Regional burden sharing of GHG mitigation policies in a decentralized federation

The distribution of the burden of cost of GHG mitigation policies is a contentious issue. This is particularly true among regional jurisdictions within a federal country with decentralized power. The regional allocation of emissions permits could hinder the political feasibility of national GHG mitigation policies. We build a multi-region computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to assess the implications of different burden sharing rules in a hypothetical national GHG abatement policy with a market-based instrument. In addition to assessing the impacts of regional permit allocation rules that entail inter-regional transfers of wealth, we consider a particular emissions allocation scheme, called 'no prior entitlement' (NPE), that avoids such transfers. The insights derived from the simulations suggest that the NPE policy avoids the politically contentious issues of inter-regional transfers of scarcity rents, Its welfare impact lies between those in the entitlement-based permit allocation schemes. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.