Modelling climate change
Climate models are the main quantative tools designed either to depict long run energy and pollution scenarios or to assist in climate change policy analysis. This modelling has traditionally accounted for the presence of technical change, albeit usually evolving in an exogenous fashion. More recently, however, models have been proposed where the technology changes endogenously, and/or its change is induced by deliberate choices of agents and government intervention. Research conducted by a team at FEEM in Italy as part of the TRANSUST project suggests that we have now moved or are moving toward an endogenous and induced formulation of technical change. In particular, both bottom-up and top-down models, a long-standing distinction in energy-economy-environment modelling, have been recently modified in order to accommodate forms of endogenous technical change. The researchers focus on these issues in their paper, published as part of this result. The objective of which is to produce insights from the improved modelling in order to enable policy makers to choose policies which strengthen sustainable development. The project as a whole sets out to identify the concept of welfare generating services, for example mobility, housing or information, by investigating the drivers that determine the ratio and relationship between the stock and flow variables. It approaches these objectives by preparing a set of cross-cutting papers. These comprise of a standardised questionnaire which was created to which all partners provided inputs. For a wide range of models their reaction with respect to different carbon tax intensities and tax recycling options are analysed. The model by model results of this questionnaire are laid down in this cross-cutting paper and made available on the project website at http://www.transust.org
