Prudence Dato, prudence.dato@univ-savoie.fr,
IREGE/University of Savoie (France)
The
latest climate change news includes both new engagements and enforcement
of existing engagements. For instance, the new US commitment aims at reducing
their emissions up to 40% (from 2008 to 2025), and increasing up to 30% the
share of electricity from clean energy sources. Also, the European Union (EU)
leaders agreed to develop innovative strategies for a new generation of
renewable energies and increase energy efficiency through the European Energy
Union, while China found it more interesting to enforce existing pollution regulation
than taking new engagements.[1]
However, the full energy transition maybe hindered by some constraints such as the
availability of inputs (mostly rare materials) and the need of fossil fuels to
produce solar panels or wind turbine as a self-reproducing photovoltaic cells
or wind turbine is not possible.
Dato
(2015)[2] considers the issue of
energy transition in a
theoretical growth model that involves
both the decision of renewable energy adoption and that of investment in energy
saving technologies. The results suggest that the sole adoption of the
renewable energy is optimal only in the long run. This result is in line with
the asymptotic energy transition argument that states that the transition to
"clean" energy only
happens in the long run. It may be a consequence of the impossibility of
self-reproducing renewable energy. As the economy still needs fossil fuels to
produce clean energy, it is efficient to progressively replace fossil fuels
with a clean source of energy. Then, a quick and full energy transition is not
optimal for the economy, and one should not expect any immediate transition to
an economy that only uses renewable sources of energy. Dato (2015) suggests
that economic instruments such as taxes on the "dirty" energy or subsidies
on the "clean" energy should be designed to meet the requirements of
a transition to a sole use of "clean" energy in the long run.
The
results of the study also show that the economy that fears pollution is more favorable to
the energy transition. This suggests that people must be more sensitized about
the potential consequences of their use of fossil fuels. Clearly the “Under the Dome” video[3]
does the job for China. What for Europe? For several hours on Wednesday last
week, Paris was declared the most polluted city in the world. Scary isn’t it?
Well, mainly due to exceptionally good weather conditions in Shanghai…and although
car driving is banned on alternate days in Paris, there is still a lack of explanation
and of sensitization.
[2] P Dato (2015). Energy transition under irreversibility: a
two-sector approach. FAERE Working Paper, 2015.05.
