Tag Archives: cap and trade

California could buy back GHG allowances cost-effectively

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California is concerned that entities that emit greenhouse gases (GHG) have accrued a too-large bank of allowances through the Air Resources Board (CARB) cap-and-trade program (CATP.) The excess is estimated at 321 million allowances (one allowance equals one metric tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions). This is more an a year’s worth of allowances. About half of these were issued for free to eligible energy utilities and energy-intensive trade-exposed (EITE) companies.

The state could consider purchasing back a certain portion to reduce the backlog and increase the market price so as to further encourage reductions in GHG emissions by retiring those allowances. Prices in the last allowance auction ranged from $28 to $34 per allowance/tonne. If California bought back half or 160 million allowances at those prices, it would cost $4.5 to $5.5 billion. That would create effectively a reduction of 160 million tonnes in future GHG emissions.

That should be compared to the various benchmarks for the benefits and costs of reducing GHG emissions. The currently accepted social cost of GHG emissions developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) is ranges from $50 to $150 per tonne in 2030 (and recent studies have estimated that this is too low.) That would create a net social benefit from $2.5 to $19.6 billion.

CARB’s AB 32 Scoping Plan update estimates the average cost of reductions without the CATP to be $70 per tonne in 2030. The incremental avoided costs of the CATP are estimated at $220 per tonne. The net avoided costs on this basis would range from $5.7 to $30.4 billion.

Moving beyond the easy stuff: Mandates or pricing carbon?

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Meredith Fowlie at the Energy Institute at Haas posted a thought provoking (for economists) blog on whether economists should continue promoting pricing carbon emissions.

I see, however, that this question should be answered in the context of an evolving regulatory and technological process.

Originally, I argued for a broader role for cap & trade in the 2008 CARB AB32 Scoping Plan on behalf of EDF. Since then, I’ve come to believe that a carbon tax is probably preferable over cap & trade when we turn to economy wide strategies for administrative reasons. (California’s CATP is burdensome and loophole ridden.) That said, one of my prime objections at the time to the Scoping Plan was the high expense of mandated measures, and that it left the most expensive tasks to be solved by “the market” without giving the market the opportunity to gain the more efficient reductions.

Fast forward to today, and we face an interesting situation because the cost of renewables and supporting technologies have plummeted. It is possible that within the next five years solar, wind and storage will be less expensive than new fossil generation. (The rest of the nation is benefiting from California initial, if mismanaged, investment.) That makes the effective carbon price negative in the electricity sector. In this situation, I view RPS mandates as correcting a market failure where short term and long term prices do not and cannot converge due to a combination of capital investment requirements and regulatory interventions. The mandates will accelerate the retirement of fossil generation that is not being retired currently due to mispricing in the market. As it is, many areas of the country are on their way to nearly 100% renewable (or GHG-free) by 2040 or earlier.

But this and other mandates to date have not been consumer-facing. Renewables are filtered through the electric utility. Building and vehicle efficiency standards are imposed only on new products and the price changes get lost in all of the other features. Other measures are focused on industry-specific technologies and practices. The direct costs are all well hidden and consumers generally haven’t yet been asked to change their behavior or substantially change what they buy.

But that all would seem to change if we are to take the next step of gaining the much deeper GHG reductions that are required to achieve the more ambitious goals. Consumers will be asked to get out of their gas-fueled cars and choose either EVs or other transportation alternatives. And even more importantly, the heating, cooling, water heating and cooking in the existing building stock will have to be changed out and electrified. (Even the most optimistic forecasts for biogas supplies are only 40% of current fossil gas use.) Consumers will be presented more directly with the costs for those measures. Will they prefer to be told to take specific actions, to receive subsidies in return for higher taxes, or to be given more choice in return for higher direct energy use prices?

Lomborg has it wrong about California’s cap and trade program. 

