CAREER: Institutions for Carbon Abatement in Developing Countries

今天，全球温室气体排放量的增长大部分来自低收入和中等收入国家。因此，减少全球碳排放将要求发展中国家使用更多的可再生能源，而不是化石能源。这种增长没有先例可循。发达国家用于促进绿色能源转型的许多机构，如私人投资驱动的广泛能源市场或基于市场的环境监管，在发展中国家要么不存在，要么相对较新。这一职业项目将研究发展中国家促进绿色增长的机构如何运作，以及如何加强这些机构。这项研究将确定能够降低穷人能源成本和促进污染较少的绿色经济增长的政策工具。这项研究的结果将提高能源市场的效率，改善全球碳减排政策，为研究生和本科生培训以及数据收集和传播做出贡献。 该研究项目的成果还将确立美国在“清洁”能源研究和政策方面的全球领导地位。该研究项目将研究几个机构在发展中国家减少碳排放方面的效率。该方案有三个部分：（i）支持可再生能源私人投资的机构，（ii）基于市场的环境监管，（iii）国际碳抵消。第一部分将利用太阳能产业的整个历史数据，研究帮助执行合同的机构如何帮助降低低收入国家的可再生能源价格。实证分析将衡量发展中国家普遍存在的合同风险对采用绿色能源价格的影响。第二部分将使用一个大型的、新颖的实验数据，该实验引入了针对当地空气污染的排放交易，以估计基于市场的监管的收益模型。第三部分将研究清洁发展机制（CDM），迄今为止世界上最大的此类转让计划，如何影响低收入国家，特别是最大和增长最快的排放国的温室气体排放。 这些转让的主要机制，包括抵消机制，其功效或成本尚未得到充分研究。纵观这几个机构，该项目作为一个整体，将研究第二好的环境和能源政策在实践中，并建议政策的变化，可以工作。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得支持的评估使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准。

Most of the global growth in greenhouse gas emissions today comes from low- and middle-income countries. Reducing global carbon emissions will therefore require developing countries to use more renewable energy instead of fossil energy. There is no prior model for such growth. Many of the institutions being used to promote a green energy transition in developed countries—like broad energy markets driven by private investment, or market-based environmental regulation—either do not exist or are relatively new in developing countries. This CAREER project will study how institutions for green growth are working in developing countries and how they could be made stronger. The study will identify policy tools that can lower the cost of energy for the poor and promote green economic growth that causes less pollution. The results of this CAREER research will improve efficiency in energy markets, improve policies for carbon abatement globally, contributions to graduate and undergraduate student training, and data collection and dissemination. The results of this research project will also establish the US as a global leader in “clean” energy research and policy.This research project will study the efficacy of several institutions for carbon abatement in developing countries. The program has three parts: (i) institutions to support private investment in renewable energy, (ii) market-based environmental regulation and (iii) international carbon offsets. The first part will study how institutions to help enforce contracts have helped to bring down renewable energy prices in low income countries using data on the entire history of solar power industry. The empirical analysis will measure the effect of contractual risk, which is widespread in developing countries, on the price of green energy adoption. The second part will use data from a large, novel experiment introducing emissions trading for local air pollution to estimate a model of the gains from market-based regulation. The third part will study how the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), the largest such transfer program in the world to date, has affected greenhouse gas emissions in low income countries, especially the largest and fastest growing emitters. The main mechanisms for these transfers, including offset mechanisms, have not been well studied for their efficacy or costs. Looking across these several institutions, the project as a whole will study second-best environmental and energy policy in practice and recommend policy changes that can work.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.