Cédric PHILIBERT
Hello,
I’ve just (October 2012)
been launching a blog, which I hope to update quite frequently. On this website you’ll find
older working papers, books and presentations, mostly related to climate change
and renewable energies. To go the French pages of this website please go here.
My 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 December 2011 the IEA
published my book on solar energy. Please find here the presentation I made in September 1st
2011 in Kassel (Germany) at the occasion of the World Solar Congress of the
International Solar Energy Society (ISES).
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