Distributional Implications of Climate Change From Integrated Assessment Models

The recent stand by in post – Kyoto negotiations highlights the difficulties arising at the international level in agreeing on policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Developed countries complain that mitigation actions implying a disproportionate abatement effort on their part, while not involving emerging economies would be ineffective. Developing regions, on the other hand, refuse to join international agreements claiming that they are not responsible for the today’s CO2 concentrations and defending their right to fast economic growth. In this context, distributional aspects of climate change are becoming more and more relevant. However, the existing literature mainly focuses on the distribution of emissions rather than on that of damages . In this paper we use CGE models to asseess the robustness of the result by Tol et al. 2004 that inequality in the distribution of impacts:”will deteriorate for more than a century before becoming more equalitarian”.