Carbon Capture and Sequestration: How Much Does this Uncertain Option Affect Near-Term Policy Choices?

One of the main issues in the climate policy agenda, the timing of abatement efforts, hinges on the uncertainties of climate change risks and technological evolution. We use a stochastic optimization framework and jointly explore these two features. First, we embed in the model future potential large-scale availability of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technologies. While non-CCS mitigation that reduces fossil energy use is modelled as exerting inertia on the economic system, mainly due to the durability of the capital in energy systems and to technology lock-in and lock-out phenomena, the implementation of CCS technologies is modelled as implying less resilience of the system to changes in policy directions. Second, climate uncertainty is related in the model to the atmospheric temperature response to an increase in GHGs concentration. Performing different simulation experiments, we find that the environmental target, derived from a cost-benefit analysis, should be more ambitious when CCS is included in the picture. Moreover, the possible future availability of CCS is not a reason to significantly reduce near-term optimal abatement efforts. Finally, the availability of better information on the climate cycle is in general more valuable than better information on the CCS technological option.Climate change, Uncertainty, Sequestration, Cost-benefit analysis

Carbon capture and sequestration: how much does this uncertain option affect near-term policy choices?

Policy makers as well as many economists recognize geological Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) as a key option to avoid costly emission reduction. While an extreme perspective is to envision CCS as a magic bullet to solve the issue of climate change, the economics perspective is more balanced and see it as a part of a portfolio of mitigation actions. Besides, as any novel mitigation technology, CCS can be implemented with a twofold purpose; on one side it can substitute some other technological efforts to reach a given environmental target. On the other side, it offers the opportunity to go for additional emission reductions andreach a "safer" climate target. In order to balance these twopossible utilizations of CCS and assess their respective effects onearly policystrategies, we undertake a twofold numerical experiment. First, a cost-efficiency analysis is undertaken where CCS sole effect is substitution of other efforts. This is followed by a cost-benefit analysis where both purposes have to be balanced. We find that future availability of CCS is less a reason to relax near-term abatement efforts than what could be inferred from previous analyses. Moreover, cost-benefit analysis indicates that the environmental target should be more ambitious when CCS is included in the picture.Climate Change, Uncertainty, Sequestration, Cost-benefit analysis

Precautionary Effect and Variations of the Value of Information

For a sequential, two-period decision problem with uncertainty and under broad conditions (non-finite sample set, endogenous risk, active learning and stochastic dynamics), a general sufficient condition is provided to compare the optimal initial decisions with or without information arrival in the second period. More generally the condition enables the comparison of optimal decisions related to different information structures. It also ties together and clarifies many conditions for the so-called irreversibility effect that are scattered in the environmental economics literature. A numerical illustration with an integrated assessment model of climate-change economics is provided.Value of Information, Uncertainty, Irreversibility effect, Climate change

Carbon capture and sequestration: how much does this uncertain option affect near-term policy choices?

Policy makers as well as many economists recognize geological Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) as a key option to avoid costly emission reduction. While an extreme perspective is to envision CCS as a magic bullet to solve the issue of climate change, the economics perspective is more balanced and see it as a part of a portfolio of mitigation actions. Besides, as any novel mitigation technology, CCS can be implemented with a twofold purpose; on one side it can substitute some other technological efforts to reach a given environmental target. On the other side, it offers the opportunity to go for additional emission reductions andreach a "safer" climate target. In order to balance these twopossible utilizations of CCS and assess their respective effects onearly policystrategies, we undertake a twofold numerical experiment. First, a cost-efficiency analysis is undertaken where CCS sole effect is substitution of other efforts. This is followed by a cost-benefit analysis where both purposes have to be balanced. We find that future availability of CCS is less a reason to relax near-term abatement efforts than what could be inferred from previous analyses. Moreover, cost-benefit analysis indicates that the environmental target should be more ambitious when CCS is included in the picture

Impure Public Goods and Technological Interdependencies

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 – these private effects can also be generated independently of the public good. In our analysis we focus on the effects alternative technologies – independently generating the private effects of the public good – may have on the provision of impure public goods. After the investigation in an analytical impure public good model, we numerically simulate the effects of alternative technologies in a parameterized model for climate policy in Germany