Investment in renewable energy, fossil fuel prices and policy implications for Latin America and the Caribbean

Rodrigo Andrade, Edward Griffith-Jones, Stephany Griffith-Jones and Stephen Spratt

Financiamiento para el Desarrollo from Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL)

Abstract: This paper examines if recent sharp declines in the price of oil and other fossil fuels will discourage private investment in renewable energy, which is key for climate change mitigation. The increase in private renewables investment in the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region have been driven by sharp declines in costs alongside supportive policies. The sharp fall in the price of oil and other fossil fuels since 2014 risks disrupting continued private investment in renewables if they becomes insufficiently profitable. The decline in oil and other fossil fuel prices presents an opportunity for governments to reduce subsidies to them. For countries without such large subsidies, governments could increase taxes on them. This would alleviate their negative effects on climate change.

Date: 2017-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene, nep-env and nep-reg
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://repositorio.cepal.org/handle/11362/41679

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ecr:col035:41679

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Financiamiento para el Desarrollo from Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Biblioteca CEPAL ().