Europe beyond coal – An economic and climate impact assessment
研究了欧洲多国逐步淘汰煤电对二氧化碳排放、电力行业及整体经济的影响，发现排放配额的取消方式和贸易条件效应是决定福利效果的关键。
Several European countries have decided to phase out coal power generation. Emissions from electricity generation are already regulated by the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS), and in some countries like Germany the phaseout of coal will be accompanied with cancellation of emissions allowances. In this paper we examine the consequences of phasing out coal, for CO2 emissions, the electricity sector, and the broader economy. We show analytically how the welfare impacts for a phaseout region depend on i) whether and how allowances are canceled, ii) whether other countries join phaseout policies, and iii) terms-of-trade effects in the ETS market. Based on numerical simulations with a computable general equilibrium model for the European economy, we quantify the economic and environmental impacts of alternative phaseout scenarios, considering both unilateral and multilateral phaseouts. We find that terms-of-trade effects in the ETS market play an important role for the welfare implications across EU member states. For Germany, coal phaseout combined with unilateral cancellation of allowances is found to be welfare-improving if the German citizens value CO2 emissions reductions at 65 Euro per ton or more.