The potential of geoengineering as an alternative or complementary option to mitigation and adaptation has received increased interest in recent years. The scientific assessment of geoengineering is driven to a large extent by assumptions about its effectiveness, costs, and impacts, all of which...

This paper presents the first empirical test of the green paradox hypothesis, according to which well-intended but imperfectly implemented policies may lead to detrimental environmental outcomes due to supply side responses. We use the introduction of the Acid Rain Program in the U.S. as a case...

Implementing an effective climate policy is one of the main challenges for our future. Even though ambitious mitigation targets are necessarily costly, curbing GHG emissions can prevent future irreversible impacts of climate change on human kind and the environment. Climate policy is therefore...

That climate policies are costly is evident and therefore often creates major fears. But the alternative (no action) also has a cost. Mitigation costs and damages incurred depend on what the climate policies are; moreover, they are substitutes. This brings climate policies naturally in the realm...

Carbon budgets have emerged as a robust metric of warming, but little is known about the usefulness of regional carbon budgets as indicators of policy. This article explores the potential of regional carbon budgets to inform climate policy. Using the large database of scenarios from IPCC AR5...

We assess the optimality of investments in power grid innovation, under both technological options of Super and Smart Grids, using the WITCH model in the version that includes Super-Grids. Super Grids allow producing and trading of electricity generated by large scale concentrated solar power...

We build a system dynamics model to evaluate the potential dynamics of consumer adoption of Smart Energy Behaviour. Within this term we include different levels of: i) shift in electricity consumption towards less costly-less polluting and congestioning hours; ii) the reduction of mainly...

International carbon offsets have been promoted since the Kyoto Protocol and an increasing number of countries have implemented or proposed cap-and-trade schemes with international trading, even though with quantitative or qualitative restrictions. Those limits reflect the trade-off between...

We propose a realistic approach to climate policy based on the Copenhagen Agreement to reduce Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) emissions. We assess by how much the non-binding, although official, commitments to reduce emissions made in Copenhagen will affect the level of world GHGs emissions in 2020. Our...

The FP6 TOCSIN project has evaluated climate change mitigation options in China and India and the conditions for strategic cooperation on research, development and demonstration (RD&D) and technology transfer with the European Union. In particular, the project investigated the strategic...