CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - University of Illinois finance professor Don Fullerton will be the keynote speaker at a Nov. 30 global warming conference for European Union tax commissioners in Brussels, Belgium.
Fullerton, an expert on the economic impact of environmental regulations, will outline cost-effective options to reduce carbon emissions as the 27-nation alliance prepares for December talks in Copenhagen on a new global climate treaty.
A former deputy assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury Department, Fullerton was invited to speak at the conference in Belgium after analyzing climate policy options at an Oct. 2 meeting of EU finance ministers in Gothenburg, Sweden.
The follow-up conference will allow EU officials "to discuss this important and highly relevant subject in a very timely moment of the run up to the international climate change conference in Copenhagen," said Alexander Wiedow, the director of indirect taxation and tax administration at the European Commission.
Fullerton, a researcher for the U. of I. Center for Business and Public Policy and for the Institute of Government and Public Affairs, also will lead a panel discussion at the Brussels conference, expected to draw about 500 policy makers and stakeholders from across Europe who will ultimately design and implement carbon-reducing policies.
To reduce emissions, he supports economic incentives such as a carbon tax or cap-and-trade system rather than mandates. But he says governments should sell cap-and-trade permits, not give them away.
Fullerton also was a guest of German U.S. Ambassador Klaus Scharioth at a dinner this month at the German Embassy in Washington, D.C., to discuss climate policy. Other guests included U.S. Rep. Russ Carnahan, D-Mo., and former Vermont Gov. and Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean.