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The structure of the climate debate / Richard S.J. Tol, Department of Economics, University of Sussex. 16 Aug. 2016, 17 p. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1608.05597First-best climate policy is a uniform carbon tax which gradually rises over time. Civil servants have complicated climate policy to expand bureaucracies, politicians to create rents. Environmentalists have exaggerated climate change to gain influence, other activists have joined the climate bandwagon. Opponents to climate policy have attacked the weaknesses in climate research. The climate debate is convoluted and polarized as a result, and climate policy complex. Climate policy should become easier and more rational as the Paris Agreement has shifted climate policy back towards national governments. Changing political priorities, austerity, and a maturing bureaucracy should lead to a more constructive climate debate.On the Treatment of Emissions Trading and Green and White Certificates in Cost-Benefit Analysis / Per-Olov Johansson, Stockholm School of Economics, May 2016, 26 p. (CERE Working Paper, 2016:13) http://www.cere.se/en/research/publications/778-on-the-treatment-of-emissions-trading-and-green-and-white-certificates-in-cost-benefit-analysis.htmlThere are conflicting views on how to handle permits for greenhouse gases in cost-benefit analysis. This paper aims at clarifying within a simple general equilibrium model how to treat different kinds of tradable permits in economic evaluations of projects. Within a framework that reminds of the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS), the paper looks at cost-benefit rules for a small project providing a public good, interpreted as a shortcut for infrastructure, using a fossil fuel and a renewable as inputs. In addition, it illustrates the Samuelson condition for the optimal provision of the public good, discusses briefly how to assess the EU permit system for sectors not covered under the EU ETS, as well as taxes and permits used to combat acid rain, and provides an illustration of the magnitude of the bias incurred if permits are valued at the marginal damage cost. The paper also introduces electricity ("green") certicates, a cousin to tradable permits, as well as well as energy savings ("white") certicates. Finally, a cap on the output of a commodity is considered.Environmental taxation and EU environmental policies. European Environment Agency, September 2016, 92 p. (EEA Report No 17/2016) http://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/environmental-taxation-and-eu-environmental-policiesThis report does three things. It provides an overview of market‑based instruments (MBIs) established by EU environmental legislation. Then it explains the established definitions and rationales for the application of environmental taxes and discusses their current design and application in EEA member countries. It concludes with overall findings and some reflections on the potential for long-term tax-shifting programmes in the context of policy targets as well as technological innovation and demographic changes.Environment and climate policy evaluation. European Environment Agency, 2016, 24 p. (EEA Report No 18/2016) http://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/environment-and-climate-policy-evaluationThe intended audience of this European Environment Agency (EEA) publication is the professional environmental evaluation community, that is, evaluators of European environment and climate policies, the EEA's networks and interested evaluation professionals, including those that are active in the European Environmental Evaluators Network (EEEN). The publication aims to facilitate a dialogue on policy evaluation, by clearly setting out the EEA's views on some of the challenges that evaluators encounter in the areas of environment and climate policy.The Paris Agreement as a step backward to gain momentum: Lessons from and for theory / Alejandro Caparrós, Revue d'économe politique, n° 3, 2016, pp. 347-356 http://www.cairn.info/resume.php?ID_ARTICLE=REDP_263_0347The Paris Agreement has moved us backward from a world where binding burden-sharing agreements like the Kyoto Protocol were the standard, to a world where climate policy is reduced to pledge and review. Nevertheless, this has allowed climate policy to gain new momentum. This paper argues that game theoretical analyses of International Environmental Agreements have not incorporated this change yet, as they were all designed to analyze burden sharing agreements, or agreements where signatories essentially become one player. Despite this fact, some relevant insights from this literature are still relevant to guiding future climate policy in the new context.