Climat : papiers de recherche moissonnés (28/10/2015)

Quantifying the Ancillary Benefits of the Representative Concentration Pathways on Air Quality in Europe / Milan Šcasný, Emanuele Massetti, Jan Melichar, Samuel Carrara. Milan : Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei, 2015, 38 p. (nota di lavoro ; 2015-084) http://www.feem.it/userfiles/attach/20151015140534NDL2015-084.pdf

This paper presents estimates of the economic benefit of air quality improvements in Europe that occur as a side effect of GHG emission reductions. We consider three climate policy scenarios that reach radiative forcing levels in 2100 of three Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs). These targets are achieved by introducing a global uniform tax on all GHG emissions in the Integrated Assessment Model WITCH, assuming both full as well as limited technological flexibility. The resulting consumption patterns of fossil fuels are used to estimate the physical impacts and the economic benefits of pollution reductions on human health and on key assets by implementing the most advanced version of the ExternE methodology with its Impact Pathway Analysis. We find that the mitigation scenario compatible with +2°C reduces total pollution costs in Europe by 76%. Discounted ancillary benefits are more than €2.5 trillion between 2015 and 2100. The monetary value of reduced pollution is equal to €22 per abated ton of CO2 in Europe. Less strict climate policy scenarios generate overall smaller, but still considerable, local benefits (14 € or 18 € per abated ton of CO2). Without discounting, the ancillary benefits are in a range of €36 to €50 per ton of CO2 abated. Cumulative ancillary benefits exceed the cumulative additional cost of electricity generation in Europe. Each European country alone would be better off if the mitigation policy was implemented, although the local benefits in absolute terms vary significantly across the countries. We can identify the relative losers and winners of ancillary benefits in Europe. In particular, we find that large European countries contribute to as much as they benefit from ancillary benefits. The scenarios with limited technology flexibility do deliver results that are similar to the full technology flexibility scenario.

Policy Surveillance in the G-20 Fossil Fuel Subsidies Agreement: Lessons for Climate Policy / Joseph E. Aldy. Milan : Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei, 2015, 29 p. (nota di lavoro ; 2015-083) http://www.feem.it/userfiles/attach/20151015135474NDL2015-083.pdf

Inadequate policy surveillance has undermined the effectiveness of multilateral climate agreements. To illustrate an alternative approach to transparency, I evaluate policy surveillance under the 2009 G-20 fossil fuel subsidies agreement. The Leaders of the Group of 20 nations tasked their energy and finance ministers to identify and phase-out fossil fuel subsidies.  The G-20 leaders agreed to submit their subsidy reform strategies to peer review and to independent expert review conducted by international organizations. This process of developed and developing countries pledging to pursue the same policy objective, designing and publicizing implementation plans, and subjecting plans and performance to review by international organizations differs considerably from the historic approach under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. This paper draws lessons from the fossil fuel subsidies agreement for climate policy surveillance.

Environnement et Croissance: Essais sur des Implications des Choix Altruistes des Ménages / Karine Constant. Thèse de Sciences Économiques, université Aix-Marseille,soutenue publiquement le 15 juillet 2015  http://karine-constant.fr/files/KarineConstantThesis.pdf

(…) nous voulons porter une attention particulière au rôle central des ménages dans la relation entre croissance et environnement, parce que leurs choix sont déterminants à un niveau agrégé s’agissant des effets de l’économie sur l’environnement (consommation polluante, émission de déchets, taille de la population etc.) et parce qu’ils sont également les premiers touchés par les dommages environnementaux, ce qui engendre une modification de leurs comportements. L’objectif de cette thèse est alors de compléter la compréhension théorique des conséquences des choix des ménages sur les interactions entre les sphères économiques et environnementales, mais aussi de proposer des recommandations politiques pour solutionner les problèmes en découlant…

The European Climate Policy is Ambitious: Myth or Reality? / Marie-Hélène Hubert, Catherine Benjamin et Isabelle Cadore, Revue d’économie politique, vol. 125, 2015/5, pp. 731-753 https://www.cairn.info/revue-d-economie-politique-2015-5-page-731.htm

We investigate carbon emission trends among EU Member States by testing the assumption of β-type convergence in per capita CO₂ emissions, conditional upon per capita output, world oil price, energy use per capita and investment in renewable energy. Our study supports the assumption of conditional convergence among all EU Member States. It should take around 10 years for the EU-15 countries to stabilize their per capita emissions. This result holds if we include the new Member States in the sample. We also find that the emission growth/GDP relation is strictly negative, indicating that EU-15 countries switched to a less carbon intensive economy starting from the early 1990s. This result remains robust when the new Member States are included. We therefore argue that the decline in EU carbon emissions is a long-term trend and not a result of the economic crisis. We then discuss the effectiveness of climate and energy policies and the EU burden-sharing agreement. Some countries like Germany, Great Britain and France can meet their carbon targets without adopting more aggressive climate and energy policies by 2020. Other EU-15 Member States can reduce their domestic emissions beyond their targets if they adopt energy-efficient technologies. Most of the new Member States emit much less than their domestic targets even when per capita income and oil price increase.