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The thirteenth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 2007 decided that developing countries should be compensated for adaptation costs to climate change through the Adaptation Fund (first draft decision of the third session of the conference of the parties serving as the meeting of the parties to the Kyoto Protocol). This shows that adaptation to climate change has become important in international climate negotiations. Today, adaptation is widely recognized as an equally important and complementary response to climate change mitigation (for example, Commission of the European Communities 2007; IPCC 2007a; Agrawala and Fankhauser 2008). Still, relatively little information is available to support more integrated climate policies that focus on both mitigation and adaptation (Klein et al. 2005). In particular, in integrated assessment models that aim at supporting climate policy by analysing their economic and environmental consequences and formulating efficient responses, explicit consideration of adaptation is still in its infancy (Tol 2005; Wilbanks 2005; Agrawala et al. 2008). This chapter tries to fill the gap in integrated assessment models by integrating adaptation and residual damage functions from AD-RICE (de Bruin et al. 2009) with the FAIR model (den Elzen and van Vuuren 2007; Hof et al. 2008). This version of the FAIR model (from now on called AD-FAIR) enables an analysis of the interactions between mitigation, emissions trading, adaptation and residual damages (that is, damages not avoided by adaptation measures) on a global as well as regional scale. Furthermore, adaptation is modelled explicitly as a policy variable, providing insights in the economic consequences of adaptation. This information is vital for effective adaptation governance.

In this paper we report results from a comparison of numerically calibrated game theoretic integrated assessment models that explore stability and performance of international coalitions for climate change mitigation. Specifically, by means of this ensemble of models we are able to identify robust results concerning incentives of nations to commit themselves to a climate agreement, and to estimate what stable agreements can achieve in terms of greenhouse gas mitigation. We also assess the potential of transfers that redistribute the surplus of cooperation in order to foster stability of climate coalitions. In contrast to much of the existing analytical game theoretical literature, we find substantial scope for self-enforcing climate coalitions in most models that close much of the abatement and welfare gap between complete absence of cooperation and full cooperation. This more positive message follows from the use of transfer schemes that are designed to counteract free riding incentives.

International climate negotiations take place in a setting where uncertainties regarding the impacts of climate change are very large. In this paper, we examine the influence of increasing the probability and impact of large climate change damages, also known as the 'fat tail', on the formation of an international mitigation agreement. We systematically vary the shape and location of the distribution of climate change damages using the stochastic version of the applied game-theoretical STACO model. Our aim is to identify how changes to the distributional form affect the stability of coalitions and their performance. We find that fatter upper tails increase the likelihood that more ambitious coalitions are stable as well as the performance of these stable coalitions. Fatter tails thus imply more successful, or 'fatter', international climate agreements.

This paper investigates the economic incentives of countries to cooperate on international adaptation financing. Adaptation is generally implicitly incorporated in the climate change damage functions as used in Integrated Assessment Models. We replace the implicit decision on adaptation with explicit adaptation in a multi-regional setting by using an adjusted RICE model. We show that making adaptation explicit will not affect the optimal mitigation path when adaptation is set at its optimal level. Sub-optimal adaptation will, however, change the optimal mitigation path. Furthermore this paper studies for different forms of cooperation what effects international adaptation transfers will have on (i) domestic adaptation and (ii) the optimal mitigation path. Adaptation transfers will fully crowd out domestic adaptation in a first best setting. Transfers will decrease overall mitigation in our numerical simulations. An analytical framework is used to analyse the most important mechanisms and a numerical model is used to assess the magnitude of effects.

Climate change may cause most harm to countries that contribute least to greenhouse gas emissions. This paper identifies deontology, solidarity and consequentialism as the principles that can serve as a basis for a fair international burden sharing scheme of adaptation costs. We translate these principles into criteria that can be applied in assigning contributions of individual countries, namely historical responsibility, equality and capacity to pay. Specific political and scientific choices are discussed, highlighting implications for international burden-sharing. Combining historical responsibility and capacity to pay seems a promising starting point for international negotiations on the design of burden-sharing schemes. From the numerical assessment, it is clear that UNFCCC Annex I countries carry the greatest burden under most scenarios, but contributions differ substantially subject to the choice of an indicator for capacity to pay. The total financial contribution by the Annex I countries could be in the range of $55-68 billion annually.

The Global Integrated Sustainability Model (GISMO), developed at the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL), is a platform for analysing the complexity of sustainable development and human well-being with regards to the three sustainability domains: People, Planet, and Profit (PPP). The economic structure of the GISMO1.0 model is the International Futures model, developed at the University of Denver. To better address price behaviour in the model, the Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model DART, developed by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, was included in the GISMO framework and integrated with the International Futures model. The DART model is tuned to the needs of the GISMO project, and is further referred to as DART-PBL. This report provides an overview of the main changes and additions to the original DART model. The changes and additions include: 1) region and sector aggregation compatible with the GISMO framework; 2) human capital accumulation based on demographics, educational attainment and health level to better address human well-being; 3) introduction of a Linear Expenditure System to distinguish between basic and luxury consumption; 4) adjusted savings to take into account different saving patterns of a changing population structure; 5) heterogenic land prices linked with the IMAGE framework to address land scarcity and environmental impacts; and 6) partial labour mobility between agricultural and non-agricultural sectors, to assess changes in income distribution.

