EEU Seminar - Knut Einar Rosendahl

On the 13th of December,  Knut Einar Rosendahl will present his research during the EEU seminar, which will be the final EEU Seminar this semester. He is a professor at Norwegian University of Life Sciences. He will present the paper "Europe Beyond Coal – An Economic and Climate Impact Assessment" (see abstract below)

Topic: Coal phaseout in Europe

Biography

Knut Einar is a professor at the School of Economics and Business at Norwegian University of Life Sciences. Knut Einar's research encompasses a variety of topics on environmental policy with specific focus on climate policy, energy and carbon markets and the relationship between environmental policy and technological change. He has published his work in outlets such as Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Journal of Public Economics, and Economic Policy.

Abstract

Several European countries have decided to phase out coal power generation. Emissions from electricity generation are already regulated by the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS), and in some countries like Germany the phaseout of coal will be accompanied with cancellation of emissions allowances. In this paper we examine the consequences of phasing out coal, for CO2 emissions, the electricity sector, and the broader economy. We show analytically how the welfare impacts for a phaseout region depend on i) whether and how allowances are canceled, ii) whether other countries join phaseout policies, and iii) terms-of-trade effects in the ETS market. Based on numerical simulations with a computable general equilibrium model for the European economy, we quantify the economic and environmental impacts of alternative phaseout scenarios, considering both unilateral and multilateral phaseouts. We find that terms-of-trade effects in the ETS market play an important role for the welfare implications across EU member states. For Germany, coal phaseout combined with unilateral cancellation of allowances is found to be welfare-improving if the German citizens value CO2 emissions reductions at 65 Euro per ton or more.