Downstream Emissions Trading for Transport

Charles Raux (1)

1 LET - Laboratoire d'économie des transports

This chapter addresses the issue of downstream emission trading within the transport sector. It is argued that emission trading may be relevant in this sector, and that hybrid instruments combining tradable permits with taxation may be particularly efficient. Moreover, there is no sound reason to dismiss downstream trading in principle on the basis of their potentially high transaction costs because of the large number of mobile sources to deal with. Downstream schemes are presented, which are feasible both on technical and institutional grounds. Regarding the need to coordinate transport emissions reduction at the international level, and especially regarding international transport, it is argued that emission trading in transport could be quickly implemented contrary to harmonisation of fuel taxation. It is concluded that the urgency now is to design and test fine-tuned practical schemes to actually implement policy aiming at deep reduction of fossil fuel consumption.

Mots clés: transport; emission trading; downstream; Europe; international coordination

Domaines: Economies et finances

Charles Raux. Downstream Emissions Trading for Transport. Werner Rothengatter; Yoshitsugu Hayashi; Wolfgang Schade. Transport Moving to Climate Intelligence. New Chances for Controlling Climate Impacts of Transport after the Economic Crisis, Springer, pp.209-226, 2011, Transportation Research, Economics and Policy, Print ISBN 978-1-4419-7642-0, Online ISBN 978-1-4419-7643-7. ⟨10.1007/978-1-4419-7643-7_14⟩. ⟨halshs-01695597⟩