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The differences in the way climate change mitigation projects are facilitated under the Kyoto Protocol as compared to the financial mechanism of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) demonstrate institutional change processes that evolved from global climate change negotiations. Institutional change happens when new practices become accepted and interactions between organizations carry new meanings. Models of the two policy options are presented in this paper depicting organizational interactions to demonstrate the evolution of rule-setting in this arena. A discussion of power implications is provided with the conclusion that countries of the North as well as business corporations have increased their influence in the institutional framework of international climate change mitigation. Institutional theory needs to be further developed to be able to explain the dynamic changes that led to this shift in power potential.

AbstractUsing the panel data of 89 economies from 1995–2012, this study examines the major drivers of agricultural emissions while considering affluence, energy intensity, agriculture value added and economic integration. We find long-run cointegration among the variables. Furthermore, our empirical results based on a dynamic fixed effects autoregressive distributed lag model show that the increases in income and economic integration – proxied by trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) – are the major contributors to higher greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agriculture in the short run. Additionally, the increases in income, agriculture value added and energy consumption are the major drivers of agricultural emissions in the long run. Notably, trade openness and FDI inflows have significantly negative effects on GHG emissions from agriculture in the long run. These results apply to methane and nitrous oxide emissions. The empirical findings vary across three subsamples of countries at different development stages.

Akin to a public good, emissions reduction suffers from the &lsquo ; free rider&rsquo ; syndrome. Although many countries claim that they are meeting their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction commitments, the average global temperature and GHG emissions continue to rise. This has led to growing speculation that some countries may be taking advantage of the system by effectively exploiting a range of loopholes in global agreements. Using a case study approach, we critically review the evidence from Australia, exploring how Australia has participated in global climate change negotiations and the way in which this emissions intensive country&rsquo ; s national emissions reduction obligations have been met. The findings suggest that: (1) successful negotiation to include Article 3.7 (&lsquo ; Adjusting the 1990 Baseline&rsquo ; or &lsquo ; the Australia Clause&rsquo ; ) in the Kyoto Protocol significantly favored Australia&rsquo ; s ability to meet its First Kyoto Commitment (2008&ndash ; 2012) ; and (2) successful bargaining for the accounting rule that allowed carbon credits from the first commitment period to be carried over to the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol benefitted Australia by 128 MtCO2e. At the national level, a lack of bipartisan political support for an effective mechanism to drive emissions reduction has also been problematic. While the introduction of the Carbon Pricing Mechanism (CPM) in 2012 reduced emissions from electricity production from about 199.1 MtCO2e to 180.8 MtCO2e in 2014, a change of government led to the abolition of the CPM in 2014 and emissions from electricity production subsequently rose to 187 MtCO2e in 2015 and 189 MtCO2e in 2016 with adverse impacts in many sectors as well as Australia&rsquo ; s overall emissions. The current Australian government continues to undermine its commitment to mitigation and the integrity and credibility of its own emissions reductions policy, introducing a softer &lsquo ; calculated baseline&rsquo ; for its own Safeguard Mechanism, which allows companies to upwardly adjust their calculated baselines on the basis of their highest expected emissions, permitting emissions in excess of their historical emissions. While disappointing in the context of the global emissions reduction project, Australia&rsquo ; s actions are sadly not unique and we also provide examples of loopholes exploited by countries participating in a range of other negotiations and emissions reduction projects. Such strategies undoubtedly serve the short-term political and economic interests of these countries ; however, it is increasingly apparent that the cumulative impact of such tactics will ultimately impact the entire global community.

Approximation formulae are developed for the bias of ordinary andgeneralized Least Squares Dummy Variable (LSDV) estimators in dynamicpanel data models. Results from Kiviet (1995, 1999) are extended tohigher-order dynamic panel data models with general covariancestructure. The focus is on estimation of both short- and long-runcoefficients. The results show that proper modelling of thedisturbance covariance structure is indispensable. The biasapproximations are used to construct bias corrected estimators whichare then applied to quarterly data from 14 European Union countries.Money demand functions for M1, M2 and M3 are estimated for the EUarea as a whole for the period 1991:I-1995:IV. Significant spilloversbetween countries are found reflecting the dependence of domesticmoney demand on foreign developments. The empirical results show thatin general plausible long-run effects are obtained by the biascorrected estimators. Moreover, bias correction can be substantialunderlining the importance of more refined estimation techniques.Also the efficiency gains by exploiting the heteroscedasticity andcross-correlation patterns between countries are sometimesconsiderable.

