Optimal CO2-abatement with Socio-economic Inertia and Induced Technological Change

Malte Schwoon and Richard Tol

The Energy Journal, 2006, vol. 27, issue 4, 25-60

Abstract: The impact of induced technological change (ITC) in energy/climate models on the timing of optimal CO2-abatement depends on whether R&D or learning-by-doing (LBD) is the driving force. Bottom-up energy system models employing LBD suggest strong increases in optimal early abatement. In this paper we extend an existing top-down model supporting this view according to the notion that socio-economic inertia interferes with rapid technological change. We derive analytical results concerning the impact of inertia and ITC on optimal initial abatement and show a wide range of numerical simulations to illustrate magnitudes. Inertia now dominates the timing decision on early abatement, such that LBD might even have a negative effect on early abatement and the impact of R&D is limited. However, ITC still reduces costs of stabilizing atmospheric CO2-concentrations considerably.

Keywords: Climate policy; technology change; inertia; CO2 emissions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.5547/ISSN0195-6574-EJ-Vol27-No4-2 (text/html)

Related works:
Journal Article: Optimal CO2-abatement with Socio-economic Inertia and Induced Technological Change (2006)
Working Paper: Optimal CO2-abatement with socio-economic inertia and induced technological change (2004)
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:sae:enejou:v:27:y:2006:i:4:p:25-60

DOI: 10.5547/ISSN0195-6574-EJ-Vol27-No4-2

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in The Energy Journal
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().