Carbon Pricing, Technology Investment, and Trade: Integrating Design Elements for a Low Carbon Club

The report outlines discussions from a July 2015 workshop regarding the creation of 'low carbon clubs'—coalitions of countries, regional entities, or nonstate actors cooperating on climate objectives. Participants emphasized that such clubs must provide excludable benefits to members to incentivize participation and prevent free riding. The discussions highlighted the necessity of linking carbon pricing with technology innovation and redistribution to ensure efficiency and consumer acceptability. While a global carbon price is deemed unattainable, these clubs are seen as a way for actors to move at 'multiple speeds' complementary to multilateral frameworks like the UNFCCC and the WTO.

• A low carbon club is conceptualized as a group of countries, regional or subregional entities, or nonstate actors who agree to cooperate on climate objectives such as energy-efficiency standards, renewable energy, or emissions-reduction efforts.
• To be effective and prevent free riding, these clubs must offer benefits to members that are denied to non-members, creating a tangible incentive for actors to comply with standards and join.
• Carbon pricing is viewed as a critical pillar that must be paired with policies for innovation, technology, and redistribution to be efficient and acceptable to consumers; emissions trading schemes were suggested as a model to combine pricing with technology investment.
• Low carbon clubs are intended to complement, rather than replace, existing multilateral systems; specifically, the WTO is seen as capable of supporting plurilateral environmental measures, and the UNFCCC's article 7.2.C supports plurilateral action.

APA

Climate Strategies (2015). Carbon Pricing, Technology Investment, and Trade: Integrating Design Elements for a Low Carbon Club. https://climatestrategies.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/CarbonPricingWkshpRpt1015.pdf

Chicago

Climate Strategies. Carbon Pricing, Technology Investment, and Trade: Integrating Design Elements for a Low Carbon Club. 2015. https://climatestrategies.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/CarbonPricingWkshpRpt1015.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Climate Strategies |title=Carbon Pricing, Technology Investment, and Trade: Integrating Design Elements for a Low Carbon Club |date=October 2015 |url=https://climatestrategies.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/CarbonPricingWkshpRpt1015.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{climatestrategies2015carbon, author = {{Climate Strategies}}, title = {{Carbon Pricing, Technology Investment, and Trade: Integrating Design Elements for a Low Carbon Club}}, institution = {Climate Strategies}, year = {2015}, month = oct, url = {https://climatestrategies.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/CarbonPricingWkshpRpt1015.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }