Assessment of acceptable Swiss post-2012 climate policies

In the framework of the revision of the Swiss CO2-Law and in view for the international negotiations that will take place at the next Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN) has proposed a set of instruments and two levels of abatement to define the Swiss climate policy for the post-2012 period. The proposed policies are the results of a consultation procedure that took place at the beginning of 2009 and has allowed major stakeholders and lobbies to defend their interests. Using a hybrid model, we evaluate two proposed scenarios at the 2030 horizon and find important disparities in the prices of carbon faced by the different economic sectors and higher welfare costs than those that would be triggered by a uniform carbon tax.