February 20, 2011

Energy and Climate Change in China

The paper "Energy and Climate Change in China" was published as a FEEM Working Paper.
This paper was presented at the workshop on the “Chinese Economy” organized by the Bank of Italy and Venice International University, Isola di San Servolo – Venice – 25/27 November 2010.

The paper examines future energy and emissions scenarios in China, presenting historical data and scenarios generated using the Integrated Assessment Model WITCH. A Business-as-Usual scenario is compared with four scenarios in which Greenhouse Gases emissions are taxed, at different levels. Key insights are provided to evaluate the Chinese pledge to reduce the emissions intensity of Gross Domestic Product by 40/45 percent in 2020 contained in the Copenhagen Accord. Marginal and total abatement costs are discussed using the OECD economies as a term of comparison. Cost estimates for different emissions reduction targets are used to assess the political feasibility of the 50 percent global reduction target set by the G8 and Major Economies Forum in July 2009.

Carraro, C. and E. Massetti. 2011. "Energy and Climate Change in China." FEEM Nota di Lavoro No. 16.2011, February 2011.

February 17, 2011

International Super-Grids Powered by Concentrated Solar Power

On February 16 2011 I had the chance to visit for the first time the EU Parliament in Strasbourg.

I was invited as a speaker at the workshop "Smart and Super Grids: vision for a European energy infrastructure", chaired by Mr. Vittorio Prodi, Member of the European Parliament and chair of the subgroup “Energy” of the European Parliament Intergroup “Climate Change, Biodiversity and Sustainable Development.”

I gave a presentation based on recent work on supergrids and concentrated solar power joint with Elena Ricci. You can dowload the presentation here.

This presentation complements the one I gave at a meeting hosted at the European Parliament in Brussels in early January 2011: link.

Ongoing Work Using Ricardian Approaches

On  February 9 2011 I was invited as a speaker to the OECD meeting "Climate Change, Agriculture, and Land Use: Matching modelling approaches to policy questions."
I gave a presentation that illustrates the work on panel methods to estimate climate change impacts on agriculture and recent work that uses all IPCC Fourth Assessment Report climate change scenarios to estimate climate change impacts in the USA.


Download the presentation here.

The intended outcome of the meeting was to have a clear idea of the policy questions OECD should be focusing on, and which models are appropriate to address such questions.

Invited speakers:
Sherman Robinson  - International Food policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and University of Sussex
The economics of climate change: appropriateness of partial and general equilibrium approaches

Thomas Berger (University of Hohenheim)
Insights for climate change policy  from agent-based modeling of land-use

Emanuele Massetti (Fondazione ENI Enrico Mattei –FEEM)
The economics of climate change impacts on agriculture: ongoing work using Ricardian approaches