低碳经济的宏观经济影响分析.pdfVIP

The Macroeconomic Effects of the Transition to a Low-Carbon Economy Executive Summary • Coordinated international action on climate change has the potential to raise global incomes; provide additional rural employment, especially in areas with limited alternative opportunities in developing countries; and improve human well-being through reduced air pollution • However, the year-to-year effects of policies are likely to be so small as to be lost in the overall fluctuations in the growth of GDP, because well-designed policies will operate slowly and gradually (unlike the sudden oil-price effects of 2007-2008), aiming to replace fossil-fuel equipment with low-carbon alternatives at the end of its working life. • Well-designed international policies could achieve the G8 50 percent reduction target by 2050, or earlier as implied by the EU’s 2˚C target, with net benefit to global and national economies. • Coordination reduces the investment costs, inducing technological change via agreements to establish global carbon prices, share new low-carbon technologies, apply standards of carbon efficiency, and open up markets to encourage economies of scale and specialisation. • G lobalisation of information and markets works in favour of rapidly reducing the costs of low-carbon processes and products through accelerated adoption, provided the market signals and incentives are favourable. • The critical market signals and incentives come through carbon prices, created by carbon taxation and emission trading schemes (“cap and trade”). Carbon prices have to be “loud, long and legal” to be effective in influencing investment decisions. • Low-carbon investments represent long-term benefits through reduced fuel costs and improved performance (beginning with the “no regrets” mitigation potentials identified by the IPCC) but short