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Trade and Climate Policies: Do Emissions from International Transport Matter?
The World Economy (2013)
  • Frank Vöhringer
  • Jean-Marie Grether
  • Nicole Andréa Mathys
Abstract
This paper provides orders of magnitude of the importance of CO2 emissions from international freight transport activities under a variety of scenarios regarding trade and climate policies. It is based on a stylised multiregion, multisector CGE model that includes the four modes of international transport (air, water, road and rail) and where choices regarding the energy mix and transport modes have been endogeneised. A separate decomposition of emission changes into the well-known scale, composition and technique effects is provided. Scale effects turn out to be roughly double in international transport than in exports, while technique effects are weaker due to less substitutability between energy inputs. As a result, international transport represents half of the world increase in global emissions when trade liberalisation is considered in isolation. When trade liberalisation is coupled with a carbon tax limited to rich countries, the change in international transport emissions represents roughly one-eighth of the carbon leakage effect.
Disciplines
Publication Date
March, 2013
Citation Information
Frank Vöhringer, Jean-Marie Grether and Nicole Andréa Mathys. "Trade and Climate Policies: Do Emissions from International Transport Matter?" The World Economy Vol. 36 Iss. 3 (2013)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/nicole_mathys/14/