The magnitude of carbon leakage and addressing it in the EU ETS

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Volume Title

School of Business | Bachelor's thesis

Date

2019

Major/Subject

Mcode

Degree programme

Taloustiede

Language

en

Pages

26

Series

Abstract

This literary review discusses the phenomenon of carbon leakage in the European Union emissions trading system (EU ETS). I present the main principles of emissions trading applied in the EU ETS and how the current ETS policy is build. These lay the groundwork for assessing the magnitude of carbon leakage in the EU ETS and how it should be tackled. Assessing the magnitude of carbon leakage and ways to tackle it are the two key questions of this paper. As presented in this paper, carbon leakage might not be that big of a problem for the ETS as the European policy could insist. This suggests that the policy is partly created on political basis ignoring the environmental and economic principles beneath it. I also present two solutions to carbon leakage presented in the literature. Out of the two alternatives, the use of border adjustment is supported by the economic literature. The downside of this environmentally and economically effective solution is its legal restrictions that lower its effectiveness. Despite these restrictions the proposed solution and the other alternative, output-based allocation, deliver better results than the current European policy to fight carbon leakage.

Description

Thesis advisor

Mustonen, Mikko

Keywords

carbon leakage, EU ETS, border adjustment, output-based allocation, leakage ratio, competitiveness channel, energy channel, macro leakage

Other note

Tutkielman tiivistelmätiedoissa näkyvä hyväksymisvuosi on 2020.
The year of approval showing in the abstract of the thesis is 2020.

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