The dominant assumption in economic models of climate policy remains that adaptation will be implemented in an optimal manner. There are, however, several reasons why optimal levels of adaptation may not be attainable. This paper investigates the effects of suboptimal levels of adaptation, i.e. adaptation restrictions, on the composition and level of climate change costs and on welfare. Several adaptation restrictions are identified and then simulated in a revised DICE model, extended with adaptation (AD-DICE). We find that especially substantial over-investment in adaptation can be very harmful due to sharply increasing marginal adaptation costs. Furthermore the potential of mitigation to offset suboptimal adaptation is investigated. When adaptation is not possible at extreme levels of climate change, it is cost-effective to use more stringent mitigation policies in order to keep climate change limited, thereby making adaptation possible. Furthermore not adjusting the optimal level of mitigation to these adaptation restrictions may double the costs of adaptation restrictions, and thus in general it is very harmful to ignore existing restrictions on adaptation when devising (efficient) climate policies.

This paper investigates the economic incentives of countries to cooperate on international adaptation financing. Adaptation is generally implicitly incorporated in the climate change damage functions as used in Integrated Assessment Models. We replace the implicit decision on adaptation with explicit adaptation in a multi-regional setting by using an adjusted RICE model. We show that making adaptation explicit will not affect the optimal mitigation path when adaptation is set at its optimal level. Sub-optimal adaptation will, however, change the optimal mitigation path. Furthermore this paper studies for different forms of cooperation what effects international adaptation transfers will have on (i) domestic adaptation and (ii) the optimal mitigation path. Adaptation transfers will fully crowd out domestic adaptation in a first best setting. Transfers will decrease overall mitigation in our numerical simulations. An analytical framework is used to analyse the most important mechanisms and a numerical model is used to assess the magnitude of effects.

This paper examines stability of international climate agreements for carbon abatement under an optimal transfer rule and renegotiations. The optimal transfer rule suggested to stabilise international environmental agreements (Weikard 2005, Carraro, Eyckmans and Finus 2006) is no longer optimal when agreements are renegotiated. We determine the conditions for optimal self-enforcing sequences of agreements. If these conditions are met, then transfer payments can be arranged such that no country wants to change its membership status at any stage. In order to demonstrate the applicability of our condition we use the STACO model, a 12-regions global model, to assess the impact of welldesigned transfer rules on the stability of an international climate agreement. Although there are strong free-rider incentives, we find a stable grand coalition in the first commitment period in a game with one round of renegotiations.

Integrated Assessment Models (IAMS) have helped us over the past decade to understand the interactions between the environment and the economy in the context of climate change. Although it has also long been recognized that adaptation is a powerful and necessary tool to combat the adverse effects of climate change, most IAMs have not explicitly included the option of adaptation in combating climate change. This paper adds to the IAM and climate change literature by explicitly including adaptation in an IAM, thereby making the trade-offs between adaptation and mitigation visible. Specifically, a theoretical framework is created and used to implement adaptation as a decision variable into the DICE model. We use our new AD-DICE model to derive the adaptation cost functions implicit in the DICE model. In our set-up, adaptation and mitigation decisions are separable and AD-DICE can mimic DICE when adaptation is optimal. We find that our specification of the adaptation costs is robust with respect to the mitigation policy scenarios. Our numerical results show that adaptation is a powerful option to combat climate change, as it reduces most of the potential costs of climate change in earlier periods, while mitigation does so in later periods.

Cooperation in international environmental agreements appears difficult to attain because of strong free-riding incentives. This paper explores how different technology spillover mechanisms among regions can influence the incentive structures to join and stabilise an international agreement. We use an applied modelling framework (STACO) that enables us to investigate stability of partial climate coalitions. Technology spillovers to coalition members increase their incentives to stay in the coalition and reduce abatement costs, which leads to larger global payoffs and a lower global CO2 stock. Several theories on the impact of technology spillovers are evaluated by simulating a range of alternative specifications. We find that while spillovers are a good instrument to improve stability of bilateral agreements, they cannot overcome the strong free rider incentives that are present in larger coalitions. This conclusion is robust against the specification of technology spillovers.

