In this chapter, we discuss projected greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions pricing paths that are potentially consistent with alternative targets for ultimately stabilizing the global climate system at the lowest economic cost and under alternative scenarios for country participation in pricing regimes. The pricing projections come from models that link simplified representations of the global climate system to models of the global economy, with varying degrees of detail on regional energy systems. There is considerable uncertainty surrounding future emissions prices, given that different models make very different assumptions about future emissions growth (in the absence of policy), the cost and availability of emissions-reducing technologies, and so on. Nonetheless, projections from the models still provide policymakers with some broad sense of the appropriate scale of (near-term and more distant) emissions prices that are consistent with alternative climate stabilization scenarios and how much these policies cost.

© 2012 International Monetary Fund

Summary