Will Europe Scrap its Renewables Target? That Would Be Good News for the Economy and for the Environment

The European Union is considering scrapping the use of binding renewable energy targets as part of its global climate change policy mix that will extend action from 2020 to 2030. The Financial Times reported that this move – presumably due to concerns over high European energy costs during the ongoing economic turndown – will “please big utility companies but infuriate environmental groups.” The International New York Times framed the story in similar ways.

The press coverage has missed the very important reality that this potential decision by the European Commission will be good news both for the economy and for the environment. The fundamental reason is that in the presence of the European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) – its pioneering, regional cap-and-trade system that covers electricity generators and large-scale manufacturing – the “complementary” renewables mandate conflicts with, rather than complements other policies. Without the renewables mandate, the cap being planned for the EU ETS will be achieved at lower cost and will foster greater incentives for climate-friendly technological change.

Some Background

In 2007, the European Union established three sets of targets and related policies: (1) a 20% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions below 1990 by 2020, to be achieved by the cap-and-trade system; (2) a 20% target for 2020 for the share of Europe’s electricity consumption coming from renewable resources; and (3) a 20% improvement in energy efficiency by 2020. These are the so-called “20-20-20 targets” for the year 2020. A wonderful slogan, but a flawed policy, because of perverse interactions among the three elements.

Europe is well on its way to achieving the first goal, with emissions now reduced by about 18%, and it is now looking to establish targets for the subsequent decade. At the same time, Europe is continuing to experience its greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression, while European electricity prices have risen by some 40% since 2005 (while the U.S. economy rebounds, with electricity prices actually having fallen – mainly because of low natural gas prices). Therefore, there is great concern in European capitals and at EU headquarters in Brussels about high energy prices damaging the international competitiveness of European industry.

Plans for 2030

Although the planned, new emissions targets for 2030 may increase stringency from the currently mandated 20% cut by 2020 to perhaps a 35% or even 40% cut by 2030, it now appears that the European Commission may drop specific binding constraints on the share of electricity generated from renewables. Why would this elimination of the renewables target be good news not only economically, but environmentally as well?

Perverse Policy Interactions

Under the umbrella of a binding cap-and-trade scheme, unless a complementary policy addresses some other market failure that is not addressed by the price signals of the cap-and-trade mechanism (such as the principal-agent problem thought to retard energy-efficiency adoption decisions in renter-occupied properties), these complementary policies that are under the cap will either be irrelevant or counter-productive. Here is the basic logic.

Under the umbrella of the EU ETS, the cap will be achieved cost-effectively (at minimum aggregate cost) if the cap is binding, which it will be with the new 2030 targets. (Cost effectiveness is achieved because the CO₂ cap-and-trade mechanism – like a carbon tax – provides incentives for all sources to control at the same marginal abatement cost.)
A “complementary policy” under the cap, such as a renewables target, will either be irrelevant (if it is not binding) or, if it is binding, any additional emissions reductions achieved in the electricity sector under the complementary measure (the renewables program) will cause electricity generators to have additional allowances they do not need. And they will not tear up those allowances, but will sell them to other sources, such as those in other sectors. Hence, emissions in those other sectors will be greater than they otherwise would have been, completely neutralizing the emissions-reduction impact of the renewables policy.
So, in the presence of the over-arching EU ETS, the renewables target has no incremental impact on CO₂ emissions. On net, the emissions reduction due to the renewables policy is zero. But the bad news does not stop there.
With more emissions reductions in the electricity sector and less in other sectors than under the cost-effective allocation of control achieved by the cap-and-trade system on its own, aggregate abatement costs are actually increased. Marginal abatement costs are no longer equated, and the allocation of control responsibility is no longer cost-effective. There is too much abatement in the electricity sector, and not enough in some other sector or sectors. Costs are driven up.
Hence, nothing is being accomplished in terms of CO₂ emissions with the renewables policy, and costs have been driven up! Wait, there is more.
If some emissions reductions are being achieved by the binding renewables policy, then there is less demand overall for tradable allowances. Since the supply of allowances has not changed, this means that allowance prices are inevitably suppressed; and low allowance prices mean less induced climate-friendly technological change over time.

The Path Ahead

That is the perverse trifecta of a complementary renewables policy under the umbrella of a cap-and-trade scheme, such as the EU ETS: no additional emissions reductions are achieved; but costs are driven up; and technological change is retarded.