In this paper analyze the economic effects of CO2 emission reductions in the Basque Country (Spain) using an applied general equilibrium (AGE) model with specific attention to environment-energy-economy interactions. Environmental policy is implemented through a system of tradable pollution permits that the government auctions. The costs of different levels of CO2 abatement are discussed, focusing on the variations of macroeconomic, sectoral and environment-energy variables. Results show that the costs for achieving the Kyoto targets can remain limited if the appropriate combination of changes in fuel-mix and restructuring of the economy is induced. Impacto económico del control del cambio climático en el País Vasco Resumen En este trabajo analizamos el impacto económico de una reducción de las emisiones de CO2 en el País Vasco. Para ello utilizamos un modelo de equilibrio general aplicado (MEGA), que presta especial atención a las interacciones entre economía, medio ambiente y energía y que implementa la política ambiental mediante un mercado de permisos de emisión regulado por el gobierno. El artículo discute el coste de reducción de diferentes niveles en las emisiones, mostrando las variaciones en las principales variables macroeconómicas, sectoriales y energéticas. Los resultados muestran que los costes de cumplir los objetivos de Kyoto pueden ser moderados, si se consiguen inducir los cambios apropiados en el mix energético y en las estructuras de producción y consumo. Palabras clave: Modelos de Equilibrio General Aplicado; Cambio Climático; Mercados de Permisos de Emisión, País Vasco

This paper shows in an empirical context that substantial cost reductions can be achieved in the implementation of Dutch national climate policy by (i) targeting the policy at the stock of greenhouse gases, thus allowing polluters flexibility in their timing of emission reductions; and (ii) integrating climate policy with other policies, thereby optimising the restructuring of the economy needed to achieve environmental policy targets. A dynamic applied general equilibrium model with bottom-up information on abatement techniques is used to show that the optimal timing of GHG emission reductions tends to follow the timing for the other environmental themes with an additional emphasis on emission reductions in the later periods. The optimal mix of technical measures and economic restructuring as source of emission reductions is affected by the strictness of environmental policy targets for all themes and hence can only be derived from an integrated analysis of these policies.

This paper studies energy bias in technical change. For this purpose, we develop a computable general equilibrium model that builds on endogenous growth models. The model explicitly captures links between energy, the rate and direction of technical change, and the economy. We derive the equilibrium determinants of biased technical change and show the importance of feedback in technical change, substitution possibilities between final goods, and general-equilibrium effects for the equilibrium bias. If the feedback effect is strong, or the substitution elasticity large, or both, our model tends to a corner solution in which only technologies are developed that are appropriate for production of non-energy intensive goods.

Results derived from empirical analyses on the stability of climate coalitions are usually very sensitive to the large uncertainties associated with the benefits and costs of climate policies. This paper provides the methodology of Stability Likelihood that links uncertainty about benefits and costs of climate change to the stability analysis of coalitions in a stochastic, empirical setting. We show that the concept of Stability Likelihood improves upon the robustness and interpretation of stability analysis. Our numerical application is based on a modified version of the climate model STACO. It turns out that the only non-trivial coalition structure with a relatively high Stability Likelihood (around 25 percent) is a coalition between the European Union and Japan, though quantitative results depend especially on the variance in regional benefits from abatement.

By-products from agriculture and forestry can contribute to production of clean and cheap (bio)electricity. To assess the role of such multi-product crops in the response to climate policies, we present an applied general equilibrium model with special attention to biomass and multi-product crops for Poland. The potential to boost production of bioelectricity through the use of multi-product crops turns out to be limited to only 2-3% of total electricity production. Further expansion of the bioelectricity sector will have to be based on biomass crops explicitly grown for energy purposes. The competition between agriculture and biomass for scarce land remains limited, given the availability of relatively poor land types and substitution possibilities. The importance of indirect effects illustrates that the AGE framework is appropriate.

This paper deals with an assessment of the economic costs of environmental policies in the Netherlands, using a dynamic Applied General Equilibrium model with bottom-up information on abatement techniques. Empirical abatement cost curves are used to determine substitution possibilities between pollution and abatement and the characteristics of abatement goods. The results show that an absolute decoupling of economy and environment is possible. Smog formation is the most costly environmental theme, due to the absence of technical abatement options. For all environmental themes, the least-cost way to reduce emissions is via a combination of technical abatement measures and substantial economic restructuring.

Economic models suggest that in many cases, market leakage rates of greenhouse gas abatement reach the two-digit percentage range. Consequently, the Marrakesh Accords require Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects to account for leakage. Despite this, most project proponents neglect market leakage for their project, because the influence of an individual project on market prices seems to be negligible. Insufficient leakage accounting is facilitated by a lack of theories and applicable proposals regarding the quantification and attribution of leakage effects. The aim of this paper is to develop a proposal for the attribution of market leakage effects to CDM projects. To this purpose, we identify the transmission mechanisms for CDM project leakage, investigate the current practice of leakage accounting, and analyse alternative attribution methods for leakage effects that are transmitted through price changes. We find that project-specific approaches must fail to take account of such leakage effects. Consequently, we propose to estimate aggregate market leakage effects and attribute them proportionally to individual projects. Our proposal is based on commodity-specific leakage factors which can be applied by project developers to any emission reductions that are associated with a project?s leakage-relevant demand or supply changes. The proposal is conservative, equitable, incentive compatible and applicable at manageable costs.

We empirically test stability of climate change coalitions with the STAbility of Coalitions model (STACO). The model comprises twelve world regions and captures important dynamic aspects of the climate change problem. We apply the stability concept of internal and external stability to a cartel formation game. It is shown that only if benefits from global abatement are sufficiently high, stable coalitions emerge, though they only marginally improve upon the Nash equilibrium. We explain this phenomenon by analyzing the individual incentive structure of all regions and relate our results to the predictions of theory.