Documents energy economics 91 results

"Different options for a reform of the EU Emissions Trading System are discussed to ensure carbon price incentives for mitigation options in the basic materials sector, while minimizing carbon leakage risks. This paper quantifies carbon leakage risks, distributional implications, and additional revenues associated with an import-only border carbon adjustment (BCA), a symmetric (import and export) BCA, and an excise for embodied emissions at a fixed benchmark level in combination with continued free allocation. We estimate the product-level carbon intensities for 4400 commodity groups, compute maximal implied price changes due to full carbon pricing, and calculate cost increases relative to gross value added to assess the scale of carbon leakage risks. We show, first, that around 10% of EU exports and 5% of all domestic manufacturing sales meet the criteria for carbon leakage risk under an incomplete BCA at a carbon price of 30 EUR/t. Second, the distributional implications of consistent carbon pricing of basic materials are small and progressive. Finally, an excise could generate revenues of around 20 billion euros that may be used towards climate action. Our results on potential carbon leakage risks and their mitigation can inform responsible policy making to shape the EU pathway towards climate neutrality."

"This article examines how the EU responded to the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, focusing on climate policy. Early studies suggest these crises reinforced EU climate policy, but we go further by investigating key drivers behind these responses. We explore four factors: Commission climate policy entrepreneurship, East–West climate policy divide among Member States, economic assets and interest groups, and the climate movement. The findings indicate that the crises temporarily sidelined East–West divisions and allowed the Commission to promote its flagship European Green Deal. However, the further development of these factors suggests that conditions for EU climate policymaking have deteriorated."

This work is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

"The number of countries announcing pledges to achieve net-zero emissions over the coming decades continues to grow. But the pledges by governments to date – even if fully achieved – fall well short of what is required to bring global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions to net zero by 2050 and give the world an even chance of limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5 °C.

This special report is the world's first comprehensive study of how to transition to a net zero energy system by 2050 while ensuring stable and affordable energy supplies, providing universal energy access, and enabling robust economic growth. It sets out a cost-effective and economically productive pathway, resulting in a clean, dynamic and resilient energy economy dominated by renewables like solar and wind instead of fossil fuels. The report also examines key uncertainties, such as the roles of bioenergy, carbon capture and behavioural changes in reaching net zero."

"This box reviews wage share dynamics and potential second-round effects on inflation at times of energy price increases. Compared to a well-known episode with some similar features – the OPEC oil embargo in October 1973 – recent energy price increases have so far had limited implications for labour income and the GDP deflator. This contained impact reflects the relatively mild terms-of-trade loss and subdued real wage dynamics today compared to the 1970s. However, the experience in the United States in both episodes shows that significant increases in the GDP deflator may arise even in the presence of weak real wage growth. A model-based analysis finds that the transmission of energy price increases to inflation, and in particular the emergence of second-round effects, has been more limited or even absent since the start of monetary union. Nevertheless, high and persistent inflation increases the risk of second-round effects materialising via higher wages and profit margins."

"Following a prolonged and broad-based stagnation, the EU economy resumed growth in the first quarter of this year. As projected in spring, the expansion continued at a subdued, yet steady, pace throughout the second and third quarters, amidst further abating inflationary pressures. The conditions for a mild acceleration of domestic demand appear in place, despite heightened uncertainty. This Autumn Forecast projects real GDP growth in 2024 at 0.9% in the EU and 0.8% in the euro area. For the EU, this is 0.1 pps. lower with respect to spring, while it is unchanged for the euro area. Growth in the EU is expected to pick up to 1.5% in 2025, as consumption is shifting up a gear and investment is set to rebound from the contraction of 2024. In 2026, economic activity is projected to expand by 1.8%, on the back of continued expansion of demand. Growth in the euro area is set to follow similar dynamics and attain 1.3% in 2025 and 1.6% in 2026. The disinflationary process that started towards end-2022 continued over the summer. Notwithstanding a slight pick-up in October, largely driven by energy prices, headline inflation in the euro area is set to more than halve in 2024, from 5.4% in 2023 to 2.4%, before easing more gradually to 2.1% in 2025 and 1.9% in 2026. In the EU, the disinflation process is set to be even sharper in 2024, with headline inflation falling to 2.6%, from 6.4% in 2023, and to continue easing to 2.4% in 2025 and 2.0% in 2026."

