Search

Begin New Search
Proceed to Checkout

Search Results for All:
(Showing results 1 to 5 of 5)



The Economics of a Lost Deal: Kyoto - The Hague - Marrakesh

Jean-Charles Hourcade and Frederic Ghersi

Year: 2002
Volume: Volume23
Number: Number 3
DOI: 10.5547/ISSN0195-6574-EJ-Vol23-No3-1
View Abstract

Abstract:
This paper examines prospects for compromise between competing perspectives on four key climate change issues: costs, level of domestic action, environmental integrity, and developing world involvement. It focuses on the policy issues stemming from uncertainty about abatement costs. Based on extensive simulations of a model integration tool, SAP12 (Stochastic Assessment of Climate Policies, 12 models), the analysis considers options for fine-tuning the Kyoto Protocol, such as concrete ceilings or levies on carbon imports; "environmental restoration payments" to be made on excess emissions; and credits for sequestration activities in Annex B countries. It demonstrates that a restoration payment (implemented through a safety valve) emerges as a superior means of addressing the cost uncertainty issue. The paper concludes that had this approach been taken at the COP6 climate negotiations in The Hague, there would have been substantial room for compromise on payments of $35 to $100 per ton of carbon. Examining the Marrakesh (COP7) climate accord, it derives some lessons for attempts at completing Kyoto's unfinished business or at moving on to a new framework.



Endogenous Structural Change and Climate Targets Modeling Experiments with Imaclim-R

Renaud Crassous, Jean-Charles Hourcade, Olivier Sassi

Year: 2006
Volume: Endogenous Technological Change
Number: Special Issue #1
DOI: 10.5547/ISSN0195-6574-EJ-VolSI2006-NoSI1-13
View Abstract

Abstract:
This paper envisages endogenous technical change that results from the interplay between the economic growth engine, consumption, technology and localization patterns. We perform numerical simulations with the recursive dynamic general equilibrium model Imaclim-R to study how modeling induced technical change affects costs of CO2 stabilization. Imaclim-R incorporates innovative specifications about final consumption of transportation and energy to represent critical stylized facts such as rebound effects and demand induction by infrastructures and equipments. Doing so brings to light how induced technical change may not only lower stabilization costs thanks to pure technological progress, but also trigger induction of final demand�effects critical to both the level of the carbon tax and the costs of policy given a specific stabilization target. Finally, we study the sensitivity of total stabilization costs to various parameters including both technical assumptions as accelerated turnover of equipments and non-energy choices as alternative infrastructure policies.



Hybrid Modeling: New Answers to Old Challenges Introduction to the Special Issue of The Energy Journal

Jean-Charles Hourcade, Mark Jaccard, Chris Bataille, and Frederic Ghersi 

Year: 2006
Volume: Hybrid Modeling
Number: Special Issue #2
DOI: 10.5547/ISSN0195-6574-EJ-VolSI2006-NoSI2-1
View Abstract

Abstract:
After nearly two decades of debate and fundamental disagreement, top-down and bottom-up energy-economy modelers, sometimes referred to as modeling �tribes�, began to engage in productive dialogue in the mid-1990s (IPCC 2001). From this methodological conversation have emerged modeling approaches that offer a hybrid of the two perspectives. Yet, while individual publications over the past decade have described efforts at hybrid modeling, there has not as yet been a systematic assessment of their prospects and challenges. To this end, several research teams that explore hybrid modeling held a workshop in Paris on April 20�21, 2005 to share and compare the strategies and techniques that each has applied to the development of hybrid modeling. This special issue provides the results of the workshop and of follow-up efforts between different researchers to exchange ideas.



Macroeconomic Consistency issues in E3 Modeling: The Continued Fable of the Elephant and the Rabbit

Frederic Ghersi and Jean-Charles Hourcade

Year: 2006
Volume: Hybrid Modeling
Number: Special Issue #2
DOI: 10.5547/ISSN0195-6574-EJ-VolSI2006-NoSI2-3
View Abstract

Abstract:
Starting from a short presentation of the limits of using conventional production functions to hybridize energy-economy relationships, this paper presents a methodology aiming at a better integration of bottom-up policy scenarios in a top-down static general equilibrium framework. Along the lines of Ahmad�s innovation possibility curve, the methodology consists in implementing top-down envelopes of production and demand functions, whose variable point elasticities of substitution provide a flexible interface for calibration on any bottom-up expertise. Numerical experiments assessing the impact of a rising carbon tax on the global 2030 economy compare the application of this methodology to that of two standard CES-based approaches. Results confirm that, in case of large departures from reference scenarios or of strong convexities in bottom-up results, the use of conventional CES production and utility functions may lead to a significant bias in cost assessment.



The Timing of Biological Carbon Sequestration and Carbon Abatement in the Energy Sector Under Optimal Strategies Against Climate Risks

Vincent Gitz, Jean-Charles Hourcade and Philippe Ciais

Year: 2006
Volume: Volume 27
Number: Number 3
DOI: 10.5547/ISSN0195-6574-EJ-Vol27-No3-7
View Abstract

Abstract:
This paper addresses the timing of the use of biological carbon sequestration and its capacity to alleviate the carbon constraint on the energy sector. We constructed a stochastic optimal control model balancing the costs of fossil emission abatement, the opportunity costs of lands allocated to afforestation, and the costs of uncertain climate damages. We show that a minor part of the sequestration potential should start immediately as a "brake", slowing down both the rate of growth of concentrations and the rate of abatement in the energy sector, thus increasing the option value of the emission trajectories. But, most of the potential is put in reserve to be used as a "safety valve" after the resolution of uncertainty, if a higher and faster decarbonization is required: sequestration cuts off the peaks of costs of fossil abatement and postpones the pivoting of the energy system by up to two decades.





Begin New Search
Proceed to Checkout

 

© 2024 International Association for Energy Economics | Privacy Policy | Return Policy