France has a very ambitious environmental-policy agenda, aimed chiefly at cutting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions but also at dealing with local air and water pollution, waste management and the conservation of biodiversity. The laws that followed the Grenelle de l’environnement encompass...

We study the incidence of carbon-reduction and green-energy promotion policies in an open fossil-fuel importing general equilibrium economy. The focus is on mixed price-based or quantity-based policies. Instruments directed toward promoting green energy are shown to reduce also carbon emissions...

In this paper we investigate the time-varying relationship between oil and natural gas in the UK. We develop a model where relative prices can move between pricing-regimes; markets switch between being decoupled and integrated. Our model endogenously accounts for periods where oil and natural...

Recent contributions have questioned whether biofuels policies actually lead to emissions reductions, and thus lower climate costs. In this paper we make two contributions to the literature. First, we study the market effects of a renewable fuel standard. Opposed to most previous studies we...

The increase of fuel extraction costs as well as of temperature will make it likely that in the medium-term future technological or political measures against global warming may be implemented. In assessments of a current climate policy the possibility of medium-term future developments like...

Several recent articles have analyzed climate policy giving explicit attention to the non-renewable character of carbon resources. In most of this literature the economy is treated as a single unit, which in the context of climate policy seems reasonable to interpret as the whole world. However,...

Well-intended policies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions may have unintended undesirable consequences. Recently, a large literature has emerged showing under what conditions this so-called ‘Green Paradox’ may occur. We review this literature and identify the key mechanisms behind...

This paper evaluates whether macroeconomic uncertainty changes the impact of oil shocks on the oil price. Using a structural threshold VAR model, we endogenously identify different regimes of uncertainty in which we estimate the effects of oil demand and supply shocks. The results show that...

This article studies the likely impact of unconventional gas developments in the U.S. on EU competitiveness. We find, first of all, little evidence for a prosperous unconventional gas development in Europe. Second, the U.S. boom has already a strong impact on both world and European energy...

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is a project-based carbon trade mechanism that subsidizes the users of climate-friendly technologies and encourages technology transfer. The CDM has provided financial support for a large share of Chinese wind projects since 2002. Using pooled...