Effective, efficient or equitable: using allowance allocations to mitigate emissions leakage

The European Union (EU), the US and Australia have each adopted, or are considering, free allocations to emissions-intensive, trade-exposed industries (EITEIs) in order to minimize emissions leakage and industrial offshoring resulting from climate policy.

Differences in the design of these schemes, including how a country defines eligible EITEIs, the scale of allocation and the method of distribution, all have the potential to affect the outcomes of the programmes. In crafting their EITEI allocation formulas, policymakers in each country must balance three important priorities - the economic efficiency of the cap and trade programme, an equitable distribution of the programme's allowances and the effectiveness of the allocations in addressing leakage and competitiveness concerns. These three priorities provide a useful framework for considering the tradeoffs inherent in designing allocation schemes for EITEIs.

Through this lens, policy approaches taken by the EU, US and Australia are evaluated with respect to four important questions of allocation policy design: the definition of EITEIs, the costs to be covered, the methodology for distributing allowances and the duration of free allocation.