If the European Commission decides to eliminate its renewables targets as it proceeds with more stringent emissions targets for 2030 under the EU ETS, it will be good news both for the economy and the environment.

A Wave of the Future: International Linkage of National Climate Change Policies

The latest rage in Washington policy discussions these days (that’s relevant to climate change) is renewed interest in renewable electricity standards, this time in the form of so-called “clean energy standards.” I’ve written about this policy approach recently at this blog (Renewable Energy Standards: Less Effective, More Costly, but Politically Preferred to Cap-and-Trade?, January 11, 2011), and will do so again in the near future, but for today I want to turn to an important issue – for the long term – on the related topic of the international dimensions of climate change policy.

The Current State of Affairs

Despite the death in the U.S. Senate last year of serious consideration of an economy-wide cap-and-trade system for carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions – and the apparent political hiatus of such consideration at least until after the November 2012 elections – a major cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is in place in the European Union; similar systems are in place or under development in New Zealand, California, and several Canadian provinces; systems are being considered at the national level in Australia, Canada, and Japan; and a global emission reduction credit scheme – the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) – has an enthusiastic and important constituency of supporters in the form of the world’s developing countries.

So, despite the fact that there has been an undeniable loss of momentum due to recent political developments in Australia, Japan, and the United States, it remains true that cap-and-trade is still the most likely domestic policy approach for CO₂ emissions reductions throughout the industrialized world, given the rather unattractive set of available alternative approaches. This makes it important to think about the possibility of linking these national and regional cap-and-trade systems in the future. Such linking occurs when the government that maintains one system allows regulated entities to use allowances or credits from other systems to meet compliance obligations.

Thinking About Linkage

In 2007, with support from the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA) and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), Judson Jaffe and I analyzed the opportunities and challenges presented by linking tradable permit systems. Jaffe was then at Analysis Group in Boston, and is now at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. We presented our findings at the thirteenth Conference of the Parties of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change in Bali, Indonesia, in December, 2007. In 2010, Matthew Ranson (a Ph.D. student in Public Policy at Harvard), Jaffe, and I expanded on these ideas in an article that was published in Ecology Law Quarterly, “Linking Tradable Permit Systems: A Key Element of Emerging International Climate Policy.” In today’s blog post, I summarize the highlights of this complex, yet important topic.

First, for anyone new to this territory, let me review the basic facts. Tradable permit systems fall into two categories: cap-and-trade and emission reduction credits. Under cap-and-trade (CAT), the total emissions of regulated sources are capped and the sources are required to hold allowances equal to their emissions. Under a credit system, entities that voluntarily undertake emission reduction projects are awarded credits that can be sold to participants in cap-and-trade systems.

The Merits of Linking

By broadening markets for allowances and credits, linking increases the liquidity and improves the functioning of markets. Linking can reduce the costs of the linked systems by making it possible to shift emission reductions across systems. Just as allowance trading within a system allows higher-cost emission reductions to be replaced by lower-cost reductions, trading across systems allows higher-cost reductions in one system to be replaced by lower-cost reductions in another system.

Other Implications

Along with the cost savings it can offer, linking has other implications that warrant serious consideration. Under some circumstances, linked systems collectively will not achieve the same level of emission reductions as they would absent linking. This can result either from a link’s impact on emissions under the linked systems, or from its impact on emissions leakage from those systems. Linking also has distributional impacts across and within systems. And linking can reduce the control that a country has over the impacts of its tradable permit system. In particular, when a domestic CAT system is linked with another CAT system, decisions by the government overseeing the other system can influence the domestic system’s allowance price, distributional impacts, and emissions.

By the way, linkage can also occur among a heterogeneous set of domestic policy instruments, including carbon taxes and various types of regulation, although the linking is more challenging under such circumstances. On this, see “Linking Policies When Tastes Differ: Global Climate Policy in a Heterogeneous World,” a discussion paper by Gilbert Metcalf, Department of Economics, Tufts University, and David Weisbach, University of Chicago Law School, for the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements.

Concerns About Linking

Importantly, trading brought about by unrestricted links between CAT systems will lead to the automatic propagation of certain design elements, including: offset provisions and linkages with other systems; banking and borrowing of allowances across time; and safety-valve provisions. If these provisions, sometimes characterized as cost-containment measures, are present in one of the linked systems, they will automatically be made available to participants in the other system.