The file associated with this record is under embargo until 18 months after publication, in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. The full text may be available through the publisher links provided above. ; This paper focuses on the estimation and predictive performance of several estimators for the time-space dynamic panel data model with Spatial Moving Average Random Effects (SMA-RE) structure of the disturbances. A dynamic spatial Generalized Moments (GM) estimator is proposed which combines the approaches proposed by Baltagi et al. (2014) and Fingleton (2008a,b). The main idea is to mix non-spatial and spatial instruments to obtain consistent estimates of the parameters. Then, a forecasting approach is proposed and a linear predictor is derived. Using Monte Carlo simulations, we compare the short-run and long-run effects and evaluate the predictive efficiencies of optimal and various suboptimal predictors using the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) criterion. Last, our approach is illustrated by an application in geographical economics which studies the employment levels across 255 NUTS regions of the EU over the period 2001–2012, with the last two years reserved for prediction. ; Peer-reviewed ; Post-print

The implementation of activities aimed to mitigate global greenhouse gas emissions is more cost-efficient in developing countries than in most of the industrialized world. Thus it has been a major, but contentious topic in the climate negotiations to allow crediting of emissions reduction in developing countries towards domestic emission targets of industrial countries. The Kyoto Protocol instituted a Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) that is to assure that the interests of all parties from industrialized and developing countries are equally represented. Many issues concerning the structure of the CDM remain to be decided. Crediting critically depends on these decisions. Credits should accrue only after verification. A crucial issue that influences all decisions on creation and distribution of credits is whether they are tradable. Concerning credit creation, it would be advisable not to set quotas on the share of CDM credited toward Annex-B targets as they give no dynamic incentive for innovation. To reach the latter goal, crediting should be gradually reduced in the long run. Crediting should also be related to externalities and thus be differentiated according to project categories. In a fund model, the reduction of credits could be evenly spread over all investors. In a clearinghouse model it would have to be related to each project. Uncertainties should not be covered through discounting but through a compulsory insurance. Credit sharing leads to higher costs for the investors and a lower demand for CDM projects. Free negotiation of the credit sharing ratio will lead to a competition between host countries. In case of tradability, host countries could set up projects with own funds to earn credits they can sell. Such a de facto extension of emissions trading could work against the goal of inducing developing countries to voluntarily adopt emission targets. This could be promoted by making credits non-tradable but allowing banking against future targets.

The implementation of activities aimed to mitigate global greenhouse gas emissions is more cost-efficient in developing countries than in most of the industrialized world. Thus it has been a major, but contentious topic in the climate negotiations to allow crediting of emissions reduction in developing countries towards domestic emission targets of industrial countries. The Kyoto Protocol instituted a Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) that is to assure that the interests of all parties from industrialized and developing countries are equally represented. Many issues concerning the structure of the CDM remain to be decided. Crediting critically depends on these decisions. Credits should accrue only after verification. A crucial issue that influences all decisions on creation and distribution of credits is whether they are tradable. Concerning credit creation, it would be advisable not to set quotas on the share of CDM credited toward Annex-B targets as they give no dynamic incentive for innovation. To reach the latter goal, crediting should be gradually reduced in the long run. Crediting should also be related to externalities and thus be differentiated according to project categories. In a fund model, the reduction of credits could be evenly spread over all investors. In a clearinghouse model it would have to be related to each project. Uncertainties should not be covered through discounting but through a compulsory insurance. Credit sharing leads to higher costs for the investors and a lower demand for CDM projects. Free negotiation of the credit sharing ratio will lead to a competition between host countries. In case of tradability, host countries could set up projects with own funds to earn credits they can sell. Such a de facto extension of emissions trading could work against the goal of inducing developing countries to voluntarily adopt emission targets. This could be promoted by making credits non-tradable but allowing banking against future targets.

Climate change has been acknowledged as a threat to humanity. Most scholars agree that to avert dangerous climate change and to transform economies into low-carbon societies, deep global emission reductions are required by the year 2050. Under the framework of the Kyoto Protocol, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is the only market-based instrument that encourages industrialised countries to pursue emission reductions in developing countries. The CDM aims to pay the incremental finance necessary to operationalize emission reduction projects which are otherwise not financially viable. According to the objectives of the Kyoto Protocol, the CDM should finance projects that are additional to those which would have happened anyway, contribute to sustainable development in the countries hosting the projects, and be cost-effective. To enable the identification of such projects, an institutional framework has been established by the Kyoto Protocol which lays out responsibilities for public and private actors. This thesis examines whether the CDM has achieved these objectives in practice and can thus be considered an effective tool to reduce emissions. To complete this investigation, the book applies economic theory and analyses the CDM from two perspectives. The first perspective is the supply-dimension which answers the question of how, in practice, the CDM system identified additional, cost-effective, sustainable projects and, generated emission reductions. The main contribution of this book is the second perspective, the compliance-dimension, which answers the question of whether industrialised countries effectively used the CDM for compliance with their Kyoto targets. The application of the CDM in the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) is used as a case-study. Where the analysis identifies inefficiencies within the supply or the compliance dimension, potential improvements of the legal framework are proposed and discussed.