他山之石｜访顶尖欧洲智库学者：欧盟碳市场的两大挑战和运行经验
CF40研究部邀请到欧洲碳交易体系研究专家、欧洲布鲁盖尔研究所（Bruegel）高级研究员乔治·扎克曼（Georg Zachmann），对欧盟碳交易经验和目前遇到的挑战进行介绍，并就上述国际热点问题分享见解。
▲ 乔治·扎克曼（Georg Zachmann）
Bruegel成立于2005年，位于比利时布鲁塞尔，是国际顶级经济政策智库之一。欧洲能源和气候问题是其重点研究方向之一。
Georg Zachmann表示，碳减排需要整个经济实现重大转型，这需要大力投资低碳技术，同时，重排放的煤矿、燃煤电厂等行业需要转型或者淘汰。但是，气候政策对经济社会产生的冲击可能并不会像自动化、数字化等技术变革的影响那么大。长期来看，探索新机遇比保护传统行业就业更重要。
欧盟碳市场一直是全球各国碳市场建设的标杆。然而新冠疫情以来，欧洲碳价在短暂下跌后大幅上涨。今年5月下旬，欧洲碳价一度涨超56欧元/吨，较年初上涨超50%，引发欧洲一些行业对碳价过高的不满；一些国内专家也对高碳价提出异议。
Georg Zachmann认为，目前欧盟碳定价机制运作良好，价格波动是合理的。欧盟碳市场当前的挑战一是如何将更多的行业纳入碳定价机制中，如运输和热力；二是碳价的上升遭到了来自行业的阻力，因为企业不希望自己的国际竞争力因为碳价上升而受到削弱；消费者因为担心可支配收入下降，也不愿意支付更高的碳价。
他建议，对于前者，可以针对这些行业再推出一个碳排放交易系统，之后再与现有的系统合并。对于后者，“政策制定者可能会给出一个弹性区间，当碳价超出了政策可接受的范围时，就对每年发放的排放配额进行调整，但调整的方式要具有可预见性。”
“这样一来，交易中碳价可以升得很高、或降得很低，但必要时政策会对价格进行逆向干预，以增强碳价的可预测性、避免价格过度波动。”他说。
IMF发布的报告显示，要实现全球变暖控制在2摄氏度以内的目标，2030年碳价应达到75美元/吨，甚至更高。然而，2019年，全球平均碳价仅为2美元/吨，即便目前的欧洲碳价也未达到这一水平。
设计出一个激励相容的机制以使全球朝着碳中和的方向共同努力，对于碳减排非常重要，但就机制本身而言，各国远未达成共识。
今年3月，欧洲议会通过了“碳边境调节机制”（CBAM）议案，称如果一些与欧盟有贸易往来的国家不能遵守碳排放相关规定，欧盟将对这些国家进口商品征收碳关税。欧盟希望这一机制有助于提高欧盟内部的碳价格，并提升欧盟以外国家的气候雄心。但是，国际上也对这一措施带有的贸易保护主义色彩提出质疑。
如果将经济脆弱国家考虑进来，碳关税真的有利于推动全球共同减排吗？
Georg Zachmann表示，试图通过CBAM促使其他国家推出气候政策是行不通的，容易因有越俎代庖之嫌而受到诟病。但是从政治现实来看，只能尽可能合理地设计碳边境调节机制、避免对国际贸易造成太大伤害。我们要严肃看待欧盟目前推动的这个机制、积极有效应对。贸易伙伴应该划出清晰且切合实际的红线，让欧盟找到一个普遍接受的解决方案。
他认为，碳边境调节收入不应计入财政收支，建立一种将碳边境调节收入退回出口国的机制，可能是法律风险最小的做法，但是，更有吸引力的选择可能是把这笔收入用于海外气候投资，这从法律上也是可行的。
为促进全球共同减排，建设全球统一的碳市场也是国际上热议的方案之一，但目前尚未见到可行路径。
中国金融学会会长、中国人民银行原行长周小川在5月9日举行的“2060展望碳中和：能源、技术与投资”交流会上提出，可以试着换一种思路和做法，学习中国金融市场的做法，建立类似沪港通、深港通等机制，把各个碳市场进行市场可控的连通。从起步来讲，应该允许发展中国家每年有一定数量的负值碳配额拿到欧洲碳市场去卖。
Georg Zachmann认为，由于涉及分配和主权问题，短期内很难建设一个全球性的碳定价体系。采取一种更加分散的方式进行跨境碳交易更加可行，但这种方法要想奏效，购买碳排放权的国家所买的必须是卖出国“额外”的碳排放权。这就需要我们探索一种方法，准确评估所交易碳排放权的 “额外性” （additionality）。
他强调，碳定价从经济上来说确实是最有效的促进碳减排的办法，但对于碳减排来说也并非不可或缺。
要推动全球共同努力，应该从既有机制入手，逐步强化联合国气候变化框架公约（UNFCCC）提供的工具，如气候融资、技术转移等，切实激励欠发达国家越过高碳排放的发展阶段，直接迈入使用可再生能源、发展可持续交通与工业的阶段，并逐步降低低碳技术的成本、增强其竞争力，让欠发达国家也能应用和推广这些技术。
他还表示，中国的气候政策非常积极，但是和很多国家一样，现实比理想复杂得多。从欧洲的角度来看，中国如果能够和欧洲共同探讨如何解决碳泄漏的问题，会非常有帮助。
访谈实录
英文实录
1. Some people worry that decarbonization could have negative impacts on the economy and social welfare, such as job loss caused by industrial upgrade, higher cost of carbon products, and rising inflation. How should we assess these impacts and address the problems?