In the near-term, some links will be more attractive and easier to establish than others. Given the design-element propagation implications of two-way links between cap-and-trade systems, to facilitate such links it may be necessary to harmonize some design elements. And in some cases, it may be necessary to establish broader international agreements governing aspects of the design of linked cap-and-trade systems beyond mutual recognition of allowances.

An Emerging De Facto International Climate Policy Architecture?

Whereas some two-way links between cap-and-trade systems may thus take more time to establish, in the near-term one-way links between cap-and-trade and credit systems likely will be more attractive and easier to establish. A one-way link with a credit system may offer a cap-and-trade system greater cost savings than a two-way link with another cap-and-trade system. Also, such one-way links can only reduce allowance prices in the cap-and-trade system, giving a government greater control over its system than if it established a two-way link with another cap-and-trade system. The additionality problem is an important concern associated with such links, but it can be managed – to some degree – through the criteria established for awarding or recognizing credits.

Most important, if emerging cap-and-trade systems link with a common credit system, such as the CDM, this will create indirect links among the cap-and-trade systems. Through the indirect links that they create, such one-way linkages can achieve much of the near-term cost savings and risk diversification that direct two-way links among cap-and-trade systems would achieve. And they can do this without requiring the same foundation that likely would be needed to establish direct two-way links, such as harmonization of cost-containment measures. Such linkage may well emerge as part of the de facto post-Kyoto international climate policy architecture, and is fully consistent with the bottom-up, decentralized approach of the Cancun Agreements.

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For much more detailed discussions, here are some publications available on the web that describe various aspects of linkage:

Jaffe, Judson, Matthew Ranson, and Robert Stavins. “Linking Tradable Permit Systems: A Key Element of Emerging International Climate Policy Architecture.” Ecology Law Quarterly 36(2010):789-808.

Jaffe, Judson, and Robert Stavins. “Linkage of Tradable Permit Systems in International Climate Policy Architecture.” The Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements, Discussion Paper 08-07, Cambridge, Massachusetts, September, 2008.

Jaffe, Judson, and Robert Stavins. Linking a U.S. Cap-and-Trade System for Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Opportunities, Implications, and Challenges. Washington, D.C.: AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies, January 2008.

Jaffe, Judson, and Robert Stavins. Linking Tradable Permit Systems for Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Opportunities, Implications, and Challenges. Prepared for the International Emissions Trading Association, Geneva, Switzerland. November, 2007.

Also, this issue of linkage among tradable permit systems has come up previously in a number of my essays at this blog:

AB 32, RGGI, and Climate Change: The National Context of State Policies for a Global Commons Problem

The Real Options for U.S. Climate Policy

What Hath Copenhagen Wrought? A Preliminary Assessment of the Copenhagen Accord

Only Private Sector Can Meet Finance Demands of Developing Countries

Approaching Copenhagen with a Portfolio of Domestic Commitments

Worried About International Competitiveness? Another Look at the Waxman-Markey Cap-and-Trade Proposal

Renewable Energy Standards: Less Effective, More Costly, but Politically Preferred to Cap-and-Trade?

The new Congress is beginning to consider various alternative energy and climate policies in the wake of last year’s collapse in the U.S. Senate of consideration of a meaningful, economy-wide CO₂ cap-and-trade scheme. Among the options receiving attention are various types of renewable portfolio standards, also known as renewable electricity standards or clean energy standards, depending upon their specific design. These approaches, which focus exclusively on one sector of the economy, would be less effective than a comprehensive cap-and-trade approach, would be more costly per unit of what is achieved, and yet – ironically – appear to be much more attractive to some politicians who strenuously opposed cap-and-trade.

True enough, these standards can be designed in a variety of ways, some of which are better and some of which are worse. But the better their design (as a CO₂ reducing policy), the closer they come to the much-demonized cap-and-trade approach.

In an op-ed which appeared on November 24^th in The Huffington Post (click here for link to the original op-ed), Richard Schmalensee and I reflected on this irony. Rather than summarize (or expand on) our op-ed, I simply re-produce it below as it was published by The Huffington Post, with some hyperlinks added for interested readers.

