The Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition has announced it will convene the world’s first Carbon Pricing Research Conference, in January 2019.

The Call for Papers is open until April 15, 2018.


From the CPLC:

Powerful tools are needed to achieve the large-scale emission reductions required under the Paris Agreement. Putting a price on carbon pollution is one of the most potent and efficient strategies used by governments and businesses alike to reduce carbon emissions and combat climate change.  Notably, more than 100 countries are considering use of carbon pricing initiatives as part of their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), through emissions trading within or across borders, international crediting, carbon taxation and other measures.

img_0947-1
The CPLC was launched during the COP21 in Paris, after more than a year of consultations with strategic partners. At the first annual governing assembly (shown here), a goal was adopted to cover 50% of global carbon emissions with some form of carbon pricing within 10 years. The Resilience Intel team reported on a detailed priority-sharing roundtable during the the COP23 UN climate negotiations.

The Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition (CPLC) was established to provide a forum for collaborative personal and organizational leadership on carbon pricing. It aims to foster bold leadership on many levels – by governments, companies, and the academic and NGO communities – to drive action and collaboration to implement effective carbon pricing policies and bring an increasing share of global emissions under a carbon pricing instrument.

Over the past several years, we have seen a proliferation of carbon pricing approaches around the world and an increase in the diversity of such approaches. Research has underpinned much of the progress made to date and helped understand, inter alia, design features of carbon pricing instruments; success factors for effective implementation; ways to address market and competitive distortions; and the role and alignment of companion policies. In addition, a growing body of experience and data is accumulating from the operation and modelling of different carbon pricing approaches, from which much can be learned.

The application of carbon pricing instruments has revealed new or persistent challenges around market stability and liquidity; managing transitions and impacts in relation to carbon intensive sectors and communities; addressing overlapping policies; combining carbon pricing instruments; expanding the scope of carbon pricing to more heterogeneous sectors of the economy; and adjusting system designs over time to realise committed ambition levels.

Research and analysis can underpin effective carbon pricing design and implementation. With the goal to strengthen the knowledge base on carbon pricing and foster an improved understanding of the evolving challenges to its successful application, the CPLC will convene researchers and practitioners for a CPLC Research Conference, scheduled to take place in January 2019. Leveraging its high-level membership of governments, the private sector, and civil society organisations, the Coalition will draw on outcomes of this conference to help bridge the existing gap between theory and practice, and to inform future decisions taken by policy makers and corporate leaders.

Members of the carbon pricing research community are encouraged to submit abstracts for consideration in the CPLC Research Conference. Proposed papers can originate from any discipline, including – but not limited to – economics, political science, international relations, and law, or be interdisciplinary in approach. Accepted papers will be of the highest academic quality, offer relevant insights for practice, and aspire to shape the next frontier of carbon pricing research and policy. Many countries have included carbon pricing in their NDCs, and negotiators are working to agree on the rules for Article 6 of the Paris Agreement at COP24. Abstracts are encouraged to consider the links with these crucial developments in the climate change negotiations and implications for design, advancement, and NDC implementation and partnership support.

Abstracts from young and emerging scholars as well as from researchers based in developing countries are particularly welcome. Travel and accommodation funding will be available for selected participants. Abstracts and outcomes of the conference will be published in conference proceedings, and selected papers will be published in an academic journal or a conference volume with a leading academic publisher.

Relevant research themes include, but are not limited to, the following topics:

  • Learning from past and current experience: Case studies on carbon pricing design and implementation, performance review and evaluation, comparing carbon pricing systems and their effects, understanding actors and affected markets, results of modelling to assess/compare environmental, macroeconomic, and distributional outcomes of different approaches, etc.;
  • Political economy of carbon pricing: Political acceptance and feasibility of carbon pricing, use of carbon pricing revenue, distributional effects of carbon pricing, dealing with adverse impacts of carbon pricing, etc.;
  • Carbon pricing and development: Financing sustainable development with carbon pricing, fiscal aspects of carbon pricing, co-benefits of carbon pricing (indirect effects on pollution, employment implications, economic diversification), pathways to a just transition, etc.;
  • Carbon pricing and competitiveness: Understanding impacts of carbon pricing on competitiveness, effects and limitations of policy options to address leakage and competitiveness concerns (free allocation, tax exemptions, alternative approaches), etc.;
  • Role of carbon pricing in decarbonisation: Complementary policies and policy interactions, hybrid approaches to carbon pricing, dynamic effects and climate policy ambition, role of carbon pricing in innovation and energy transition, internal carbon pricing, etc.;
  • Emerging frontiers of carbon pricing: Linkage and convergence of carbon pricing systems, policy transfer and diffusion across jurisdictions, extending carbon pricing to new sectors (aviation, shipping, agriculture and forestry), carbon pricing under the Paris Agreement (e.g. operationalisation of Art. 6 and NDC (Partnership) support), etc.

Abstracts of 150 words are due by April 15th 2018, and should be submitted using the form found here.

If you have any questions, email the CPLC Secretariat at: info@carbonpricingleadership.org. All submissions will undergo review and selection by a Scientific Committee chaired by Michael Mehling (MIT) and Andrei Marcu (ICTSD). Selection decisions will be communicated by May 31st 2018, and full papers for conference presentation will be due by October 31st 2018. Conference proceedings will be published in an edited volume and/or a high-impact, peer-reviewed journal.

Further information on the conference format and objectives, the Scientific Committee, and opportunities for academic engagement with the CPLC can be obtained from Michael Mehling (mmehling@mit.edu) and Andrei Marcu (amarcu@ictsd.ch).


From the Resilience Intel coordinating team:

Resilience Intel looks to provide actionable insight to decision-makers at any level about the climate intelligence and future investment value of spending choices, finance initiatives, and policy options. Efficient, effective equitable carbon pricing that builds value at the human scale has significant economy-shaping potential to increase the value and efficacy of climate-smart finance choices.

We will be presenting a list of Resilience Intel-related research priorities for consideration and discussion, in the run up to and at the 2019 CPLC Carbon Pricing Research Conference.