Climate Policy and the Optimal Extraction of High- and Low-Carbon Fossil Fuels

We study how restricting CO2 emissions affcts resource prices and depletion over time.We use a Hotelling-style model with two nonrenewable fossil fuels that differ in their carbon content (e.g. coal and natural gas) and that are imperfect substitutes in final good production.We study both an unexpected constraint and an anticipated constraint.Both shocks induce intertemporal substitution of resource use.When emissions are unexpectedly restricted, it is cost-effective to use high-carbon resources relatively more (less) intensively on impact if this resource is relatively scarce (abundant).If the emission constraint is anticipated, it is cost-effective to use relatively more (less) of the low-carbon input before the constraint becomes binding, in order to conserve relatively more (less) of the high-carbon input for the period when climate policy is active in case the high-carbon resource is relatively scarce (abundant).Climate policy;non-renewable resources;input substitution

Carbon Leakage Revisited: Unilateral Climate Policy with Directed Technical Change

The increase in carbondioxide emissions by some countries in reaction to an emission reduction by countries with climate policy (carbon leakage) is seen as a serious threat to unilateral climate policy.Using a two-country model where only one of the countries enforces an exogenous cap on emissions, this paper analyzes the effect of technical change that can be directed towards the clean or dirty input, on carbon leakage.We show that, as long as technical change cannot be directed, there will always be carbon leakage through the standard terms-of-trade effect.However, once we allow for directed technical change, a counterbalancing induced technology effect arises and carbon leakage will generally be lower.Moreover, we show that when the relative demand for energy is sufficiently elastic, carbon leakage may be negative: the technology effect induces the unconstrained region to voluntarily reduce its own emissions.Keywords

Climate Policy and Economic Dynamics: The Role of Substitution and Technological Change.

The main objective of this thesis is to study the dynamic effects of a cap on carbon dioxide emissions on the economy. Questions that will be answered include: What is the effect of the emission cap on the optimal use of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas? To what extent will emissions of greenhouse gases be shifted from countries subject to the Kyoto Protocol to countries that did not ratify this treaty? What is the role of carbon-saving technological change in this? Is announcement of climate policy, such that the economy has time to prepare, always a good thing to do? This thesis shows that taking into account the dynamic aspects of climate policy may reverse the conclusions found in static models. Taking into account that fossil fuels are non-renewable resources, it is shown that it might be optimal to substitute from cleaner towards more polluting fuels, and that announcement of climate policy might actually induce an increase in emissions in the period between the policy’s announcement and its implementation. A more positive conclusion, from the perspective of the proponents of climate policy, is that the current quantitative literature seems to overestimate the degree of carbon leakage (the increase in emissions by countries without climate policy, in response to the emission reduction by countries subject to a cap on emissions), as this literature does not take into account the effect that climate policy has on technological change. Furthermore, the role that technological change plays in mitigating the costs of climate policy might be underestimated in the literature, as the production functions of some models do not match with what we find empirically.

Climate Policy and the Optimal Extraction of High- and Low-Carbon Fossil Fuels

We study how restricting CO2 emissions affcts resource prices and depletion over time.We use a Hotelling-style model with two nonrenewable fossil fuels that differ in their carbon content (e.g. coal and natural gas) and that are imperfect substitutes in final good production.We study both an unexpected constraint and an anticipated constraint.Both shocks induce intertemporal substitution of resource use.When emissions are unexpectedly restricted, it is cost-effective to use high-carbon resources relatively more (less) intensively on impact if this resource is relatively scarce (abundant).If the emission constraint is anticipated, it is cost-effective to use relatively more (less) of the low-carbon input before the constraint becomes binding, in order to conserve relatively more (less) of the high-carbon input for the period when climate policy is active in case the high-carbon resource is relatively scarce (abundant).

