What a small country’s successes and mistakes can teach us about emission pricing

By Suzi Kerr, Chief Economist at Environmental Defense Fund. First published at EDF's blog.

I’m from Aotearoa, New Zealand, and I really love its land and people, but I am fully aware that from a global perspective it appears pretty insignificant – that’s actually one of its charms.  But being small doesn’t mean you can’t make big contributions including toward stabilizing the climate. This recently published article highlights some lessons New Zealand’s experience with emissions trading can offer other Emissions Trading System (ETS) designers at a time when effective climate action is ever more urgent.

Talking intensively to ETS practitioners and experts around the globe about their diverse choices and the reasons why they made them has made me acutely aware of the need to tailor every ETS to local conditions.  In a complex, heterogeneous world facing an existential crisis, diversity in climate policy design makes us stronger and frankly, improves the odds that the young people we love will live in a world where they can thrive.

Social Cost of Carbon: final big questions (with help from the birds)

Photo by Francesco Veronesi on Flickr cc by 2.0

by Bronwyn Bruce-Brand, Research Analyst at Motu Economic and Public Policy Research

This is the final in a series of three posts answering key questions about the Social Cost of Carbon (SCC). To help keep you interested, I have inserted some egg-cellent ideas about how we might get SCC to soar.

Ma ngā huruhuru ka rere te manu: It is the feathers that enable the bird to fly.

Social Cost of Carbon: two further questions (with more help from New Zealand’s native wildlife)

Photo by Department of Conservation on Flickr cc by 2.0

by Bronwyn Bruce-Brand, Research Analyst at Motu Economic and Public Policy Research

This is post two in a series of three posts answering key questions about the Social Cost of Carbon (SCC). In the interests of getting you to the end of this article, I have included some bird breaks (hopefully these won't get too squawkward).

Social Cost of Carbon: Two of six big questions (with a little help from New Zealand’s native wildlife)

by Bronwyn Bruce-Brand, Research Analyst at Motu Economic and Public Policy Research

Nobel Prize Laureate and environmental economist William Nordhaus calls the social cost of carbon (SCC) “the most important single economic concept in the economics of climate change” and it’s a requirement for all US federal environmental regulation analysis.1 So, what is the SCC and how does it work?

Photo by southstar on flickr cc by 2.0

This series of posts answers the first two in a series of six key questions about the SCC with the help of some of New Zealand’s most beautiful native birdlife. As an economist who works with climate change policy, I still find the technicalities of the SCC and how it fits with regulation, environmental science and predictions of the future fly over my head sometimes. So, in the interests of getting you to the end of this article without rage-quitting or falling asleep, I have included some bird breaks, with fun facts and a few puns about some of our most loveable feathery friends. Other than that, I’ll just wing it (not sorry).