Georg Zachmann：Decarbonisation will require a substantial transformation of our economy. We will have to change the way we move around, heat our homes, produce our goods and generate electricity. This will require substantial investments in low carbon technology such as electric vehicles, electric heating, as well as wind turbines and solar panels. At the same time, some emission intensive sectors, such as coal mines and coal-fired power plants, will have to change or even disappear. The impact that this massive transformation will have on people will, to a large degree, depend on political choices. Incentivising the transition mainly by public subsidies would be prohibitively expensive; relying only on high carbon prices would be a fiscal shock to consumers and industry; and using only standards would be very inefficient. Hence, policy-makers need to come up with a balanced menu of policies that ensures the transition is happening – e.g., by implementing a cap-and-trade system with decreasing issuance of allowances – but also incentivises companies and consumers to invest in new low-carbon technologies to avoid increasing carbon prices. While the disruption from climate policies might not be much bigger than other technology-driven disruptions – such as automation and digitalization – governments still need to address the associated regional and sectoral hardships. In the long term, creating new opportunities is better than protecting old jobs.
2. China plans to realize the 2030/60 goals via market-based mechanisms starting with the national carbon market. Could you give us a brief introduction to the history of the EU-ETS, including how it was initiated and developed? What are the experiences and lessons that other countries could learn from the EU?
Georg Zachmann：The EU ETS is a significant success – having 30 European countries under one single carbon price is economically efficient and the system has become the cornerstone of the EU’s climate policy. The start was, however, not easy. Many academics and policy-makers would have preferred if the EU would have introduced a carbon tax (where the government determines the carbon price) instead of a cap-and-trade system (where the government determines a volume of emissions). But the political architecture of the EU – where each member state has a veto on taxation issues - did not allow for a Europe-wide tax to be introduced. In the first years, free allowances to companies allowed significant windfall profits to corporates, and overallocation depressed prices. These issues might well have been deliberate imperfections to ensure enough political support for the system. The system’s rules have been updated several times and these initial issues have now been largely corrected. The system now has teeth, and increasing carbon prices are encouraging, for example, a speed up of the transition away from coal fired power generation.
3. The recent rise in carbon price in Europe has triggered discussions on the appropriate level and stability of the price.
(1) In your understanding, what is the major problem with carbon pricing in Europe?
Georg Zachmann：Carbon pricing in the EU is working well. The challenge now is to extend it to sectors that are not yet covered, such as transport and heating. This will possibly be done through a second cap-and-trade system that might, over time, be merged with the existing system. Another challenge is that increasing carbon prices face understandable opposition from industry –worried about its international competitiveness – and from consumers who worry about a drop in disposable income. Finding solutions to address these concerns is crucial to avoid politically derailing the system.
(2) How should the carbon price be regulated? Should it be allowed to keep rising, or should it be contained within an appropriate range? How to determine this range and keep the price within it?
Georg Zachmann：Providing political guidance on what price level is politically acceptable might be useful; namely to mute opposition against acceptable price movements. But fixing a concrete range will be politically more difficult than guiding market dynamics in a more indirect way. I believe that policymakers might introduce some forms of “elastic bands” that change the annual issuance of allowances when prices go beyond the boundaries of what was determined as politically acceptable, but in a predictable way. This would imply that prices can still reach very high/low levels if this is what is needed to meet the cap, but the system would start to lean against the wind – increasing predictability and avoiding excess volatility.
4. What functions should the carbon market and carbon pricing mechanism have? To what extent can they promote carbon neutrality？What other policies should be in place to achieve carbon neutrality?
Georg Zachmann：Carbon pricing should provide strong and clear price signals to operators of and investors in carbon intensive technologies. Operators should be encouraged to explore their carbon intensive assets (such as coal plants) less when alternatives are available. The carbon price should encourage investors to not finance new carbon intensive assets (such as open hearth furnaces). Accordingly, it is important that most important emissions are covered, that companies cannot avoid carbon pricing, and that the price signal is robust and credible in the short and long term.
