Thema Umweltmärkte

Politik in der Pflicht: Umweltfreundliches Verhalten erleichtern

A Collective Blueprint, Not a Crystal Ball: Overcoming Political Stalemates: The German Stakeholder Commission on Phasing out Coal

The future of coal remains contested in many countries, hindering necessary energy transitions. Collaborative governance approaches, such as stakeholder commissions, have been proposed as potential solution to resolve such societal conflicts. In Germany, a stakeholder commission process managed to overcome the existing stalemate situation, leading to the adoption of a coal phase-out by 2038. Celebrated ...

Coase and Cap-and-Trade: Evidence on the Independence Property from the European Carbon Market

I examine the Coasean independence property in a large multinational cap-and-trade scheme for greenhouse gas emissions, the EU Emissions Trading System. I analyze whether emissions of power producers are independent from allowance allocations by leveraging a change in allocation policy for a difference-in-differences strategy. The evidence suggests that the independence property holds overall and for ...

Measuring Total Carbon Pricing

While countries increasingly commit to pricing greenhouse gases directly through carbon taxes or emissions trading systems, indirect forms of carbon pricing—such as fuel excise taxes and fuel subsidy reforms—remain important factors affecting the mitigation incentives in an economy. Taken together, how can policy makers think about the overall price signal for carbon emissions and the incentive it ...

Geographical Balancing of Wind Power Decreases Storage Needs in a 100% Renewable European Power Sector

To reduce greenhouse gas emissions, many countries plan to massively expand wind power and solar photovoltaic capacities. These variable renewable energy sources require additional flexibility in the power sector. Both geographical balancing enabled by interconnection and electricity storage can provide such flexibility. In a 100% renewable energy scenario of twelve central European countries, we investigate ...

Toward a Systemic Approach to Energy Transformation in Algeria

This paper examines the drivers of Algeria's energy transformation as well as the cross-cutting issues and challenges in the transformation process. It suggests a framework that accelerates sustainable transformation based on the ideologies of systemic reasoning. Interviews were conducted with 20 energy experts in Algeria, along with a content analysis of policy documents, reports, and previous studies. ...

Reducing Energy System Model Distortions from Unintended Storage Cycling through Variable Costs

Energy system models are used for policy decisions and technology designs. If not carefully used, models give implausible outputs and mislead decision-making. One implausible effect is “unintended storage cycling”, which is observable as simultaneous storage charging and discharging. Methods to remove such misleading effects exist, but are computationally inefficient and sometimes ineffective. Through ...

Policy Evaluation of Waste Pricing Programs Using Heterogeneous Causal Effect Estimation

Using machine learning methods in a quasi-experimental setting, I study the heterogeneous effects of introducing waste prices - unit prices on household unsorted waste disposal - on waste demands and municipal costs. Using a unique panel of Italian municipalities with large variation in prices and observables, I show that waste demands are nonlinear. I find evidence of constant elasticities at low ...

Substituting Clean for Dirty Energy: A Bottom-Up Analysis

We fit CES and VES production functions to data from a numerical bottom-up optimization model of electricity supply with clean and dirty inputs. This approach allows for studying high shares of clean energy not observable today and for isolating mechanisms that impact the elasticity of substitution between clean and dirty energy. Central results show that (i) dirty inputs are not essential for production. ...

Nitratverschmutzung steigert Kosten, Wasserknappheit verschärft Nutzungskonflikte

DIW-Studie zu Wasserknappheit und -verschmutzung in Deutschland – Unzureichende Bepreisung von Oberflächen- und Grundwasser – Nitratbelastetes Grundwasser lässt Kosten für Trinkwasseraufbereitung steigen – Ökolandbau kann Gewässerqualität verbessern Klimawandel sowie Schadstoffbelastung und übermäßiger Verbrauch machen die wertvolle Ressource Wasser auch in Deutschland immer knapper: Das heizt Nutzungskonflikte ...