Policy Outreach Events

The transition to net zero emissions by 2050 could hinder environmental and biodiversity conservation. EAERE promotes the research-policy interface by examining this issue from an energy, marine and land-use standpoint. This provides the science-based framework to analyse the key role that renewable assets, reporting standards and sustainable finance can play to drive a sustainable transition.

PROGRAMME:

Climate neutrality, energy transition and biodiversity : synergies, trade offs and policy instruments

Simone Borghesi  –  Director Florence School of Regulation Climate, European University Institute and University of Siena, Italy

Bringing climate, biodiversity and other ecosystem services into policy and economic decision making

Ian Bateman  –  OBE, US-NAS, FBA, FRSA, FRSB, Director: Land, Environment, Economics & Policy Institute (LEEP), University of Exeter Business School, UK

Sustainable Blue Growth: Science Driven Marine Spatial and Dynamic Planning

Phoebe Koundouri  –  President-Elect, European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists
Fellow, World Academy of Art and Science, Director ReSEES Research Laboratory, Athens University of Economics and Business

GRI Standard for biodiversity

Peter Paul van de Wijs  –  Chief External Affairs Officer, Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)
Harold Pauwels  –  Director Standards, Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)

The importance of biodiversity for investors

Shane Swords  –  Managing Director, Head of Investor Relations, NextEnergyCapital

NextEnergyCapital and solar’s role in achieving climate neutrality and improved biodiversity

Michael Bonte-Friedheim  –  Founding Partner & Group Chief Executive Officer, NextEnergyCapital

Protecting life diversification through standards and nature-based solutions

Markus H.-P. Müller, Managing Director, Global Head of Chief Investment Office Private Bank, Deutsche Bank

The EU Hybrid Side Event at COP26 – Climate Neutrality and Biodiversity: renewables assets, reporting standards and sustainable finance will take place on November 3, 2021 5:00 PM to 6:00 PM CET time.
In order to participate, register here
The event in presence will take place in Room 3.G.5 of the EU Pavilion in Glasgow Scottish Event Campus – Exhibition Way – Glasgow G3 8YW.

Video recording available here

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. The International Energy Agency recently published a 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. The study 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. It also examines key uncertainties, such as the roles of bioenergy, carbon capture and behavioural changes in reaching net zero. The webinar will be the occasion to discuss the content of IEA Report on NetZeroby2050 with Laura Cozzi, IEA Chief Energy Modeller, who led the writing team.

Join us on Thursday October 28, 2021 from 5:00 to 6:30pm CET to hear from Laura Cozzi (International Energy Agency). Her presentation will be followed by a discussion by Carlo Carraro (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, CMCC and CEPR) and a Q&A session with the audience.

Register here!

Detailed programme is available here

Carbon pricing is useful to induce all GHG emitters to internalize the climate damages associated to their emissions. But even in countries without a market pricing mechanism, it is important to value carbon in order to perform the socio-economic evaluation of the myriad of climate policies that will have to be implemented to attain their emission target. During this webinar, three panelists will summarize their findings about what carbon price/value should be recommended, or about the rate at which this carbon value should grow over time. The panelists will also identify the sources of uncertainty and of scientific disagreement surrounding this economic approach to fighting climate change.

Join us on Thursday September 30, 2021 from 5:00 to 6:30pm CEST to hear presentations from:

– Christian Gollier, President, EAERE, Executive Director, Toulouse School of Economics, and Research Fellow, CEPR
– Maureen Cropper, Professor of economics, University of Maryland, and Senior fellow, Resources for the Future
– Michael Greenstone, Milton Friedman Distinguished Service Professor in Economics, University of Chicago and Research Fellow, CEPR

Their 20-minute presentations will be followed by a 25-minute open discussion & Q&A session.

Register here

Video recording here

We are delighted to invite you to the Third CEPR/EAERE Webinar on Climate Policy: The European Green Deal, taking place on Friday 16 July 2021, 17:00 – 18:30 CEST.

