November 27, 2013

Presentation at COP 19 in Warsaw

On Thursday, November 21, I did a quick stop in Warsaw for the FEEM-CMCC-University of Venice side event at COP 19.

I gave a presentation for the general public on the benefits of adaptation, with a focus on the benefit for public finances. The presentation is available here.

The panel included:

Dr. Corrado Clini
General Director of Sustainable Development, Climate and Energy Directorate, Italian Ministry of Environment, Land and See

Prof. Carlo Carraro
President, Ca' Foscari University of Venice
Vice Chair, IPCC Working Group III
Director, Climate Change and Sustainable Development Programme, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei

Dr. Nancy Saich
Advisor on Climate & Environment, Projects Directorate, European Investment Bank

Dr. Serena Pontoglio
Research Programme Officer, Climate change and natural hazards unit, DG Research & Innovation, European Commission

Dr. Richard Klein
Senior Research Fellow, Theme Leader "Reducing Climate Risk", Stockholm Environment Institute

November 20, 2013

Trade of Woody Biomass for Electricity Generation Under Climate Mitigation Policy


The paper on woody biomass trade is now published online by Resource and Energy Economics:

Favero, A. and E. Massetti. 2013. “Trade of Woody Biomass for Electricity Generation Under Climate Mitigation Policy.” Resource and Energy Economics, published online.

Here is the abstract:

Bio-energy with carbon capture and sequestration (BECCS) has the potential to be a key mitigation option, because it can generate electricity and absorb emissions at the same time. However, biomass is not distributed evenly across the globe and regions with a potentially high demand might be constrained by limited domestic supply. Therefore, climate mitigation policies might create the incentive to trade biomass internationally. This paper uses scenarios generated by the integrated assessment model WITCH to study trade of woody biomass from multiple perspectives: the volume of biomass traded, its value, the impact on other power generation technologies and on the efficiency of mitigation policy. The policy scenarios consist of three representative carbon tax policies (4.8 W/m2, 3.8 W/m2 and 3.2 W/m2 radiative forcing values in 2100) and a cap-and-trade scheme (3.8 W/m2 in 2100). Results show that the incentive to trade biomass is high: at least 50% of biomass consumed globally is traded internationally. Regions trade 13-69 EJ/yr of woody biomass in 2050 and 55-81 EJ/yr in 2100. In 2100 the value of biomass traded is equal to US$ 0.7-7.2 Trillion. Trade of woody biomass substantially increases the efficiency of the mitigation policy. In the tax scenarios, abatement increases by 120-323 Gt CO2 over the century. In the cap-and-trade scenario biomass trade reduces the price of emission allowances by 34% in 2100 and cumulative discounted policy costs by 14%.