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Public Disclosure Authorized Climate Change and Fiscal Policy: A Report for APEC Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Office of the Chief Economist East Asia and Pacific Region Public Disclosure Authorized The currency unit is US Dollars unless mentioned otherwise. Vice President James W. Adams (EAPVP) Chief Economist and Sector Director, Vikram Nehru (EASPR) PREM and FP, EAP Task Team Leader and Lead Ahmad Ahsan (Office of the Chief Economist Economist and EASPR) Preface This report was prepared as part of the APEC Finance Ministers‘ Policy Initiatives of 2008. Under this initiative, the World Bank was asked to prepare studies on the current state of economic policies concerning climate change and recommendations for strengthening these policies. This is one of the background studies which have been prepared. The background studies and a synthesis report based on these studies were presented to APEC bodies such as the Senior Finance Officials Meetings in September 22, 2010. The final versions are being tabled at the Finance Ministers‘ meetings in November, 2010. The authors of the report are Stephen Howes and Leo Dobes from the Australian National University. Other members of the report team are introduced on the next page. Ahmad Ahsan, Lead Economist, Office of the Chief Economist, East Asia and Pacific Region, World Bank provided much practical help and guidance throughout the preparation of this report. Carter Brandon, Lead Environmental Specialist in the Beijing Office of the World Bank, helped with regard to research on China. Other World Bank staff, especially in the Vietnam and China offices, assisted in various ways in the course of the preparation of the report. The authors would also like to thank their colleagues in various research institutions, government ministries, diplomatic missions and aid agencies in both Hanoi and Beijing. They are too numerous to mention here, but provided invaluable assistance. Valuable comments on the first draft of the report were provided by: Professor David Victor, Director, Laboratory on International Law and Regulation, School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, University of California, San Diego; Mike Toman, Research Manager, World Bank; Apurva Sanghi, Team Leader, Joint World Bank - UN Project on Economics of Disaster Risk Reduction; Jim Brumby, Acting Director, Governance & Public Sector, Poverty Reduction and Economic Management, World Bank. John Roome, Director, Sustainable Development Network, East Asia and Pacific Region, and Vikram Nehru, Director, Poverty Reduction and Economic Management, Finance, Private Sector Development, and Chief Economist, East Asia and Pacific Region, chaired the Review Meetings for the report, and gave useful guidance. Syud Amer Ahmed, Development Economics Research Group, Katherine Patrick and Mildred Gonsalvez, East Asia and Pacific Region, helped to process this document for publication. This Report was circulated to the APEC Senior Finance Officials‘ Meetings in September 2010 in Tokyo and its findings were presented there as part of the presentation on the Climate Change and Economic Policies in APEC Economies: Synthesis Report. Valuable comments were provided by participants in that meeting. Funding from the Environmental Economics Research Hub financed the visit of Leo Dobes and Nguyen Van Kien to Vietnam. Project Team This report was written by Stephen Howes (team leader and main author of Chapters 1-4) and Leo Dobes (main author of Chapter 5) of the Crawford School of the Australian National University. Important contributions were made by Peter Downes of Outlook Economics (to Chapters 1 and 2), Eric Knight (to Chapter 2) and Kurnya Roesad (to Chapter 3). Excellent research assistance was provided by Seungwon Chung, Huw Slater, Feng Shenghao, Nguyen Van Kien, and Sabit Otor. Useful advice, suggestions and feedback were provided by Frank Jotzo. Professor Stephen Howes is Director, International and Development Economics at the Crawford School of the Australian National University. He has spent the last 20 years at the London School of Economics, the World Bank, AusAID, and now the Australian National University working on the economies of the Asia-Pacific region, with a particular focus on the energy sector and on fiscal policy. He has been active on climate change mitigation policy since 2008, when he worked on the Australian Garnaut Climate Change Review. Dr Leo Dobes is Adjunct Associate Professor at the Crawford School of the Australian National University. Following a DPhil (Oxford), he worked for almost 30 years in public service positions ranging from the diplomatic service to the Australian Treasury. In 1992 he established an Environment Branch within the Australian Bureau of Transport Economics, publishing a number of important reports on the costs and benefits of mitigating emissions in the transport sector. He is now one of Australia‘s leading economists on climate change adaptation, and serves as an occasional advisor to the Australian Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency. Peter Downes is one of Australia‘s leading macroeconomic modelers. After a twenty-year career with the Australian Treasury, Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Organisation for Economic Co- operation and Development in Paris, he now runs his own economic modeling and forecasting consultancy, Outlook Economics, and is a Research Associate with the Centre for Climate Economics and Policy at the ANU Crawford School. Dr Frank Jotzo is a Senior Lecturer at the Crawford School of the Australian National University and Director of the Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy at the ANU. He is an environmental economist specializing in the economics and policy of climate change. He has worked and published on these and other aspects of international and development economics since 1998. He has worked and consulted for several governments and international organizations, and was lead consultant for the 2009 Indonesian Ministry of Finance Green Paper on Climate Change. Eric Knight, Kurnya Roeasad, Feng Shenghao and Nguyen Van Kien are PhD students in various aspects of climate change at Oxford (Knight) and the ANU. Seungwon Chung, Huw Slater, and Sabit Otor are postgraduate students, past or present, of the Australian National University. Table of Contents Overview ....................................................................................................................................................... i Executive Summary .................................................................................................................................... ii Chapter 1 Goals and targets: climate change mitigation and related policy objectives ....................... 1 1.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 1 1.2 Climate change mitigation and clean energy targets among APEC economies ................................. 5 1.3 Goals behind the climate change and clean energy targets ................................................................ 8 1.4 From targets to instruments .............................................................................................................. 15 Chapter 2 The instruments: fiscal policies for mitigation ..................................................................... 18 2.1 Types of instruments ........................................................................................................................ 18 2.2 Carbon pricing ................................................................................................................................. 19 2.3 Technology-based policies ............................................................................................................... 27 2.3.1 Technology policy rationales ........................................................................................................ 27 2.3.2 Technology policy options ............................................................................................................ 30 2.4 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................ 36 Chapter 3 The context: energy sector and other important characteristics relevant to mitigation instrument choice. ..................................................................................................................................... 37 3.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 37 3.2. The energy sector in developing economies .................................................................................... 37 3.2.1 Rapid growth ................................................................................................................................. 38 3.2.2 Ongoing importance of traditional energy .................................................................................... 39 3.2.3 Energy as a luxury good ................................................................................................................ 40 3.2.4 Energy subsidies ........................................................................................................................... 42 3.2.5 Price setting ..................................................................................................................................
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