In this paper, we use the Global Gas Model to analyze the perspectives and infrastructure needs of the European natural gas market until 2050. Three pathways of natural gas consumption in a future low-carbon energy system in Europe are envisaged: i) a decreasing natural gas consumption, along...

Despite growing scientific evidence that passing a 2êC temperature increase may trigger tipping points in climate dynamics, most Integrated Assessment Models (IAM) based on Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) with smooth quadratic damage functions are unable to account for the possibility of strong...

The Stern/Nordhaus controversy has polarized the widely disparate beliefs about what to do in order to tackle the climate challenge. To explain differences in results and policy recommendations, comments following the publication of the Stern Review have mainly focused on the role played by the...

Impure public goods represent an important group of goods. Almost every public good exerts not only effects which are public to all but also effects which are private to the producer of this good. What is often omitted in the analysis of impure public goods is the fact that – regularly –...

The risk of catastrophes is one of the greatest threats by climate change. Yet, the most common Integrated Assessment Models produce the counterintuitive result that a higher concern about climate change risks does not lead to stronger near-term abatement efforts. This paper probes whether this...

Greenhouse gas policies confront the trade-off between the costs of reducing emissions and the benefits of avoided climate change. The risk of uncertain and potentially irreversible catastrophes is an important issue related to the latter, and one that has not yet been well incorporated into...

The costs of coastal sector impacts from sea level rise (SLR) are an important component of the total projected economic damages of climate change, a major input to decision-making and design of climate policy. Moreover, the ultimate costs to coastal resources will depend strongly on adaptation,...

Catastrophic risk is currently a hotly debated topic. This paper contributes to this debate by showing two results. First it shown that the value function in dynamic optimization can have an infinite derivative at some point even if the model specification has functional forms that are finite...

This paper studies policy instruments that correct insufficient learning-by-doing (LbD) and research and development (R&D) of renewable electricity technologies and insufficient investments in energy efficiency (EE) in the presence of carbon pricing. The theoretical model analysis shows how to...

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...