Doctoral Dissertation Research: Effects of Emissions Trading

该项目直接检验排放交易是否以及在多大程度上实现了其旨在实现的减排。具体来说，这将有助于确定在全球范围内，排放交易是否与城市一级和公司一级的减排有关。研究结果将为解决国家、州和城市各级制定和实施的时间敏感问题提供相关见解。这包括但不限于参与排放交易的有效性，以及征税等替代方案是否比市场方式更可行。成果将有助于提高减排的效力，这反过来可能产生长期的公共卫生和国家安全红利。本项目采用2000年至2013年269个城市的城市排放变化原始数据作为因变量进行线性回归建模。在控制了许多社会经济和环境因素之后，将测试两个与城市排放变化相关的独立变量，这些变量来自两个来源：(1)包含八个国家排放交易系统的完整公司层面交易数据的数据库；(2)公司排放数据库，包括全球市值最大的500家公司中的403家公司的排放量。首先，将排放交易从企业层面整理到城市层面，并对其与城市减排的关联进行检验。其次，企业排放变化将(a)作为一个独立变量对城市层面的排放变化进行测试，以确定企业变化是否影响其所在城市的排放变化；然后将(b)作为因变量与排放交易体系参与作为自变量进行检验，以确定参与排放交易是否影响企业减排。最后，将对排放交易系统内外的案例进行定性分析，评估与城市和企业减排成功和失败有关的实地过程。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project directly tests if and to what extent emissions trading results in the reduction it is designed to achieve. Specifically, this will help determine if emissions trading is associated with such reduction at both the city-level and at the firm-level on a global scale. The results will contribute relevant insight for addressing time-sensitive matters for formulation and implementation at national, state, and city levels. This includes but is not limited to the efficacy of emissions trading participation and whether alternative options such as a tax are more viable than a market approach. Results will contribute to greater efficacy in emissions reduction, which in turn is likely to yield long-term public health and national security dividends. This project uses original data on city-level emissions change for 269 cities from between 2000 and 2013 to be treated as a dependent variable in linear regression modeling. Controlling for many socio-economic and situational factors, two independent variables of interest will be tested for association with urban emissions change, derived from two sources: (1) a database comprising full firm-level transaction data for eight national emissions trading systems, and (2) a corporate emissions database, which comprises the emissions from 403 of the largest 500 companies in the world by market capitalization. First, emissions trading transactions will be collated from the firm-level to the city-level and tested for association with city-level emissions reduction. Second, corporate emissions change will be (a) tested as an independent variable against city-level emissions change to determine if corporate change influences the emissions change of the cities in which they reside; and then (b) tested as a dependent variable against emissions trading system participation as an independent variable, to determine whether participation in emissions trading influences corporate emissions reduction. Last, a qualitative analysis of cases both within and outside emissions trading systems will be performed, assessing on-the-ground processes associated with success and failure of emissions reduction by cities and firms.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.