Speaker: Jonathan Colmer, Associate Professor of Economics and Public Policy, Department of Economics, University of Virginia, and Co-Founder and Director, Environmental Inequality Lab
Date: Thursday, 8 January 2026
Time: 11:30 AM – 12:45 PM
Venue: Seminar Room 2, ISI Main Campus, New Delhi
About the Talk
Jonathan Colmer will be presenting his new paper titled The Global Effects of Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanisms, co-authored by
“Climate change poses a collective action problem: individual countries bear the costs of carbon regulation, while the benefits are shared globally. Carbon border adjustment mechanisms (CBAMs), which are currently being implemented by the EU and UK, aim to realign incentives by improving domestic competitiveness, reducing emissions leakage, and encouraging other countries to tax carbon. However, policy discussions also note that CBAMs could unfairly disadvantage lower-income trading partners. We evaluate these issues with a quantitative trade model and plant-level data for two key industries – steel and aluminum – which are the focus of early CBAM implementation. Together, they account for 14% of global emissions. We show that CBAMs can facilitate collective climate action, while largely avoiding disproportionate burdens on lower-income countries.”
About the Speaker
Jonathan Colmer is an Associate Professor of Economics and Public Policy in the Department of Economics at the University of Virginia, and the Co-Founder and Director of the Environmental Inequality Lab.
Jonathan works to understand how economic activity, policy, and the environment interact to shape prosperity, opportunity, and well-being.
He is a Theme Leader for the Climate & Environment Program at PEDL (CEPR), a research affiliate of CEPR, the CESifo Network, and the IGC, a research fellow of IZA, and a research associate at the Center for Economic Performance. In 2024, he received a National Science Foundation CAREER Award.