经济体系中具有最强竞争力的支撑平台之一,也是中国乃至全世界水安全保障难度最大的地区之一。本文主要以2000-2014年数据为基础,采用泰尔系数、变异系数、曲线分析和空间分级分类分析等方法,揭示了京津冀城市群水资源与用水变化的时空特征。结果显示：①绝大多数城市多年平均水资源总量显著减少,干旱化的长期趋势明显,而且北部、西部城市减少幅度更大;②京津冀城市群水资源极度短缺,空间不均衡性呈现先减小后增大的趋势,而且中部和南部城市水资源开发利用潜力更低,缺水更甚;③绝大多数城市用水总量零增长或缓慢负增长,用水结构以工农业用水比重下降为主要特征,各类用水的空间不均衡性保持相对稳定;④用水效率普遍快速提升,空间分布差异呈现先增大后减小的总体趋势。基于此,建议京津冀城市群实施“以水量城”的城镇化政策和“以水定产”的产业政策,完善水生态补偿政策,落实水资源管理红线政策,实现水资源约束下各城市间经济社会与生态环境的协同发展。     

安徽省旅游政策变迁及其空间 n.响应研究

借助于经济学供给需求分析视角,构建旅游政策变迁及其空间响应的理论框架,根据新制度经济学路径依赖理论和利益集团理论,探寻旅游政策变迁的路径和动因,揭示旅游政策变迁和旅游空间结构发展演化的内在联系。并以安徽省为例,根据改革开放之后安徽省旅游业发展的不同阶段,将旅游政策变迁划分为形成期、密集期和协调融合期3个时期,其空间响应状态分别为点状格局、单一板块格局和多板块空间格局。分析得出,在中国经济体制转轨的背景下,旅游发展由政府主导型向市场主导型转变,旅游政策在不同时期通过其作用机制引导、激励利益主体投资建设旅游节点、交通设施等行为,推动旅游空间格局由点状格局向板块格局发展演化,旅游政策的空间响应强度取决于政府对信息的掌握程度和政策对利益主体的激励程度。     

德国汉堡城市转型的产业-空间-制度协同演化研究

世界上著名的港口城市大多都经历过因港而兴又因港而衰,但再次因港而兴的城市并不多,汉堡则是港口城市成功转型的典范。本文构建了德国汉堡城市转型的产业-空间-制度协同演化分析框架,研究揭示:汉堡城市转型紧紧围绕着港口功能和港口区域展开;城市产业转型过程中需要空间载体支撑和政策与协调机制保障;继承性地升级传统优势产业、实行可持续的空间开发计划、注重政策的系统性与协调性是城市转型成功的重要途径。在此基础上,本文得出了服务于我国大城市转型发展的经验和启示。     

Urban policy mobilities,argumentation and the case of the model city

In recent years urban geographers have devoted considerable attention to the dynamics of policy mobility. After reviewing the progress achieved in this literature, in this article I offer two distinctive contributions. First, I draw on the “argumentative turn” in policy studies and related fields in order to develop an alternative conceptualization of urban policy mobility that pays greater attention to its discursive and argumentative aspects. I thus reassert the significance of democratic processes in the negotiation of urban policy. Second, I outline an alternative methodology for the study of urban policy mobility, focusing on the analysis of argumentation. I apply this methodology to historical instances of urban policy mobilities arising from a recent research project that aimed to historicize the phenomenon of the “model city,” defined as the local deployment of another city’s experience as an argumentative resource supporting particular policy claims.     

国家地缘脆弱性探索——缅甸案例及对中国地缘战略启示

当今国际地缘政治经济格局正处于剧烈变动中,并对缅甸地缘环境的复杂性及地缘脆弱性产生深刻影响。缅甸所在的大湄公河次区域日益成为世界重要地缘政治力量博弈前沿和焦点。系统研究缅甸国家地缘脆弱性,对于中国西部大开发、“一带一路”及周边地缘环境建设具有重要战略意义。本文基于地缘政治及人地关系地域系统等学科理论,规范分析与实证分析相结合,从暴露性、敏感性和适应性等方面构建了国家地缘脆弱性研究框架,系统探索了缅甸典型的国家地缘脆弱性特征。资源环境禀赋、内部地域结构等引致的经济政治体系、社会文化传承等方面是缅甸脆弱性的本底特征,而缅甸与中国的地缘关系及决策则从根本上影响其地缘战略位态。缅甸地缘政治脆弱性及其与中国的相互依赖使之成为西方“U型封堵大陆战略”的薄弱点和今后角逐的着力点,也是中国解围破局重要的地缘战略出口。近期中国应通过“一带一路”孟中印缅经济走廊建设,大力加强中缅之间政治、经济、文化等各方面友好关系。     

Population dynamics, socioeconomic change and land colonization in northern Jordan, with special reference to the Badia Research and Development Project area

The paper reports on preliminary observations from northern Jordan aimed at testing the view that people migrate from areas of relatively high potential for cultivation to the marginal semi-arid/arid frontier because of social differentiation, political factors or environmental constraints. Cultivated areas have been mapped from multi-date remotely sensed imagery, a typology of fields in the area has been constructed, and their dynamics between 1972 and 1992 analysed. In addition, semi-structured interviews with farmers attempted to understand the reasoning behind village growth, changing farming systems and cultivation practices. The findings are discussed in the context of the area's demography and national and regional shifts in economic policy.     

Equity vs. Efficiency: Public Capital Investment in Ohio, 1988–1992

Recent research on the role of public capital in the economy focuses primarily on assessing its economic, and sometimes spatial economic, impacts. Access to more detailed and disaggregate data than typically used in these analyses allows us to take a fresh perspective on the often conflicting goals of interregional equity and aggregate efficiency. Using the state of Ohio as a case study, and classic definitions of equity and efficiency, we assess the correspondence between distributions of infrastructure investment and the social/economic distress they are intended to alleviate. Traditional map and statistical analysis combined with a graphical device we call the variegated distribution plot reveals that, in both rates and levels, investment is highest in areas of greatest distress. Both patterns are consistent with equity-driven investment distributions.