Dec 16, 2017 at Waseda University
On the very next day of the large-scale Symposium in front of general public, the RIEEM help an academic Carbon Pricing Workshop on December 16, 2017 at Waseda Univesrity. Eight scholars were invited to present their ongoing research on cutting edge issues related to carbon reduction and emission. The workshop started by welcome note by Prof. Toshi H. Arirmura, Director of RIEEM.
Prof. Shigeru Matsumoto of Aoyama Gakuin University presented his study entitled “Did improvement of home appliance energy efficiency lead to a reduction of household electricity consumption? Experience from the Japanese Top Runner Program”. The study found that energy efficient appliances did not contribute toward the reduction of energy consumption due to increased reliance on electrical appliances.
Prof. Jian Zhou of Tsinghua University of China presented on “The Role Carbon Market Policy in China”. The presentation highlighted ongoing initiatives in China including carbon pricing assessment cycle and guidelines on allowance allocation. The results from CGE model on CO2 emission affected by carbon pricing and GDP loss were presented under different scenarios. Similarly, Prof. Shiro Takeda of Kyoto Sangyo University presented a paper using single country CGE model of Japanese economy titled “A Computable General Equilibrium Analysis of Environmental Tax Reform in Japan. In his study, the impacts of CO2 regulation and cut in the existing taxes are examined to show desirable policy measures to reduce CO2. The results show that the possibility of double dividend is sensitive to the criterion used in the model, however, when GDP and income criterion are used, the double dividend is bigger.
Dr. Satoshi Kojima of IGES presented on “Potential feasibility of carbon pricing to mid-long term emission reduction target of Japan: Implications from empirical studies”. The presentation covered various topics such as expectations and concerns about full scale carbon pricing, implications from empirical studies and direction for future research.
Prof. David Brown of the University of Alberta, Canada presented his paper “Carbon Pricing with an Output Subsidy under Imperfect Competition: The Case of Alberta’s Restructured Electricity Market” in which author analyzes carbon pricing mechanism of the electricity industry in Alberta. The analyses show that the output subsidy would result in larger price and emission effects, leading to a large reduction of carbon emission under Carbon Competitiveness Regulation (CCR) relative to under Specified Gas Emitters Regulation (SGER). He showed that the model of imperfect competition (Cournot competition) can explain the reality much better than the model assuming a perfect competition.
Prof. Makoto Sugino of Yamagata University presented paper on “The effects of carbon pricing on Japanese industries: An input-output analysis separating large and SME”. This study tries to identify industries that may suffer most when carbon pricing is implemented or EU ETS types of indices are used. The research findings indicate that a special treatment eases burden of EITE (Energy Intensive Trade Exposed) industries and excluding SMEs from carbon pricing eases burdens to both large enterprises and SMEs.
Mr. Tatsuya Abe of Waseda University presented “An Empirical Study of Tokyo Emission Trading Scheme: An Ex-post Analysis of Emissions from Commercial Buildings” co-authored with Prof. Arimura. Similarly, co-authored with Prof. Arimura, Dr. Taisuke Sadayuki presented “An Empirical Study of Tokyo & Saitama Emission Trading Scheme”. The preliminary results from the two studies show that Tokyo ETS had contributed to about 6~7% reduction of emission from commercial buildings and about 6% reduction of emissions from service sector and about 11% from manufacturing sector in Tokyo.
