What’s the best way for Europe to curb greenhouse emissions from cars?

Tuesday, November 8, 2016 - 10:31 in Mathematics & Economics

As the European Union contemplates new policies aimed at meeting its emissions-reduction commitments under last year’s Paris Agreement on climate change, a new study by researchers at MIT and elsewhere could provide some valuable guidance on the most effective strategy. Rather than adopt a standard for automotive gas-mileage ratings, as the United States has done with its CAFE (corporate average fuel economy) standards for many years, the EU could achieve the same results for CO2 emission reduction, at far lower cost to the economy, by simply extending their existing emissions-trading system to encompass transportation rather than just electricity generation and energy intensive industry, the researchers found. Switching from the automotive standards to the trading scheme could save as much as 63 billion Euros, says the study’s lead author Sergey Paltsev, deputy director at MIT’s Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change and senior research scientist at the MIT Energy...

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