In the 2009 Copenhagen Accord, China agreed to slash its carbon intensity (carbon dioxide emissions/GDP) by 40% to 45% from the 2005 level by 2020. We assess whether China can achieve the target under the business-as-usual scenario by forecasting its emissions from energy consumption. Our...

In the absence of a global climate agreement, countries employ local policies to curb pollution and introduce clean energy. These policies limit domestic consumption of a traded energy source but increase exports thus improving a country’s energy balance and its balance of trade. While...

We introduce a version of the DICE-2007 model designed for uncertaintyanalysis. DICE is a wide-spread deterministic integrated assessment model of climatechange. Climate change, long-term economic development, and their interactionsare highly uncertain. The quantitative analysis of optimal...

The paper incorporates qualitative differences of probabilistic beliefs into a rational (or normatively motivated) decision framework. Probabilistic beliefs can range from objective probabilities to pure guesstimates. The decision maker in the present model takes into account his confidence in...

The paper analyzes the discount rate under uncertainty. The analysis complements the probabilistic characterization of uncertainty by a measure of confidence. Special cases of the model comprise discounting under smooth ambiguity aversion as well as discounting under a disentanglement of risk...

We analyze the impact of damage uncertainty on optimal mitigation policies in the integrated assessment of climate change. Usually, these models analyzeuncertainty by averaging deterministic paths. In contrast, we build a consistentmodel deriving optimal policy rules under persistent...

Uncertainty has an almost negligible impact on project value in the standardeconomic model. I show that a comprehensive evaluation of uncertainty and uncertainty attitude changes this picture fundamentally. The illustration of this result relies on the discount rate, which is the crucial...

California and Sweden are both leaders in green regulations and actions. In both there is a substantial political base for environmental regulation, yet the path to regulation in these two political entities is quite different. California emphasizes command and control regulations while Sweden...