The international economics of resources and resource ... - Index of

How to increase global resource productivity? 355
is the only instrument to reach the EU 2020 GHG targets. Renewables and efficiency
policies will also contribute to carbon reduction and have to be taken into account,
when comparing the results (especially the high carbon prices) to other studies.
There are different renewables and efficiency policies that could further improve the
economic impacts of reaching the climate and energy targets. The results clearly
indicate to intensify the discussion on market-based instruments, but in the end a
policy mix will be needed to reach the EU GHG targets.
Global material extraction and energy-related CO 2 emissions continue to grow in
all three scenarios analysed in GINFORS. This trend is largely led by the group of
emerging economies. The worldwide effects of the unilateral ETR scenario (S1H) on
the growth trend of used material extraction and energy-related CO2 emissions are
negligible. For both impacts, the cooperation scenario (S3H) is more effective. It
would decrease the global amount of materials extracted by 5.3% and the amount of
CO2 emissions by 15.6% compared to the baseline scenario in 2020.
Two main policy conclusions can be drawn from this investigation. First,
combating climate change can only be successful through global cooperation and
global climate treaties. Carbon prices may be significantly higher than in the current
European debate or additional non-price measures have to be used. Secondly, since
overall resource use is continuing to increase substantially, targets on CO2 emissions
only are not sufficient in order to lessen the environmental impacts of economic
activities. The just beginning debate about limits of resource extraction will raise
similar questions about international competitiveness and leakage, GDP effects and
the need of international action as the climate change debate.
This calls for new research efforts especially on the global scale. Even though
more and more internationally comparable data becomes available, the field clearly
lacks fundamental data and research structures, that had been established for energy
in the 1970s as a response two the first oil price crisis. New research in the field of
externalities such as the EU FP 6 EXIOPOL project will deliver additional empirical
data, that will further improve the analysis to more explicitly take capacity
constraints into account.
Combined with environmentally extended multi-regional input-output models
such as GRAM (Giljum et al. 2008b), results can substantially improve the
understanding of consumer and producer responsibility in the light of upcoming
international agreements.
References
Almon C (1991) The INFORUM approach to interindustry modelling. Econ Syst Res 3:1–7
Barker T, Junankar S, Pollitt H, Summerton P (2007a) Carbon leakage from unilateral environmental tax
reforms in Europe, 1995–2005. Energy Policy 35:6281–6292. doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2007.06.021
Barker T, Meyer B, Pollitt H, Lutz C (2007b) Modelling environmental tax reform in Germany and the
United Kingdom with E3ME and GINFORS, Petre Working Paper, Cambridge and Osnabrueck.
http://www.petre.org.uk/papers.htm
DG TREN (2008) European energy and transport. Trends to 2030-Update 2007. Luxembourg
Ekins P, Speck S (2010) Environmental tax reform (ETR), resolving the conflict between economic
growth and the environment. Oxford University Press, Oxford
EU-Commission (2008) Joint impact assessment on the package of implementation measures for the EU’s
objectives on climate change and renewable energy for 2020. COM (2008) 16, 17 und 18, Brussels