Other Seminars
BC3-UPV/EHU Seminars: Impact of climate policy and external shocks on innovation in renewable energy technologies
Dr Pia Weiss,
Lecturer for Industrial Economics (Nottingham University Business School)
Environmental regulations enforced after 1997 in signatory states of the Kyoto Protocol were partly designed to meet the emission reduction targets to which the countries committed to. One of the pillars of climate change policy is to boost development and use of renewable energy technologies (RET). A number of empirical studies investigated the impact of environmental regulations on innovative activities in RET. Since they rely an traditional empirical methods, they present an incomplete picture. We complement this view by applying innovative methods frequently employed in social network analysis.
We show that the first oil price shock and the signing of the Kyoto Protocol had a profound effect on the patenting activities in RET. Both shocks resulted in research that looked beyond the known traditional knowledge fields to find better solutions in RET. Above all, we find that both shocks led researchers to exploit synergies in apparently distinct technology fields.
BC3-UPV/EHU Seminars: Climate policy negotiations with incomplete information
Professor Kai A. Konrad
Managing Director at the MaxPlanck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance ( Munich)
We analyze bargaining over international climate agreements in a setting with incomplete information about abatement costs. Incomplete information is known as one of the key reasons why negotiations may fail more generally, and why efficiency gains cannot be exploited. We ask whether unilateral commitment to high abatement reduces or increases the likelihood for an efficient negotiation outcome. We find that such commitment behavior reduces the gains from global cooperation, and that, in turn, this reduces the probability of reaching efficient international environmental agreements.
BC3-UPV/EHU Seminars: The Value of Adaptation: Climate Change and Timberland Management
BC3-Basque Centre for Climate Change Sede Building 1, 1st floor, Scientific Park of the University of the Basque Country, Leioa, Bizkaia, SpainProf. Christopher Costello
Research Professor at Bren School of Environmental Science & Management (UC Santa Barbara)
Adaptation to exogenous change occurs on both intensive and extensive margins. Whether and how one accounts for human adaptation directly affects estimates of the economic consequences of environmental change, estimates that are both critical in informing policy decisions and notoriously difficult to value. This paper introduces and applies an analytical framework for placing an economic value on adaptation. We explore the issue first in a stylized model that facilitates making concrete generalizations about the kinds of adaptations that generate high or low economic value. We then test the soundness of our insights by incorporating learning and adaptive decision-making into a structural dynamic forestry model where climate change is imposed exogenously and agents respond optimally. Using downscaled climate projections integrated with site- and species-specific timber productivity data, we estimate the economic value of adaptation to climate change within the California timber industry. We find on the intensive margin, changing the rotation intervals will yield a low value of adaptation, but on the extensive margin, replanting more suitable tree species can yield significant value.
BC3-UPV/EHU Seminars: Useful work accounting in Portugal from 1856 to 2009. Intensities and recent European patterns
André González Cabrera (PhD student)
Honório Serrenho (Researcher)
IN+, Center for Innovation, Technology and Policy Research, and Department of Mechanical Engineering, Instituto Superior Técnico, Technical University of Lisbon
Useful work is distinct from conventional primary and/or final energy analysis, because useful work is much closer to productive energy uses within an economy, providing better insights on the relation between economic growth and energy use.
A useful work accounting methodology is applied to Portugal from 1856 to 2009, considering five different useful work categories: heat, mechanical drive, light, other electric uses and muscle work and final–‘to–‘useful efficiencies for all energy uses, in contrast to previous useful work assessments. From historic energy records, final exergy was estimated, as well as its allocations to useful work categories and final–‘to–‘useful efficiencies for the entire Portuguese economy. The overall efficiency starts rising in the 1920’s with an increase in high temperature heat uses. The most significant increase in efficiency occurs from 1950 to 1980 as a consequence of electrification. From 1980 onwards the efficiency tends to stabilize due to an increase of the share of mechanical drive uses from oil products.
In spite of GDP and useful work having grown nearly by a factor of 30 from 1856 to 2009, we show that useful work economic intensity (useful work / GDP) varied by no more than 20% above and below its 154-year average, in contrast to the final energy and exergy intensities that decreased by a factor of 4 in the same timespan. This result reinforces the argument for a close relationship between economic growth and useful work and suggests that a reduction in the intensity of the use of energy resources can only be achieved by increasing energy efficiencies.
BC3-UPV/EHU Seminars: Improving Global Public Goods Supply Through Conditional Transfers – The International Adaptation Transfer Riddle
BC3-Basque Centre for Climate Change Sede Building 1, 1st floor, Scientific Park of the University of the Basque Country, Leioa, Bizkaia, SpainProf. Dr. Karen Pittel
Ifo Institute for Economic Research, Munich
Head of Department Energy, Environment and Exhaustible Resources
In order to overcome the underprovision of global public goods various different policy approaches have been proposed. In the climate policy arena, international transfers are frequently seen as an effective means to raise the provision of the global public good ‘climate change mitigation’. This paper focuses on a specific type of international transfer that aims at raising mitigation while also reducing the damages from climate change: conditional adaptation support. Especially since the COP in Copenhagen 2009, preparations are on-going to significantly expand international transfers that help developing countries to adapt to climate change. While there are extensive discussions in the policy arena about the required amount of adaptation funding and the best ways to raise, manage and disburse these funds, hardly any attention is paid to the international allocative effects of these transfers. The answer to the question of ‘why’ international adaptation transfers are paid at all, is often relegated to fairness considerations only. As adaptation benefits are largely local and adaptation transfers reduce the recipients’ incentives to contribute to climate change mitigation, one would, however, expect at least unease in donor countries about plans to significantly expand international adaptation support. In this study, we compare two alternative conditional transfer schemes: one plainly subsidizes mitigation efforts, while the other provides adaptation support which is conditional on other agents’ mitigation contributions. Disregarding distributional and fairness aspects the paper evaluates and compares the allocative effects of either policy scheme. It is shown that while both policy schemes can be beneficial for developing as well as industrialized countries, this outcome relies strongly on the productivity of mitigation and adaptation technologies.