On July 14, 2021 the European Commission will present its “Fit for 55” Proposal. In this online event, Stefanie Hiesinger, Member of Cabinet of the Executive Vice-President for the European Green Deal, and Frans Timmermans at the European Commission, will introduce us to the key insights of this proposal. Their comments will be followed by a description of his perspective by Peter Liese as Member of the European Parliament and a commentary by Arthur Runge-Metzger, Director for Climate Strategy, Governance, Emissions from Non-Trading Sectors at the European Commission’s Directorate General for Climate Action. Finally, Ottmar Edenhofer, EAERE POC member and Director of the Potsdam-Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), will share his views on a whole economy carbon price for Europe and how this goal can be reached. The event will be moderated by Brigitte Knopf, Secretary General of the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC).

Detailed programme:

17:00 – 17: 05 – Introduction by Ottmar Edenhofer (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and CEPR)
17:05 – 17: 25 – Presentation on the EU Commission’s Proposal: Focus on ETS and Energy Taxes Stefanie Hiesinger (European Commission)
17:25 – 17:45 – Commentary & Insights Peter Liese (European Parliament), Artur Runge-Metzger (European Commission), Ottmar Edenhofer (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and CEPR)
17:45 – 18:30 – Moderated Discussion with Brigitte Knopf (Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change)

Register here

VIEW THE VIDEO RECORDING HERE

Organisers:

Carlo Carraro (Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia and CEPR)
Ottmar Edenhofer (EAERE POC and Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research)
Christian Gollier (Toulouse School of Economics and CEPR)

The Climate Policy Webinar Series (CPWS) is a webinar series featuring invited speakers in the area of climate policy. It is aimed at experts working in governments, international organizations, the private sector, academics and the media. This monthly online series started in May 2021 and is organized jointly by the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) and the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (EAERE).

Second CEPR/EAERE webinar on Climate Policy:  Pandemic stimulus spending and the fight against climate change will be held on June 10th, 5.00-6.30 pm CEST.

Climate change is a long term threat to human societies with expected huge impacts on health, economies and welfare. Somehow similar to a pandemic, but with more persistent and irreversible consequences. Even more than the fight against Covid-19, climate change control is a difficult and complex task, which requires well-designed policies and important financial resources.
The post-pandemic recovery is an important opportunity, if policies to address the current pandemic are and will be designed to achieve stronger, sustainable, and low carbon economic growth.
The Covid-19 pandemic has indeed triggered the deepest global economic contraction since World War II. While most economies are expected to rebound in 2021-2022, the impact of the pandemic on many aspects of economy and emission drivers may last far longer. Therefore, a strong alignment of Covid-19 recovery packages with climate targets has the potential to address two important objectives: economic recovery and decarbonisation. This webinar will analyse these issues starting from lessons from past pandemics and then focusing on the implications of recovery plans for the fight against climate change.

Programme:

Massimo Tavoni, Director of the European Institute on Environmental Economics (EIEE)
“In and out of pandemics: sustainability lessons from the recent past”
https://www.eiee.org/team-member/massimo-tavoni/

Ioana Petrescu, Senior fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School and a former Romanian finance Minister
“Pandemic Stimulus Spending. A Glimpse into the (Green and Digital) Future”
https://ash.harvard.edu/people/ioana-petrescu

Moderated Discussion with:
Andrea Tilche, adjunct Professor at NTNU in Trondheim and former Director of the Environment Directorate of DG Research & Innovation
( https://ec.europa.eu/environment/archives/greenweek2013/andrea-tilche.html )
Danielle Arostegui, EDF Senior Analyst of Climate Policy
( https://www.edf.org/people/danielle-arostegui)

15-min Q&A session

Organisers:

Carlo Carraro (Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia and CEPR)
Ottmar Edenhofer (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research)
Christian Gollier (Toulouse School of Economics and CEPR)

WATCH THE VIDEO

Register here

Detailed programme here

The Climate Policy Webinar Series (CPWS) is a webinar series featuring invited speakers in the area of climate policy. It is aimed at experts working in governments, international organizations, the private sector, academics and the media. This monthly online series started in May 2021 and is organized jointly by the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) and the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (EAERE).

