ClimateBrief: “California Cap-and-Trade: Legislation, New Regulations, and a Deal with Washington State Are All on the Table”
RFF Research Associate Nicholas Roy discusses his recent research on California’s cap-and-trade program.
Adding a further dimension are several opportunities for cap-and-trade to mature and expand its influence in the coming years, including a proposal for California to link its program with Washington state’s. Discussing the effects of such a linkage, in late March, Resources for the Future released its report, “Considerations for Washington’s Linkage Negotiations with California and Québec.” (California’s cap-and-trade market has been linked with Québec’s since 2014.)
Speaking to ClimateBrief, Nicholas Roy, research associate at RFF and coauthor of the study, says that “Washington has learned a lot about how to operate an efficient market from California, and California, we think, can learn a lot from Washington state. The linkage offers the opportunity in a unique way.”
Roy has modeled subnational carbon and electricity markets, and developed a model for evaluating market design mechanisms in emissions trading systems that was updated for the linkage study. He says it was clear that linking the California and Washington markets would be a major focus after California takes steps forward on its own cap-and-Ttrade program. The impetus of the RFF study, Roy says, is to “prep up for what CARB might be doing after the rulemaking.”