BC3-UPC/EHU Seminars: Integrated challenges to achieving global prosperity for everyone: energy, climate, economics, and resources
Prof. Tyler Volk
Dept. of Biology, NYU, New York, NY, USA
The gross world product has been growing at roughly 3% annually for nearly half a century. The result has been unprecedented economic well-being for large masses of people. If the trend continues then by year 2050 the average world’s lifestyle will be approximately equal to that of developed nations today. Will that be possible to achieve? Issues such as energy consumption, CO2 emissions, climate change, food production, water, and material fluxes are intricately tied together as a global system. In this talk I will review what global numbers, trends, and differences in consumption rates across various resources and region could mean for the challenges that lay ahead of all of us, collectively, in the future.
BC3-UPV/EHU Seminars: Innovation and Aesthetics of On-Site Solar
Amelia Amon
Alt.Technica, Ltd., New York, NY, USA
There are clear advantages to carbon-neutral energy production, particularly located close to high-energy demands, but can it also be appealing to communities and customers? Although utility-scale solar and wind farms provide economies of scale, new models of distributed energy sources within our cities and suburbs can be remarkably effective. Innovations in on-site solar include free-standing LED lighting, parking lot shade structures that irrigate landscaping with captured storm-water, and solar electric charging of plug-in hybrid cars. Multiple functions are served, while shaving peak utility loads and avoiding distribution losses. Innovative new technologies allow for a wide range of design options with flexible amorphous photovoltaics, nano-tech films, and high-efficiency polycrystalline modules. The developed countries of Europe, Asia, and the Americas have enough paved area to provide a significant percentage of our electricity with on-site solar. Producing power within existing infrastructure preserves our scenic landscapes and irreplaceably beautiful wild nature.
BC3-UPV/EHU Seminars: Re-examining the Past and Rethinking the Future at Mount Mulanje Forest Reserve, Malawi: New Directions for Local Engagement
Mary C. Thompson
Bioversity International, Post-doctoral Research Fellow
Since the 1980s, broad recognition has been given to the need for and the benefits of aligning the protection of biodiversity in threatened forest ecosystems with measures to address the needs and desires of people living near and depending on those ecosystems. With this research project I focus on one such ecosystem found at the Mulanje Mountain Forest Reserve (MMFR) in southern Malawi. Large amounts of money and time have been put forth by local, national, and international donors and conservation organizations to support the goals of biodiversity conservation and social development at MMFR. In order to explore how managers of MMFR have failed to successfully realize both of these overarching goals, I focus on inadequate engagement of forest managers with local populations and the effects of this deficient engagement on the health of the reserve. As part of the analysis I emphasize how certain local social contexts have been left unexamined in project design and how these neglected contexts translate into ineffective project implementation and outcomes. Furthermore I highlight how these unexamined contexts continuously reinforce the superficial nature of the connection between local community members and those charged with managing the reserve
There are valuable lessons to be learned from this case study that can be extended not only to other areas surrounding MMFR, but also to the managers of protected areas worldwide who, in the face of changing global climates and associated policy implications, are seeing the necessity for increasingly meaningful relationships with local communities and individuals.
BC3-UPV/EHU Seminars: Biodiversity for Transgenics? Pursuit of Indian Farmers for Higher-Yielding, Lower-Risk Production Alternatives
Dr. Vijesh V. Krishna,
Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, Georg-August University of Goettingen, Germany
Do biotechnology innovations reduce agricultural biodiversity and enhance system vulnerability? Building on four rounds of panel datasets, this paper examines the diffusion process of transgenic varieties in Indian cotton sector. Both transgenic technology and varietal diversity are found increasing yield and reducing production risk. However, the technology impacts weigh greater than the diversity impacts. Profit maximizing farmers may forgo diversity to appropriate transgenic technology, when the transgenic varieties are limited in supply. Otherwise, these two factors act as complements. The determining role of government regulations and seed market structure on varietal supply on agrobiodiversity conservation and system resilience is highlighted
BC3-UPV/EHU Seminars: Experiment on non-governmental norm enforcement (presentation of planned design)
Christiane Reif
Researcher at Centre for European Economic Research, Department of Environmental and Resource Economics, Environmental Management (Germany).
We plan a public good experiment with a non-governmental norm enforcement mechanism. The two stage game is based on the theory by Buchholz et al. (2014). In the first stage subjects decide independently on the contribution to the enforcement mechanism and in the second stage how much they would like to contribute to the public good. The subjects’ payoff depends on their own decision and their co-players decisions in both stages. We will implement the game as a repeated one shot experiment with 10 players in each group. We will compare treatments without mechanism (simple public good game) to treatments with the theory based mechanism. Furthermore, we will vary the strength of the enforcement mechanism.
