Data and Code for: Do carbon offsets offset carbon?

Principal Investigator(s):  View help for Principal Investigator(s) Raphael Calel, Georgetown University; Jonathan Colmer, University of Virginia; Antoine Dechezleprêtre, OECD; Matthieu Glachant, MINES ParisTech

Version:  View help for Version V1

Name File Type Size Last Modified
00_Master.R text/x-rsrc 2.8 KB 03/20/2024 06:18:AM
01_BNEF.R text/x-rsrc 279 KB 03/18/2024 07:26:AM
02_CDMpipeline.R text/x-rsrc 9 KB 12/05/2023 11:22:AM
03_CDM.R text/x-rsrc 11.2 KB 03/18/2024 09:40:AM
04_Location.R text/x-rsrc 8.7 KB 12/06/2023 10:05:AM
05_Distance.R text/x-rsrc 25.3 KB 12/06/2023 05:38:AM
06_ISD.R text/x-rsrc 3.3 KB 03/18/2024 09:44:AM
07_ERAdownload1.R text/x-rsrc 436 bytes 12/06/2023 06:27:AM
08_ERAdownload2.py text/x-python 22.2 KB 12/06/2023 06:38:AM
09_CapacityFactors.R text/x-rsrc 20.8 KB 12/06/2023 06:38:AM

Project Citation: 

Calel, Raphael, Colmer, Jonathan, Dechezleprêtre, Antoine, and Glachant, Matthieu. Data and Code for: Do carbon offsets offset carbon? Nashville, TN: American Economic Association [publisher], 2024. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2024-11-22. https://doi.org/10.3886/E195621V1

Project Description

Summary:  View help for Summary We develop and implement a new method for identifying wasted subsidies, and use it to provide systematic evidence on the misallocation of carbon offsets in the Clean Development Mechanism – the world's largest carbon offset program. Using newly constructed data on the locations and characteristics of over 1,000 wind farms in India we estimate that at least 52% of approved carbon offsets were allocated to projects that would very likely have been built anyway. In addition to wasting scarce resources, we estimate that the sale of these offsets to regulated polluters resulted in substantially higher global carbon dioxide emissions.


Funding Sources:  View help for Funding Sources ESRC Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy and the Grantham Foundation

Scope of Project

JEL Classification:  View help for JEL Classification
      H23 Taxation and Subsidies: Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
      H43 Project Evaluation; Social Discount Rate
      L94 Electric Utilities
      Q42 Alternative Energy Sources
      Q54 Climate; Natural Disasters and Their Management; Global Warming
Geographic Coverage:  View help for Geographic Coverage India
Time Period(s):  View help for Time Period(s) 2000 – 2013


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V1 [2024-11-22]

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