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Bjorn Lomborg, a Danish political scientist who has pushed for focusing spending on other pressing world needs over reducing climate change risk, has criticized the extension of California’s cap and trade program in the LA Times. I found two serious flaws in Lomborg’s analysis that undermine his conclusions.

The study that Lomberg cites about the electricity market impacts has not been reproduced since such extensive “contract reshuffling” can’t occur in the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) region or in the CAISO market. That’s just a simplistic modeling exercise not tied to reality. The fact is that thousands of megawatts of coal plants are retiring across the WECC at least in part in response to the cap & trade and renewables portfolio standards (RPS) adopted by California.

And then Lomberg writes “A smarter approach to climate policy — and one befitting California’s role as one of the most innovative states in the country — would be to focus on making green energy cheaper. ” Has Lomberg noticed that new solar and wind installations are now cheaper than new fossil-fueled plants? Contracts are being signed for less than 5 cents per kilowatt-hour–PG&E’s average cost for existing generation is close to 9 cents.

It’s as though Lomberg hasn’t updated his understanding of the energy industry since 2009 when the Copenhagen climate accord was signed.

Analyses of California’s extended cap and trade program

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I believe that California’s passage of the extended cap and trade program was a generally good compromise. Most importantly, it decoupled the cap and trade market from separate legislation to regulate local emission impacts. As I wrote earlier, earlier proposals failed on this aspect.

Here’s the two best analyses I’ve seen so far, one legal and the other economic (by a former Michigan classmate), of the legislation.

State supreme court upholds AB 32, consistent with state-defined property rights

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The California State Supreme Court refused to rehear a state appellate court decision that upheld the validity of the cap and trade program (CATP) established in Assembly Bill 32 (2006). Those challenging the program claimed that (1) the program required firms to acquire allowances to operate and (2) that the auction receipts were budgeted into state programs like other tax revenues. However, the Court’s decision was a victory for those who believe that stronger property rights can lead to an improved environment.

The AB 32 CATP defined the property rights for individual firms and for the public in allowed GHG emissions into the atmosphere.  CARB also allocated allowances for free to these firms and set rates of declining annual emission totals (with some upward adjustments to accommodate interstate and international competitiveness). This is akin to delineating the acreage that a property owner has, and then setting out a rate at which the property owner must dedicate a portion to public use, while still allowing the owner to continue to use that land. The U.S. Supreme Court just upheld the ability of state governments to regulate land use in this manner. The CATP essentially allows an owner to continue to use the land in same manner by acquiring usage rates from other owners who may find it more lucrative to sell their allowances rather than use them. Under AB 32, the state auctions some of those allowances to make for a liquid market, while other allowances are traded bilaterally amongst firms. The bottom line is that CATP established property rights in GHG emissions, just as California established water property rights in 1914.

If the CATP had been declared to be another tax, then any disbursement of government property that generated revenues, e.g., sale of excess office space or forest land, could also be considered a “tax” subject to a two-thirds vote approval by the State Legislature under the state constitution. I doubt that the plaintiffs in this case (led by the Chamber of Commerce) intended that sale of state property would require a two-thirds supermajority vote.

Another reason SB 775 is a bad idea: Virginia to establish cap-and-trade program in push to regulate carbon emissions | Utility Dive

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California’s SB 775 would prohibit interaction with other states’ cap and trade programs. The best alternative to a federal program is a network of state markets.

“A cap-and-trade program in Virginia would be the third in the U.S., and buck direction from the White House to pull back on carbon regulation.”

Source: Virginia to establish cap-and-trade program in push to regulate carbon emissions | Utility Dive

The misguided fix to cap & trade

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Meredith Fowlie at the Energy Institute at Haas (California’s Carbon Border Wall ) and Dallas Burtraw at RFF have taken on the specific issues in the proposal to replace California’s cap & trade program (CATP).