"The paper investigates how a carbon price could halt the comeback of coal, which started in the early 2000s. Since the year 2000, coal has provided roughly 40 per cent of global primary energy growth. The success of coal in the primary energy mix is due to the fact that it is abundant, cheap, and most often a domestic resource. However, global coal reserves, if burnt, would surpass the remaining carbon budget for a 2°C target by a factor of two. The paper shows that a carbon price of 25–100 USD per tonne of CO2 would be needed to phase out coal in the power sector, depending on the technology and the world region, even when assuming significant technological progress."

"Mientras nos golpea la crisis económica y social, en el horizonte asoma otra aún mayor: la crisis energética. El actual modelo, basado en la explotación intensiva e irresponsable de las fuentes de energía, y que ha hecho posible el desarrollo capitalista, toca a su fin por el agotamiento de los recursos fósiles, la competencia por los mismos, su mayor coste y los efectos ambientales derivados de un sistema ecológicamente insostenible. Las consecuencias de esta crisis serán enormes en términos económicos y sociales, pero también naturales y humanos. En el caso español se agrava por la dependencia del exterior y el mantenimiento de un modelo energético irracional e ineficiente. Estamos obligados a un cambio radical, y la salida de la actual crisis pasa también por construir una nueva cultura energética, que permita otro modelo productivo, una alternativa sostenible basada en las energías renovables, y una democratización de los recursos."

"Depuis les premiers puits désormais à sec jusqu'à la quête frénétique d'un après-pétrole, du cartel secret des firmes anglo-saxonnes (les "Sept Soeurs") jusqu'au pétrole de schiste, Or noir retrace l'irrésistible ascension de la plus puissante des industries. Dans cette fresque passionnante, on croise les personnages centraux des cent dernières années - Churchill, Clemenceau, Roosevelt, Staline, Hitler, De Gaulle, Kissinger, sans oublier les présidents George Bush père et fils mais aussi John Rockefeller, probablement l'homme le plus riche de tous les temps, ainsi que des personnalités moins connues ayant joué des rôles décisifs, tels Calouste Gulbenkian, Abdullah al-Tariki ou Marion King Hubbert.
Ce livre éclaire d'un jour inattendu des événements cruciaux- l'émergence de l'URSS, la crise de 1929, les deux guerres mondiales, les chocs pétroliers, les guerres d'Irak, la crise de 2008, etc. -, bousculant au passage beaucoup de fausses certitudes. Le pétrole, notre source primordiale et tarissable de puissance, est présent à l'origine des plus grands déchaînements du siècle passé, comme du sucre versé sur une fourmilière.
Jusqu'à une date récente, l'emprise du pétrole s'oubliait ; elle allait tellement de soi. Croissance, climat, guerre, terrorisme ; cette emprise ressurgit aujourd'hui à travers de gigantesques menaces. Or notre avenir dépend de celui que nous donnerons au pétrole, ou bien de celui qu'il nous imposera. La fin du pétrole, en tant que carburant de l'essor de l'humanité, devrait se produire bien avant que ce siècle ne s'achève.
De gré ou de force. Et nul ne peut dire où cette fin va nous conduire..."

"Due to their initial lack of emphasis on energy and natural resources, exogenous and endogenous growth models have suffered the same critic regarding the limits to economic growth imposed by finite Earth resources. Thus, various optimal control models that incorporate energy or natural resources have been developed during the last decades. However, in all these models the importance of the Energy Return On Energy Investment (EROI) has never been raised. The EROI is the ratio of the quantity of energy delivered by a given process to the quantity of energy consumed in this same process. Hence, the EROI is a measure of the accessibility of a resource, meaning that the higher the EROI the greater the amount of net energy delivered to society in order to support economic growth. The present article build a bridge upon the vacuum lying between the different literatures related to endogenous economic growth, the EROI and the necessary transition from nonrenewable to renewable energy. We provide an endogenous economic growth model subject to the physical limits of the real world (i.e. fossil and renewable energy production costs have functional forms that respect physical constraints). The model is able to reproduce (based on world data) an increasing reliance on fossil fuels from an early renewable era and the subsequent inevitable transition towards complete renewable energy that human will have to deal with in a not-too-far future. Through simulation we define the conditions for having a smooth transition from fossil to renewable energy and we study in which circumstances this transition can have negative impacts on economic growth (peak followed by a degrowth phase). In such cases, the implementation of a carbon tax can partially smooth this unfortunate dynamics depending on the ways of use of the carbon tax income."