Publications

Since 2007, the European Council has played an increasingly active role in shaping the details of future EU climate policies. This involvement raises important questions about potential interference by the European Council regarding the decision-making process for and content of the implementation of the 2030 climate framework. In a broader perspective, concerns have been raised about the establishment of a constitutional practice, which could in fact circumvent the possibility of adopting implementing acts by qualified majority vote.

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Eco innovations (EI) that address climate change mitigation require pressures and knowledge from outside the firm’s and sector’s boundaries, due to the radicalness and variety of techno-organisational knowledge the economy needs to curb emissions by 90 % in the long run and 40 % in the medium run, at least according to EU targets. The role of policy as a tool that potentially tackles two externalities—innovation and environmental market failures—has been studied over the past decade.

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Emissions trading promises the achievement of a pre-defined environmental outcome at least cost. If the system works and key assumptions hold, it would seem to be an "optimal" climate policy instrument. On closer inspection, however, it is less clear what constitutes an "optimal" climate policy. This paper argues that optimality involves a range of criteria beyond short-term economic efficiency, but also has to consider the longer-term dynamic efficiency, as well as the political, administrative and legal feasibility of policy instruments.

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This paper studies the effect of endogenous technical change and international technology spillovers on carbon leakage. It is well known that a unilateral CO2 abatement policy in one region may cause CO2 emissions to increase in non-abating regions because of the relocation of CO2-intensive firms and because of energy market effects.

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We analyse variations of carbon emissions in the European cement industry from 1990 to 2012, at the European level (EU 27), and at the national level for six major producers (Germany, France, Spain, the United Kingdom, Italy and Poland). We apply a Log-Mean Divisia Index (LMDI) method, cross-referencing data from three databases: the Getting the Numbers Right (GNR) database developed by the Cement Sustainability Initiative, the European Union Transaction Log (EUTL), and the Eurostat International Trade database.

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The paper investigates the effectiveness and efficiency of energy-environmental policy interactions in Italy, adopting a broad optimality perspective that includes policy feasibility and dynamic efficiency. The analysis highlights that though some complementarity among different policies exists, climate policies have been often undermined by energy and renewables policy.

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