Yet there’s a bigger issue with SB 775: Why are we so focused on getting every last ton of GHG reduction out of California, when instead we should be focused on creating a system that can easily accommodate integrating with other jurisdictions and encourages others to join the effort? What California does alone is absolutely meaningless in changing climate change risk. It requires a truly global effort. Putting up border walls won’t accomplish this.

Repost: Three Revisions Not to Overlook in California’s New Cap-and-Trade Proposal, SB 775 | Legal Planet

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The proposal would eliminate allowance banking and offsets, and add a border adjustment mechanism. This would isolate California from global efforts to mitigate GHG emissions.

Source: Guest Blogger Dallas Burtraw: Three Revisions Not to Overlook in California’s New Cap-and-Trade Proposal, SB 775 | Legal Planet

Using tariffs to achieve valid goals

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President-elect Trump has called for imposing significant tariffs to “bring back jobs to America.” Unfortunately, this will be a fool’s errand. The Smoot-Hawley Tariffs in 1930 were imposed to “save” farming jobs, but instead exacerbated the Great Depression as shown in the chart above. There’s no valid reason to think tariffs will work any better this time around.

Yet, there are a set of valid reasons to impose tariffs, that in a roundabout way could lead to job growth in the U.S. These tariffs could be useful tools to pursue other policy goals by forcing other nations to play on a level field with U.S. industries. The tariffs could be adjusted downward as those countries adopt policies in line with those in the U.S. The World Trade Organization (WTO) allows these types of tariffs if properly designed. Just trying to save jobs doesn’t count, but achieving valid policy goals does.

The policy areas where using flexible tariffs could be fruitful include:

  • environmental and climate change
  • labor and employment
  • product standards

Tariffs to encourage nations to comply with global greenhouse gas reduction goals is one type of environmentally oriented use. Since U.S. companies comply with a wide range of environmental regulations, many of which are intended to preserve natural habitat that has worldwide value, asking other countries to do the same seems to be a valid request. Those nations can ignore those standards if they choose, but U.S. businesses should be allowed to compete as though imported products have incurred similar compliance costs.

Similarly, the U.S. has a wide range of labor employment, workplace and safety standards. Ensuring the well being of those outside of the U.S. if we’re going to buy those products is similarly valid.

Product standards is a third area. Many U.S. products last longer and perform better because they meet stricter standards. The increased longevity of automobiles is largely a byproduct of the increased stringency of emission standards that require engine performance meet those standards for at least 100,000 miles. Improved standards also can lead to reduced waste and increased productivity.

But to justify these tariffs will require that American corporations fully support the application of these standards within the U.S. Whether they can be persuaded to the advantages remains to be seen.

Ideas on adopting world carbon prices

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Two news items showed up today on the idea of adopting a worldwide carbon price to reduce GHG emissions. The general idea is to use one of three approaches: 1) world cap & trade allocations (which has been the underlying notion in negotiations so far); 2) setting a specific carbon price or tax through treaty; or 3) using trade tariffs by a coalition of participating nations to incent non-participating ones to control their emissions. There is evidence that pricing carbon is effective in reducing emissions.

The U.S. Secretary of Energy called for a world carbon price implemented through one of the first two methods listed here.

The new American Economics Review has an article that shows that a trade tariff regime imposed by a coalition can induce other nations to control their emissions.

The Strategic Value of Carbon Tariffs
Christoph Böhringer, Jared C. Carbone and Thomas F. Rutherford
We ask whether the threat of carbon tariffs might lower the cost of reductions in world carbon emissions by inducing unregulated regions to adopt emission controls. We use a numerical model to generate payoffs of a game in which a coalition regulates emissions and chooses whether to employ carbon tariffs against unregulated regions. Unregulated regions respond by abating, retaliating, or ignoring the tariffs. In the Nash equilibrium, the use of tariffs is a credible and effective threat. It induces cooperation from noncoalition regions that lowers the cost of global abatement substantially relative to the case where the coalition acts alone. (JEL D58, F13, F18, H23, Q54, Q58)
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