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Comparing emissions mitigation efforts across countries

12pm, September 29th, 2015

This paper, Comparing emissions mitigation efforts across countries, proposes a framework for contrasting individual countries’ emissions mitigation policies against each other.

A natural outcome of the emerging pledge and review approach to international climate change policy is the interest in comparing mitigation efforts among countries. Domestic publics and stakeholders will have an interest in knowing if peer countries are undertaking (or planning to undertake) comparable efforts in mitigating their greenhouse gas emissions.

Moreover, if the aggregate efforts are considered inadequate in addressing the risks posed by climate change, then this will likely prompt a broader interest in identifying those countries where greater efforts are arguably warranted based on comparison with their peers. Both assessments require metrics of efforts and comparisons among countries.

This paper proposes a framework for such an exercise, drawing from a set of principles for designing and implementing informative metrics. It presents a template for organizing metrics on mitigation efforts, for both ex ante and ex post review. It also contains preliminary assessments of efforts along emissions, price, and cost metrics for post-2020 climate policy contributions by China, the European Union, Russia, and the United States.

Read Comparing emissions mitigation efforts across countries.

Institutions Involved

  • Resources for the Future

Authors

Joseph E. Aldy, William A. Pizer, and Keigo Akimoto
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