Home | Support RFF | Join E-mail List | Contact
 
RFF Logo Skip navigation links
FOCUS AREAS
RESEARCH TOPICS
PUBLICATIONS
NEWS
EVENTS
RESEARCHERS
ABOUT RFF

 

Join E-mail List
Please provide your e-mail address to receive periodic newsletters and invitations to public events
The Challenges of Climate for Energy Markets
Timothy J. Brennan
RFF Discussion Paper 09-32 | September 2009
RESEARCH TOPICS:
Abstract
Among the many complex issues of technology, governance, and market design affecting the electricity sector, climate policy has become dominant. From the perspective of a nonspecialist looking at this changing dominance, a quiz illuminates some of the peculiar uses of language one can find in climate change and energy efficiency policy. Six economic challenges are then examined: cap-and-trade vs. taxes, non-price regulations, energy efficiency policies, mitigation vs. adaptation, trade effects, and transmission planning. Three additional challenges affect not just the means to the climate policy end but also the end itself: the “fat tails” problem, discount rates, and whether environmental protection should be evaluated by aggregating willingness to pay across persons. Planners in the public and private sectors need to be aware of not only the economic policy challenges but also arguments that may influence the intensity of the climate policies with which they have to cope.
 
RFF Home | Weathervane | Extending the Cure | RFF Press Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Copyright Notice
1616 P Street NW, Washington, DC 20036 · (202) 328-5000 Site Map | Feedback | Contact Us