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Journal article
Policies to reduce CO2 emissions: Fallacies and evidence from the United States and California
Environmental science & policy, v 94, pp 262-266
01 Apr 2019
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
Since the 1990s, advocates of policy to prevent catastrophic climate change have been divided over the appropriate economic instruments to curb CO2 emissions-carbon taxes or schemes of emission trading. Barack Obama claimed that policies implemented during his presidency set in motion irreversible trends toward a clean energy economy, with the years 2008-2015 given as evidence of decoupling between CO2 emissions and economic growth. This is despite California being the only state in the USA that has implemented a specific policy to curb emissions, a cap-and-trade scheme in place since 2013. To assess Obama's claims and the effectiveness of policies to reduce CO2 emissions, we analyze national and state-level data from the USA over the period 1990-2015. We find: (a) annual changes in emissions strongly correlated with the growth conditions of the economy; (b) no evidence for decoupling; and (c) a trajectory of CO2 emissions in California which does not at all support the claim that the cap-and-trade system implemented there has reduced CO2 emissions.
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Details
- Title
- Policies to reduce CO2 emissions: Fallacies and evidence from the United States and California
- Creators
- Jose A. Tapia Granados - Drexel UniversityClive L. Spash - Vienna University of Economics and Business
- Publication Details
- Environmental science & policy, v 94, pp 262-266
- Publisher
- Elsevier
- Number of pages
- 5
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Politics
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000474672500028
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-85061675143
- Other Identifier
- 991019168304904721
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- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- International collaboration
- Web of Science research areas
- Environmental Sciences