A Two-Level Differential Game of International Emissions Trading.

In this chapter we propose a dynamic game-theoretic modeling framework for the international climate change negotiations that should take place at the end of the Kyoto Protocol agreement if the necessity to drastically curb carbon emissions is confirmed. The model is composed of a set of optimal economic growth models corresponding to the different groups of nations that will be parties in the negotiations. Emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) are represented as by-products of the economic production process. Two types of capital (clean vs. dirty) can be used to produce the economic good with different emissions effects. The negotiations should determine a set of allowances that define caps on GHG emissions such that a long-term constraint on total emissions is satisfied. At each instant of time, given the emissions caps, an international emissions trading system is organized. In order to be self-enforcing, the emissions caps and the economic growth paths have to satisfy a noncooperative equilibrium condition. We describe this two-level game structure mathematically and give the necessary optimality conditions that must be satisfied by the equilibrium solution under the coupled global emission constraint. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]