Absence of thrombospondin-2 causes age-related dilated cardiomyopathy

BACKGROUND: The progressive shift from a young to an aged heart is characterized by alterations in the cardiac matrix. The present study investigated whether the matricellular protein thrombospondin-2 (TSP-2) may affect cardiac dimensions and function with physiological aging of the heart. METHODS AND RESULTS: TSP-2 knockout (KO) and wild-type mice were followed up to an age of 60 weeks. Survival rate, cardiac function, and morphology did not differ at a young age in TSP-2 KO compared with wild-type mice. However, >55% of the TSP-2 KO mice died between 24 and 60 weeks of age, whereas <10% of the wild-type mice died. In the absence of TSP-2, older mice displayed a severe dilated cardiomyopathy with impaired systolic function, increased cardiac dilatation, and fibrosis. Ultrastructural analysis revealed progressive myocyte stress and death, accompanied by an inflammatory response and replacement fibrosis, in aging TSP-2 KO animals, whereas capillary or coronary morphology or density was not affected. Importantly, adeno-associated virus-9 gene-mediated transfer of TSP-2 in 7-week-old TSP-2 KO mice normalized their survival and prevented dilated cardiomyopathy. In TSP-2 KO animals, age-related cardiomyopathy was accompanied by increased matrix metalloproteinase-2 and decreased tissue transglutaminase-2 activity, together with impaired collagen cross-linking. At the cardiomyocyte level, TSP-2 deficiency in vivo and its knockdown in vitro decreased the activation of the Akt survival pathway in cardiomyocytes. CONCLUSIONS: TSP-2 expression in the heart protects against age-dependent dilated cardiomyopath

Autoantibodies against type I IFNs in patients with life-threatening COVID-19

Interindividual clinical variability in the course of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection is vast. We report that at least 101 of 987 patients with life-threatening coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pneumonia had neutralizing immunoglobulin G (IgG) autoantibodies (auto-Abs) against interferon-w (IFN-w) (13 patients), against the 13 types of IFN-a (36), or against both (52) at the onset of critical disease; a few also had auto-Abs against the other three type I IFNs. The auto-Abs neutralize the ability of the corresponding type I IFNs to block SARS-CoV-2 infection in vitro. These auto-Abs were not found in 663 individuals with asymptomatic or mild SARS-CoV-2 infection and were present in only 4 of 1227 healthy individuals. Patients with auto-Abs were aged 25 to 87 years and 95 of the 101 were men. A B cell autoimmune phenocopy of inborn errors of type I IFN immunity accounts for life-threatening COVID-19 pneumonia in at least 2.6% of women and 12.5% of men

Climate policy and economic dynamics: The role of substitution and technological change

The main objective of this thesis is to study the dynamic effects of a cap on carbon dioxide emissions on the economy. Questions that will be answered include: What is the effect of the emission cap on the optimal use of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas? To what extent will emissions of greenhouse gases be shifted from countries subject to the Kyoto Protocol to countries that did not ratify this treaty? What is the role of carbon-saving technological change in this? Is announcement of climate policy, such that the economy has time to prepare, always a good thing to do? This thesis shows that taking into account the dynamic aspects of climate policy may reverse the conclusions found in static models. Taking into account that fossil fuels are non-renewable resources, it is shown that it might be optimal to substitute from cleaner towards more polluting fuels, and that announcement of climate policy might actually induce an increase in emissions in the period between the policy’s announcement and its implementation. A more positive conclusion, from the perspective of the proponents of climate policy, is that the current quantitative literature seems to overestimate the degree of carbon leakage (the increase in emissions by countries without climate policy, in response to the emission reduction by countries subject to a cap on emissions), as this literature does not take into account the effect that climate policy has on technological change. Furthermore, the role that technological change plays in mitigating the costs of climate policy might be underestimated in the literature, as the production functions of some models do not match with what we find empirically

Climate Policy and the Optimal Extraction of High- and Low-Carbon Fossil Fuels

We study how restricting CO2 emissions affcts resource prices and depletion over time.We use a Hotelling-style model with two nonrenewable fossil fuels that differ in their carbon content (e.g. coal and natural gas) and that are imperfect substitutes in final good production.We study both an unexpected constraint and an anticipated constraint.Both shocks induce intertemporal substitution of resource use.When emissions are unexpectedly restricted, it is cost-effective to use high-carbon resources relatively more (less) intensively on impact if this resource is relatively scarce (abundant).If the emission constraint is anticipated, it is cost-effective to use relatively more (less) of the low-carbon input before the constraint becomes binding, in order to conserve relatively more (less) of the high-carbon input for the period when climate policy is active in case the high-carbon resource is relatively scarce (abundant)