Cédric PHILIBERT

Welcome on my personal website. Here you can find my work relating to renewable energies and climate change. French readers, please go here.

My most recent work is on renewable energies. Here a working paper published by the International Energy Agency (IEA) on the interactions between climate change mitigation policies and renewable deployment support policies. Here is the technology roadmap on concentrating solar power (CSP) the IEA published in May 2010, along with its fold-out.

In November 2011 the IEA will publish my book on solar energy – a novelty for the IEA! Please find here the presentation I made in September 1^st 2011 in Kassel (Germany) at the occasion of the World Solar Congress of the International Solar Energy Society (ISES). Details of the study will only be disclosed when the IEA publishes it.

On climate change, my preferred papers explain why quantitative emission targets, as well as emission trading schemes, should include price caps and price floors. This is the only right manner to address the considerable uncertainties surrounding, on one side, the pace, extent and finally damages from climate changes, and on the other side the mitigation costs, which depend on technology evolutions that cannot be entirely forecast, but also on economic growth patterns largely unknown and fossil fuel prices even more volatile. The first study was released by the International Energy Agency (IEA) mid-December 2008. The second one brings about more complete and telling results but includes less details about the model and the method. It was published in December 2009 by the journal Climate Policy.

On my first (and French) page you can find links to a conference I made on this study.

This study assesses the long-term economic and environmental effects of introducing price caps and price floors in hypothetical climate change mitigation architecture, which aims to reduce global energy-related CO2 emissions by 50% by 2050. Based on abatement costs in IPCC and IEA reports, this quantitative analysis confirms what qualitative analyses have already suggested: introducing price caps could significantly reduce economic uncertainty. This uncertainty stems primarily from unpredictable economic growth and energy prices, and ultimately unabated emission trends. In addition, the development of abatement technologies is uncertain.

With price caps, the expected costs could be reduced by about 50% and the uncertainty on economic costs could be one order of magnitude lower. Reducing economic uncertainties may spur the adoption of more ambitious policies by helping to alleviate policy makers’ concerns of economic risks. Meanwhile, price floors would reduce the level of emissions beyond the objective if the abatement costs ended up lower than forecasted.

If caps and floors are commensurate with the ambition of the policy pursued and combined with slightly
tightened emission objectives, climatic results could be on average similar to those achieved with “straight”
objectives (i.e. with no cost-containment mechanism).

Link to the IEA website: http://www.iea.org/

Links to the study (and related links): http://www.iea.org/Textbase/publications/free_new_Desc.asp?PUBS_ID=2077

Papers or presentations on future climate action in chinese (2005), spanish (2003) and portugese (1999).

The last updating was made 11 September 2011.

If you want to know more about me, click here.

In February, I wrote a synthesis of my thoughts on post-2012 climate mitigation architecture for the Environmental Audit Committee of UK’s House of Commons, and attended a session. Uncorrected oral exchanges are here.

Here are some recent papers written for the Bali conference (December 2007):

Ø Emissions trading: trends and prospects (with Julia Reinaud)

Ø Carbon Capture and Storage in the Clean Development Mechanism (with Jane Ellis and Jacek Podkanski)

Some earlier papers:

Ø Technology Penetration and Capital Stock Turnover: Lessons from IEA Scenario Analysi

Ø Certainty versus Ambition - Economic Efficiency in Mitigating Climate Change

Abstract: A key issue for policy makers is how to choose a climate change policy that recognises the uncertainties in the costs and benefits of abatement actions. This paper reviews the economic literature relative to the choice of the economic instruments that could be used to mitigate climate change. Because climate change is driven by the slow build-up of atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, flexible instruments would be more economically efficient than fixed quotas. They may help engage a broader set of countries into a common framework for mitigating climate change, and may facilitate the adoption of relatively more ambitious policies. The certainty of achieving at least some precise levels of emissions would decrease, but the probability of bettering these levels would increase.

For older papers and presentations (on climate change and discounting, in particular), go to my climate change page.

If you have comments or questions, send me a mail: cedric.philibert@iea.org

Cédric Philibert