BACKGROUND

The potential economic impacts of global policy responses to climate change are highly uncertain, poorly studied, and central to the global policy process. The purpose of this project is to build a series of rolling sub-projects to contribute to the debate on the issues posed above, with a number of partners. One sub-project on negotiating issues for Copenhagen is complete; another sub-project on carbon motivated border tax adjustments has produced a strongly cited working paper. Other sub-projects are underway on China's participation in global environmental negotiations, carbon free trade areas, and national incentives for participation in global negotiations. Several other sub-projects are being launched that will explore the following: the extent of unilateral initiatives on climate change; climate change and future global financial structures; the issue of emissions intensity versus emissions levels in negotiations; and the impacts of carbon taxes and OPEC- non-OPEC oil trade.