Under the Paris Agreement, parties set and implement their own emissions targets as nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to tackle climate change. International carbon emissions trading is expected to reduce global mitigation costs. Here, we show the benefit of emissions trading under both NDCs and a more ambitious reduction scenario consistent with the 2 °C goal. The results show that the global welfare loss, which was measured based on estimated household consumption change in 2030, decreased by 75% (from 0.47% to 0.16%), as a consequence of achieving NDCs through emissions trading. Furthermore, achieving the 2 °C targets without emissions trading led to a global welfare loss of 1.4%–3.4%, depending on the burden-sharing scheme used, whereas emissions trading reduced the loss to around 1.5% (from 1.4% to 1.7%). These results indicate that emissions trading is a valuable option for the international system, enabling NDCs and more ambitious targets to be achieved in a cost-effective manner.
Center for Social and Environmental Systems Research, National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), 16-2 Onogawa, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8506, Japan;International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Schlossplatz-1, Laxenburg 2361, Austria;Center for Social and Environmental Systems Research, National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), 16-2 Onogawa, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8506, Japan;Center for Social and Environmental Systems Research, National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), 16-2 Onogawa, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8506, Japan;Center for Social and Environmental Systems Research, National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), 16-2 Onogawa, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8506, Japan;Center for Social and Environmental Systems Research, National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), 16-2 Onogawa, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8506, Japan;International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Schlossplatz-1, Laxenburg 2361, Austria;Center for Social and Environmental Systems Research, National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), 16-2 Onogawa, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8506, Japan;Center for Social and Environmental Systems Research, National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), 16-2 Onogawa, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8506, Japan;Center for Social and Environmental Systems Research, National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), 16-2 Onogawa, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8506, Japan;Mizuho Information & Research Institute, Inc., 2-3 Kanda-Nishikicho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 101-8443, Japan
Recommended Citation:
Shinichiro Fujimori,Izumi Kubota,Hancheng Dai,et al. Will international emissions trading help achieve the objectives of the Paris Agreement?[J]. Environmental Research Letters,2016-01-01,11(10)