Topic Energy Economics

A Green COVID-19 Recovery of the EU Basic Materials Sector: Identifying Potentials, Barriers and Policy Solutions

This paper explores climate-friendly projects that could be part of the COVID-19 recovery while jump-starting the transition of the European basic materials industry. Findings from a literature review on technology options in advanced development stages for climate-friendly production, enhanced sorting, and recycling of steel, cement, aluminium, and plastics, are combined with insights from interviews ...

Carbon Pricing of Basic Materials: Incentives and Risks for the Value Chain and Consumers

For the European Union to realise its ambition of carbon neutrality, emissions from basic material production need to be reduced through low-carbon production processes, material efficiency and substitution, as well as enhanced recycling. Different reform options for the EU ETS are discussed that ensure a consistent carbon price incentive for all these mitigation options, while avoiding the risk of ...

Closing the Green Deal for Industry: What Design of the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism Ensures an Inclusive Transition to Climate Neutrality?

EEAG Revision Support Study: Final Report

Way Off: The Effect of Minimum Distance Regulation on the Deployment and Cost of Wind Power

With the expansion of onshore wind power, countries increasingly consider the introduction of minimum distance regulations between wind turbines to nearby residential areas, to increase public acceptance. In 2014, the German federal state of Bavaria introduced a minimum distance regulation that requires new wind turbines to be ten times their total height away from settlements (10-H regulation). This ...

Climate Neutrality Requires Coordinated Measures for High Quality Recycling

For Europe to reach climate neutrality by mid-century, it needs to move toward a circular economy. Waste avoidance, reuse, and recycling save primary resources and avoid emissions in the production of basic materials like steel, cement, and plastics. Without exploring circular economy potentials, switching production to climate-neutral processes alone would result in significant costs and tremendous ...

To Ban or Not to Ban Carbon-Intensive Materials: A Legal and Administrative Assessment of Product Carbon Requirements

By setting near-zero-emission requirements for the production of certain products to be sold on the European single market (product carbon requirements, PCRs), the European Union could accelerate the phase-out of carbon-intensive production processes.The announcement of such requirements would send a signal to producers,financing institutions and other relevant stakeholders, thus incentivizing them ...

The Impact of ECB Corporate Sector Purchases on European Green Bonds

This papers analyzes the effect of the ECB’s Corporate Sector Purchase Programme (CSPP) and the recent Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme (PEPP) on the yields of eligible green bonds, a new but rapidly growing segment of the corporate bond market. We exploit these policy changes using a difference-in-differences strategy, with ineligible corporate green bonds issued in euro, U.S. dollars and Swedish ...

Green Deal for Industry: A Clear Policy Framework Is More Important Than Funding

The European Commission is facing the challenge and opportunity of implementing the Green Deal while simultaneously initiating the recovery of the economy following the coronavirus crisis. Investments in the basic materials industry’s transition to climate neutrality play a central role in this, as the sector is responsible for 16 percent of the EU’s CO2 emissions and is key to downstream value chains. ...

Carbon Pricing of Basic Materials: Incentives and Risks for the Value Chain and Consumers

Different options for a reform of the EU Emissions Trading System are discussed to ensure carbon price incentives for mitigation options in the basic materials sector, while minimizing carbon leakage risks. This paper quantifies carbon leakage risks, distributional implications, and additional revenues associated with an import-only border carbon adjustment (BCA), a symmetric (import and export) BCA, ...