Interactions between climate policies in the power sector

Abstract

For the purpose of limiting global temperature increases, governments have designed a broad range of policy instruments in order to reduce carbon emissions such as carbon taxes, carbon markets and renewable energy support policies. Although such instruments aim to serve the same purpose, they are rarely fine-tuned to guarantee their consistency. Carbon markets are in theory the most efficient instrument to reduce emissions. The use of other instruments is justified under the presence of circumstances that undermine the effectiveness of carbon markets such as market design flaws or innovation externalities. In such cases, the optimal climate policy mix should be carefully designed to take into account the potential interactions between policy instruments.