The effects of domestic climate change measures on international competitiveness, Vol. 1 of 1

About

Countries

Data & Research

Learning

News

Projects & Operations

Publications

Topics

Home > Data & Research > Document Search > Report Details

The effects of domestic climate change measures on international competitiveness

Author:	Kee, Hiau Looi; Ma, Hong; Mani, Muthukumara;	Collection Title:	Policy Research working paper ; no. WPS 5309
Country:	World;	Date Stored:	2010/05/12
Document Date:	2010/05/01	Document Type:	Policy Research Working Paper
Language:	English	Region:	The World Region
Report Number:	WPS5309	SubTopics:	Environment and Energy Efficiency; Transport Economics Policy & Planning; Climate Change Mitigation and Green House Gases; Climate Change Economics; Energy and Environment
Volume No:	1 of 1

Summary: Under the Kyoto Protocol, industrialized countries (called Annex I countries) have to reduce their combined emissions to 5 percent below 1990 levels in the first commitment period of 2008-12. Efforts to reduce emissions to meet Kyoto targets and beyond have raised issues of competitiveness in countries that are implementing these policies, as well as fear of leakage of carbon-intensive industries to non-implementing countries. This has also led to proposals for tariff or border tax adjustments to offset any adverse impact of capping carbon dioxide emissions. This paper examines the implications of climate change policies such as carbon tax and energy efficiency standards on competitiveness across industries, as well as issues related to leakage, if any, of carbon-intensive industries to developing countries. Although competitiveness issues have been much debated in the context of carbon taxation policies, the study finds no evidence that the energy intensive industriesﾒ competitiveness is affected by carbon taxes. In fact, the analysis suggests that exports of most energy-intensive industries increase when a carbon tax is imposed by the exporting countries, or by both importing and exporting countries. This finding gives credence to the initial assumption that recycling the taxes back to the energy-intensive industries by means of subsidies and exemptions may be overcompensating for the disadvantage to those industries. There is, however, no conclusive evidence that supports relocation (leakage) of carbon-intensive industries to developing countries due to stringent climate change policies.


Official Documents Official, scanned versions of documents (may include signatures, etc.)
File Type		Description	File Size (mb)

	PDF 18 pages	Official version*	1.26 (approx.)
	Text	Text version**

* The official version is derived from scanning the final, paper copy of the document and is the official,
archived version including all signatures, charts, etc.

** The text version is the OCR text of the final scanned version and is not an accurate representation of the final text.
It is provided solely to benefit users with slow connectivity.

Permanent URL for this page: http://go.worldbank.org/GK4EI022E0