The Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project (DDPP), an initiative of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI), aims to demonstrate how countries can transform their energy systems by 2050 in order to...

We couple a spatially homogeneous energy balance climate model with an economic growth model which incorporates two potential policies against climate change: mitigation, which is the traditional policy, and geoengineering. We analyze the optimal policy mix of geoengineering and mitigation in...

Which kind of reaction can a nation or group of nations expect when leading by example in climate policy? This literature survey describes possible positive reaction mechanisms from different fields of economics, some of which have scarcely been linked to climate economics previously. One effect...

The paper clarifies the link between changes in risk aversion and the effect on the consumption discount rate. In a general framework that can cope with various forms of uncertainty, it is shown that the response of the consumption discount rate to a change in risk aversion depends on some...

Myriad policy measures aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the electricity sector, promote generation from renewable sources, and encourage energy conservation. To what extent do innovation and energy efficiency (EE) market failures justify additional interventions when a carbon price is...

This paper examines how changes in an international climate regime would affect the European decarbonization strategy and costs through the mechanisms of trade, technology, and innovation. We present the results from the Energy Modeling Forum (EMF) model comparison study on European climate...

In this paper we characterize the preferences of a pessimistic social planner concerned with the potential costs of extreme, low-probability climate events. This pessimistic attitude is represented by a recursive optimization criterion à la Hansen and Sargent (1995) that introduces...

After twenty years of global negotiations, the world is still far from a comprehensive climate agreement. The "top-down" approach embodied by the Kyoto Protocol has all but stalled, chiefly due to disagreements over levels of ambition and objections to financial transfers. To avoid those...

The Energy Modeling Forum 28 (EMF28) study systematically explores the energy system transition required to meet the European goal of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 80% by 2050. The 80% scenario is compared to a reference case that aims to achieve a 40% GHG reduction target. The...