A Gold Standard for Equity in Climate Cap-and-Trade Programs
California’s Global Warming Solutions Act, known as AB 32, calls for reducing statewide greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.1 This ambitious goal demands that California explore every opportunity to reduce emissions throughout the economy and in every community, while being sensitive to potential adverse impacts on the state’s most vulnerable citizens. While the rest of the nation debates pathways to an efficient and equitable climate policy, California’s Air Resources Board (ARB) is tasked with detailing a cap-and-trade program that will cover 85 percent of statewide emissions by 2020. Cap-and-trade and a portfolio of complementary measures are expected to yield reductions of 150 MtCO2e in 2020 compared to status quo conditions.2 In the near term, global climate policy is likely to increase the costs on businesses and consumers. The poorest communities that are already spending a greater portion of their income on basic household expenditures will be hit hardest by even small increases on utility bills and higher prices at the gas pump and grocery store. California has the opportunity to avoid those disparate impacts by deA Gold Standard for Equity in Climate Cap-and-Trade Programs
Effect of County-Level Income on Vehicle Age Distribution and Emissions
In conjunction with a statewide emissions inventory of on-road mobile sources in Tennessee, a county-by-county analysis of vehicle registration data was performed. Several interesting trends were observed in the kinds and ages of vehicles driven in Tennessee counties compared with national statistics and compared with the average personal income of county residents. In particular, median vehicle age correlated strongly with average personal income for each county. Vehicle fleets were oldest in lowestincome counties and newest in the highest-income county; median vehicle age was 10.8 years in the former and only 5.9 years in the latter. This difference in vehicle age results in average mobile-source emissions factors 63% higher for nitrogen oxides, 73% higher for carbon monoxide, and 104% higher for volatile organic compounds in the lowest-income counties than in the highest-income counties, based on the MOBILE6 emissions model run for calendar year 2000. The low-income counties also registered 76% more light-duty trucks per capita than the national average, and these trucks were 5 years older than the national median age. It is concluded that county-level personal income is a good predictor of vehicle age and can be used as a readily obtainable indication of whether local vehicle registration data should be used to improve the accuracy of emissions inventories (instead of national defaults or statewide averages). County-level personal income also can be used as a basis for determining whether more than one vehicle age distribution should be used for modeling mobile-source emissions within a state, a metropolitan area, or an airshed.
Did the metamorphosis from Export Processing Zones to Special Economic Zones improve the efficiency of trade enclaves in India?
In this paper, the efficiency of seven conventional Special Economic Zones in India is analyzed, by adopting a stochastic production frontier technique, for the period between 1986–1987 and 2007–2008.Results indicate that although the efficiency scores of these enclaves have improved over the years, specifically with the introduction of the SEZ policy (2000–2001), it is far below the threshold level as identified in the literature. Besides, one can also observe a discrepancy emerging between better export earning zones and efficient zones. On the determinants side, policy intervention and large geographical area, accompanied by clustering of units, are found to have impacted the efficiency scores of these enclaves positively.