For anyone who is not familiar with Dick Schmalensee, please note that he is the Howard W. Johnson Professor of Economics and Management at MIT, where he served as the Dean of the Sloan School of Management from 1998 to 2007. Also, he served as a Member of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers in the George H. W. Bush administration from 1989 to 1991. By the way, in a previous blog post, I featured a different op-ed that Dick and I wrote in The Boston Globe in July of last year (“Beware of Scorched-Earth Strategies in Climate Debates”).

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Renewable Irony

by Richard Schmalensee and Robert Stavins

The Huffington Post, November 24, 2010

One day after the election, the White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said that a national renewable electricity standard could be an area of bipartisan energy cooperation, after President Obama had said cap-and-trade was not the only way “to skin the cat.” It is ironic that while cap-and-trade — a sensible approach to reducing carbon dioxide emissions linked with climate change — is dead and buried in the Senate, considerable support has emerged for an approach that would be both less effective and more costly. A national renewable electricity standard would mandate that a given share of an electric company’s production come from renewable sources (most likely wind power), or, in the case of a “clean energy standard,” from an expanded list including nuclear and hydroelectric power.

One irony is that cap-and-trade is a market-based approach to environmental protection, which harnesses the power of the marketplace to reduce costs imposed on business and consumers, an approach championed by Republican presidents beginning with Ronald Reagan. Within its narrow domain, the renewable standard approach, which involves nationwide trading of renewable energy credits, is also market-based. Whereas cap-and-trade would raise the cost of fossil fuel, as its opponents have stressed so effectively, renewable standards would raise the cost of electricity, which its supporters seem reluctant to admit. If renewables really were cheaper, even with Federal subsidies, it wouldn’t take regulation to get utilities to use them.

A second source of irony is that renewable or clean electricity standards are a very expensive way to reduce carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions — much more expensive than cap-and-trade. These standards would only affect electricity, thereby omitting about 60 percent of U.S. CO₂ emissions. And even then, the standards would provide limited incentives to substitute away from coal, the most carbon-intensive way to generate electricity. Even more problematic, renewable/clean electricity standards would provide absolutely no incentives to reduce CO₂ emissions from heating buildings, running industrial processes, or transporting people and goods. And unlike cap-and-trade, which would also affect oil consumption, the electricity standards would make no contribution to energy security. Only a very tiny fraction of U.S. oil consumption is used to generate electricity.

Increasing renewable electricity generation is no more than a means to an end for one part of the economy. Cap-and-trade keeps our eyes on the prize: moving the entire economy toward climate-friendly energy generation and use.

Those who believe that renewable electricity standards would create a huge number of green jobs have forgotten the lesson of Detroit: a large domestic market does not guarantee a healthy domestic industry. At the end of 2008, for instance, the U.S. led the world in installed wind generation capacity, but half of new installations that year were accounted for by imports. And a recent Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory study of the impacts of the economic stimulus package incentives for renewable electricity investments estimated that about 40 percent of the (gross) jobs created by new wind-energy investments were outside the United States, where many wind turbines are manufactured.

A sounder approach, for those concerned about green jobs, would focus on the long-term determinants of economic growth, such as technological innovation. That’s where cap-and-trade — which creates broad-based incentives for technology innovation — holds another edge over renewable electricity standards.

It is often argued that if cap-and-trade is dead, enacting renewable or clean electricity standards is better than doing nothing at all about climate change. While that argument has some merit, since the risks of doing nothing are substantial, there is a real danger that enacting these standards will create the illusion that we have done something serious to address climate change. Worse yet, it could create a favored set of businesses that will oppose future adoption of more efficient, serious, broad-based policies — like cap-and-trade.

If a national renewable electricity standard is nonetheless inevitable, it should not impose excess costs on businesses or consumers. It should pre-empt state renewable portfolio standards, since with a national standard in place, states’ programs simply impose extra costs on their citizens without affecting national use of renewables at all. And any national program should allow unlimited banking to encourage early investments. No environmental or economic purpose is served by limiting banking to two years, as current Senate legislation would do.

Carbon cap-and-trade has been killed in the Senate, presumably because of its costs. Renewable electricity standards or clean energy standards would accomplish considerably less and would impose much higher costs per ton of emissions reduction than cap-and-trade would. This does not sound like a step forward.

Richard Schmalensee is the Howard W. Johnson Professor of Economics and Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Robert N. Stavins is the Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School.