Insights about Climate Change Policy from Europe, New Zealand, and the USA

Suzi Kerr, the chief economist at the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and founder of Motu Economic and Public Policy Research, a think tank in her home country of New Zealand, shares her perspectives on climate change policy in the latest episode of our podcast, “Environmental Insights: Discussions on Policy and Practice from the Harvard Environmental Economics Program.”  I hope you can find time to listen to our conversation here.

In these podcasts, I converse with leading experts from academia, government, industry, and NGOs.  I’m pleased to say that my long-time colleague and friend (and former student), Suzi Kerr, fits well in this group with her abundant experience in academia and NGOs.

Dr. Kerr was involved in the early design of New Zealand’s successful emissions trading system (ETS), which began in 2008, and is similar in some ways to California’s cap-and-trade system, about which I have written many times at this blog and elsewhere.

“It was the second [ETS] in the world and it’s economy wide. It’s what we call upstream, so it covers…basically all fossil fuels and most other emissions in New Zealand. And one of the highlights I think is that it covers the forestry sector, and New Zealand is still probably the one that covers that most comprehensively.  A lot of what we were trying to do was experiment and learn so that others could learn from our experience.”

As Europe prepares to begin implementation in 2023 of its Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), intended to mitigate carbon leakage and protect competitiveness while remaining in compliance with World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, Kerr expresses her belief that while the CBAM is lower cost to taxpayers and provides advantages over output-based allocation measures, there are many challenges standing in its way.

“The logistical issues of bringing in a CBAM are huge. If we all had carbon pricing, it would be pretty easy, but we don’t. We have a whole mix of policies in different countries. Some have carbon pricing, but [other nations have] other policies. That complexity is huge, and the other issue is equity across countries. Does it really make sense for us to be charging countries who have low policy stringency because they’re very poor?,” she says. “I think it’s critically important that the EU couple any introduction of CBAM with really active support for the poorest countries so that they are supported to have a climate transition rather than expected to do that entirely on their own.”

In the U.S., the Biden Administration has announced its new nationally determined contribution (NDC) under terms of the Paris Agreement, with a pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50 to 52 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.  I ask Suzi Kerr whether this target is achievable, given domestic U.S. politics.  She responds that she judges the pledge to be credible, but difficult to achieve.

“The research and the modeling all says it can be done. It’s certainly possible and a lot of it can even be done at very low cost. Whether it will be done is a much more challenging question and that’s where it gets really hard – actually implementing the policies that are effective. Even if you have the political will, that’s a difficult thing,” she remarks. “In general, history teaches us that policies are almost always less effective than we think they’re going to be.”

My complete conversation with Suzi Kerr is the 27th episode in the Environmental Insights series, with future episodes scheduled to drop each month.  You can find a transcript of our conversation at the website of the Harvard Environmental Economics Program.  Previous episodes have featured conversations with:

“Environmental Insights” is hosted on SoundCloud, and is also available on iTunes, Pocket Casts, Spotify, and Stitcher.

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