Guest blog by Jane Kozinski, Senior Policy Adviser on Climate Change
In his last blog post, Dominic mentioned two of my favourite subjects – “climate” and New Jersey (my home state). So, I felt inspired to write in.
Last week Sir Alan Collins and I visited Rutgers University’s Center for European Studies where we participated in a conference on European Climate Policy. Conference participants learned about low-carbon policies in Europe and examined how such policies might be applied in the United States. Sir Alan gave the keynote address and stressed the need to ensure that climate mitigation policies are designed to promote economic growth. Based on the lengthy Q&A session that followed, there is a strong appetite in the U.S. for information on bold and innovative climate policy. The UK’s policies set a strong example.
I led a panel discussion on Lessons Learned from the European Union’s Emissions Trading System (ETS). Based on his economic analysis of the ETS, panelist Denny Ellerman (MIT) concluded that the ETS has been successful in achieving emissions reductions at relatively low economic cost and that it is a good model for the U.S. Bruce Misrach (Rutgers) examined the integration of global emissions markets. And Michael Mehling (Ecologic Institute) spoke about the fundamental design features of the ETS and the future of the program. Conference participants were very interested in cap/trade design mechanisms to prevent “leakage” (loss of industrial competitiveness to countries with less stringent regulation) and the extent to which the government should regulate carbon markets.
The conference also featured presentations on climate policies in France, Netherlands and Germany. My hat is off to Rutgers for convening this meeting of leading climate researchers, policymakers and stakeholders.