There are many complimentary policies that increase the effectiveness and political acceptability of carbon pricing, such as support for low carbon technologies and social compensations.
5. For countries to work together towards carbon neutrality, do we need an incentive-compatible mechanism? How can we build such a mechanism?
Georg Zachmann：Like all your questions, this is a very important one for decarbonisation, and also one on which there is no academic consensus - hundreds of scholars have written thousands of books on the topic. My take would be that we should work with what we have – the UNFCCC process that culminated in the Paris Agreement. We should gradually strengthen the instruments it provides, such as climate finance and technology transfer, in a way that creates true incentives for less developed countries leap-frog the high-emissions development phase and directly move to renewable energy and sustainable transport and industry. In particular, I believe that public support to research, innovation, demonstration and deployment of low carbon technologies can bring about the general cost degressions needed to make these technologies competitive, even in less developed countries.
6. The European Parliament passed a resolution to support the introduction of the cross-border adjustment mechanism (CBAM), planning to impose a border adjustment tax to prevent carbon transfer and leakage and protect local industries’ competitiveness. However, some countries have considered this proposal to be protectionist.
(1) Fragile economies taken into account, will border adjustment tax facilitate carbon neutrality around the globe? What are the positive and negative influences it might have?
Georg Zachmann：At best, a CBAM will be devised but never be used. If, for example, exporter countries introduce domestic carbon pricing, importer countries will not impose carbon border adjustments. This would have the double benefit of allowing importer countries to pursue higher climate ambition, and allowing exporter countries to avoid paying any adjustments.
At worst, disputes about the legality and fairness of a CBAM lead to high economic uncertainty, delayed decarbonization and possibly even to an intense trade-war. Avoiding this outcome will require diplomatic skills on both sides.
(2) How to design the cross-border adjustment mechanism so that it could promote global carbon reduction while preventing trade protectionism and trade wars? Are there better ways to achieve this goal?
Georg Zachmann：I think that using CBAM to push other countries to introduce climate policies is set to fail as it can be perceived as an overreach. Two alternative approaches come to mind. One would be applying domestic carbon consumption taxes on all goods, both domestically produced and imported. This would, however, be difficult for the EU political architecture, as it requires a unanimous vote on taxation. The second alternative would be to aggressively support low carbon alternatives. This could make domestic green production competitive without having to resort to any border adjustment, and it would, at the same time, promote technology development.
Still, I think the political reality is that we will have to find a way to devise a CBAM mechanism that does not do too much harm. Thus the discussion on the current European proposal should be taken seriously and be reacted to constructively. Trade partners should trace clear, but realistic, red lines and allow the EU to find a commonly acceptable solution.
(3) In your view, how should revenue from the border adjustment tax be used? Some think all the revenue should be used to purchase negative carbon quotas from developing countries to support their carbon reduction effort and avoid misuse. Do you agree with this?
Georg Zachmann：I agree that CBAM revenues should not be put into the budget as this increases the risk of them being perceived as a political – rather than a climate - tool. I presume a mechanical way of returning the money to the exporting country might be the least likely to be legally challenged – but if using CBAM revenues for sensible climate investments overseas is a legally feasible option, it would indeed be attractive.
7. Is it necessary and feasible to build a globally unified system for carbon pricing? Some have come up with an alternative solution— to develop controllable connections among different carbon markets. What is your take on this?
Georg Zachmann：I think that it will be very difficult to establish a global carbon pricing system anytime soon. The distributional and sovereignty issues involved might make it too hard to ever get there. And – despite being the most economically efficient solution - I am not convinced that it is ultimately needed to decarbonise. In my view, a more decentralised approach to carbon trading across borders is feasible, would be economically sensible, and can even serve to finance low-carbon investments in less developed countries. But this will only work if buyer countries can commit to only buying truly additional emission reductions from seller countries. Here, we would need to come up with a gold-standard for assessing the additionality of emission reductions.
8. Though China has proposed the 2030/60 goals, the country now still accounts for about one third of global carbon emission. While striving to deliver its commitments in due course, China has to balance decarbonization efforts with the need to maintain economic growth and stability. What advice would you give to the Chinese government in designing and implementing related policies?
Georg Zachmann：Chinese climate policy headlines are quite positive. Setting 2060 targets for net neutrality, fast deployment of renewable electricity generation, development of new low carbon technologies and introduction of an emission trading system sound very good. But I also observe that – like in most countries - the realities are more complicated. Moreover, it would be extremely useful, from a European perspective, if China could discuss with Europe how to jointly address European concerns about carbon leakage. If done well, this would not only prevent rising emissions outside Europe but also allow to increase European ambition and hence be very helpful for global decarbonization.
责编: 鲁西 李俊虎 | 翻译：佳茜 | 视觉：李盼
监制：卜海森 李俊虎