This paper addresses two basic issues related to technological innovation and climate stabilisation objectives: i) Can innovation policies be effective in stabilising greenhouse gas concentrations? ii) To what extent can innovation policies complement carbon pricing (taxes or permit trading) and...

This paper analyses optimal investments in innovation when dealing with a stringent climate target and with the uncertain effectiveness of R&D. The innovation needed to achieve the deep cut in emissions is modelled by a backstop carbon-free technology whose cost depends on R&D investments. To...

This paper warns against the risk of underestimating the costs -and the uncertainty about the costs- of achieving stringent stabilization targets. We argue that a straightforward review of integrated assessment models results produces biased estimates for the more ambitious climate objectives...

This paper provides a quantitative comparison of the main architectures for an agreement on climate policy. Possible successors to the Kyoto protocol are assessed according to four criteria: economic efficiency; environmental effectiveness; distributional implications; and their political...

This paper investigates the relative economic and environmental outcomes of price versus quantity mechanisms to control GHG emissions when abatement costs are uncertain. In particular, we evaluate the impacts on policy costs, CO2 emissions and energy R&D for a stringent mitigation target of 550...

WITCH - World Induced Technical Change Hybrid - is a regionally disaggregated hard-link hybrid global model with a neoclassical optimal growth structure (top-down) and a detailed energy input component (bottom-up). The model endogenously accounts for technological change, both through learning...