The Climate Policy Webinar Series (CPWS) is a webinar series featuring invited speakers in the area of climate policy. It is aimed at experts working in governments, international organizations, the private sector, academics and the media. It runs online on a monthly basis starting in May 2021 and is organized jointly by the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) and the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (EAERE).

The first three events will be devoted respectively to the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), the EU Green Deal, and the EU recovery plan.

More precisely, the first event on the CBAM will take place on May 7, 2021 from 5.00 to 6.30 pm CEST. There will be three presentations of 25 minutes each, respectively by:

• Luis Garicano (EU Parliament)
• Carolyn Fischer (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
• Samuel Kortum (Yale University)

These presentations will be followed by a 15-minute debate moderated by Christian Gollier (Toulouse School of Economics, EAERE and CEPR).

The EU Parliament has recently proposed a framework for a carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM), which would be an extension of the ETS, requiring importers to purchase allowances for the volume of carbon emissions incorporated in their products. Carolyn Fischer,  Samuel Kortum and David Weisbach will explore the economic and political issues associated with this proposal aimed at leveling the playing field and at fighting the carbon leakage inherent to the renewed EU ambition on climate change.

Agenda

L. GARICANO’S PRESENTATION

S. KORTUM’S PRESENTATION

C. FISCHER’S PRESENTATION

Modern societies face many global challenges. Climate change is certainly among the most urgent and important ones. Europe has decided to address the widely diffused concern of public opinion on the effects of climate change by committing to reaching climate neutrality by 2050, an ambitious target that remains a top priority for the Von der Leyen Commission despite the difficulties raised by the COVID-19 crisis. Similar climate neutrality targets have been recently set by other jurisdictions, most notably the USA and China (the latter by 2060). The European Union can (and actually intends) to play a key leading role as regulator, negotiator and actor in the global climate challenge. While a unilateral European action will not be sufficient per se to stop global warming (as European emissions are only a relatively small part of total greenhouse gas emissions), the EU can lead the world by example in adopting more stringent climate regulations and hence influencing the others’ climate policies.

However, alternative climate policies and regulatory models might emerge at the world level possibly challenging the European leadership in the fight against climate change. Consider, for instance, the case of the European Emission Trading System (EU ETS). As it is frequently argued, the EU ETS represented a prototype for most other ETSs that have been rapidly emerging in the world. But ETSs might progressively diverge over time rather than converge towards a unique model to account for the different institutional frameworks characterising different jurisdictions. The same applies to other European climate measures and policies that might or might not fit other institutional contexts.

This raises some of the questions that will be addressed in the session, namely:

1. What are the lessons that other jurisdictions can take from the European climate policy experience? Can/should the European experience with climate regulation be replicated in non-European contexts? If so, how? If not, why?
2. How can other economies improve upon the European experience and how can Europe learn from others?
3. Will the climate neutrality implementation strategies converge or diverge across different countries?
4. Which policies will lead EU, US and China -the three main players in the global climate arena- towards the net-zero emissions target?
5. What will be the impact of the Biden administration on international cooperation and climate policy in the years to come?
6. Can international cooperation among Emission Trading Systems contribute to promoting a global climate policy?

EAERE Policy Outreach Committee together with FSR Climate  and in collaboration with the School of Transnational Governance of the EUI, organise this session to promote a more integrated dialogue between academia and policy world, providing advice and support to EU policy makers and institutions in designing policy interventions.

The event builds upon the successful experience of policy debates organized by FSR Climate at State of the Union since 2018 and intends to continue the policy dialogue carried out by FSR Climate under the ongoing LIFE DICET (Deepening International Cooperation on Emissions Trading) project. The project LIFE DICET focuses on the international carbon market cooperation between the EC and the regulators of other major ETSs, namely, California-Quebec, China, Switzerland and New Zealand and intends to support EU and Member State policymakers in deepening international cooperation for the development and possible integration of carbon markets at the world level.

The event chaired by Simone Borghesi (EAERE POC Secretary General) and Jos Delbeke (EAERE POC Chairman) is intended to address an audience of high-level policy makers, stakeholders and scholars such as those attending the SoU.

Website

Livestream

VIDEO RECORDING

Time: 10:45-12:15
All information here

The session organized by the EAERE Policy Outreach Committee (POC) as part of the EAERE Plenary intends to discuss the features of the European Green Deal in the framework of the post-Covid policies. The EU has decided to green its new overall economic policy: priority is being given to climate neutrality by 2050, to biodiversity, the circular economy, and greening will be pursued in well established sectoral policies such as on energy, transport, innovation, agriculture, as well as on its budget and finance. The Covid reality has suddenly but profoundly changed the social, economic and political reality all over Europe. The heart of this discussion is the European budget and the Recovery Fund. The POC session will discuss to what extent the world looks different after several months of living with the Covid virus, from a perspective of reaching the climate targets, but even more importantly from the viewpoint of realizing the political ambition of the EU Green Deal. In line with the aim of the EAERE POC, particular attention will be devoted to the most suitable policies that should be implemented for an effective Green Deal and to the kinds of investments that are needed for the EU Green Deal to achieve its goals.

Keynote speakers:
Alexander Stubb, Director and Professor, School of Transnational Governance, European University Institute. Former Prime, Finance and Foreign Minister of Finland.
Peter Vis, Senior Adviser at Rud Pedersen Public Affairs, Brussels; Former official at the European Commission

The COVID-19 pandemic is having a dramatic impact on economic activities worldwide. This has both direct and indirect effects on greenhouse gas emissions and global warming. On the one hand, the fall in production and traffic volumes drastically reduces emissions, as it has already been observed after a few weeks of lockdown in a growing number of countries. On the other hand, the deep economic recession which might affect the world economy in the next years is likely to slow down the technological progress that is needed to progress along a low-carbon economic path. Moreover, the economic depression obviously has a large impact also on carbon markets: the fall in production brings about a sharp decrease in the demand of emission allowances, which causes a reduction in the allowance prices and thus also -ceteris paribus- in the incentive to invest in clean technologies.

For these reasons, it appears particularly important to identify in advance a suitable economic-climate package which may relaunch clean investments when economic activities will resume and avoid that the economic downturn may be followed by a sharp growth in emissions when the pandemic will be gone.

This raises some of the questions that we would like to address in this online debate, namely:

1. What economic and climate policy package will be needed to deal with the economic consequences of COVID-19?
2. How will the current emergency affect the European Green Deal?
3. What consequences the ongoing pandemic may have on the EU ETS? What are its expected effects on the other Emission Trading Systems worldwide?
4. What impact COVID-19 might have on international cooperation among Emission Trading Systems?
5. What lessons can be learnt from the current pandemic for cooperation among countries in the international climate policy?

FSR Climate, in collaboration with the Policy Outreach Committee of EAERE (European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists), organises this online event to promote a more integrated dialogue between academia and policy world, providing advice and support to EU policy makers and institutions in designing policy interventions, which is particularly needed and urgent in these difficult times.

The event builds upon the successful experience of policy debates organized by FSR Climate at State of the Union since 2018 and intends to continue the policy dialogue carried out by FSR Climate under the ongoing LIFE DICET (Deepening International Cooperation on Emissions Trading) project. The project, co-funded by the LIFE Programme of the European Union, focuses on the international carbon market cooperation between the EC and the regulators of other major Emission Trading Systems, namely, California-Quebec, China, Switzerland and New Zealand and intends to support EU and Member State policymakers in deepening international cooperation for the development and possible integration of carbon markets at the world level.

Format

Short presentations from the invited speakers followed by questions from the audience.

Chair

Simone Borghesi, Director, FSR Climate, EUI

Jos Delbeke, School of Transnational Governance, EUI 

Invited speakers

Christian Gollier, Director of Toulouse School of Economics, President European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists

Phoebe Koundouri, Professor, School of Economics, Athens University of Economics and Business; President-Elect EAERE; Chair, UN SDSN Greece; Director EIT Climate KIC Hub Greece; Chair ICRE8

Eswaran Somanathan, Economics and Planning Unit of the Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi, India, and Program Director of CECFEE (Centre for research on the Economics of Climate, Food, Energy and Environment)

Harald Winkler, University of Cape Town and Academy of Science of South Africa

WATCH the video here 

Presentation slides