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Après la COP21, mobiliser la finance pour la croissance soutenable / Michel Aglietta. Terra Nova, 2/03/2016, 13 p. http://tnova.fr/notes/apres-la-cop21-mobiliser-la-finance-pour-la-croissance-soutenableLa régulation de la finance est souvent pensée pour ses vertus de stabilisation d’un système dont les dysfonctionnements sont toujours susceptibles d’affecter en retour l’économie réelle. Dans cette note, l’économiste Michel Aglietta montre que cette régulation est également profitable au financement de la transition écologique, elle-même amorce d’un potentiel nouveau régime de croissance.The Transition Towards Decarbonization: A Legal and Policy Exploration of the European Union / Rafael Leal-Arcas. Queen Mary University of London - School of Law, 29/02/2016, 31 p. (Queen Mary School of Law Legal Studies Research Paper No. 222/2016) http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2739911Decarbonization is the final and visionary goal of European Union (EU) energy policy. The EU has traditionally conveyed the dashing resolution to lead the strife against climate change. In that sense, the EU shelters the hope that its example will whet other regions around the globe to follow suit. This paper argues that such a grandiose aspiration could cause a new industrial revolution based on vanguard clean and low-carbon technologies that may boost the EU’s recovery from the economic crisis and launch the vital conversion to a more sustainable energy system. To that end, the EU has set itself the ultimate objective of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to a towering 80-95% below 1990 levels by 2050. This decarbonization aim will come at a cost, similar to a hotel analogy: a five-star hotel is much better, but more expensive, than a one-star hotel. By conceptual analogy, renewable energy is a much better, but more expensive, option to generate energy than coal. The paper concludes that the potential for solar energy is phenomenal and that the greatest result of investing in low-carbon technologies will be to become increasingly energy independent. So there is hope and great business opportunities.Policies for decarbonizing a liberalized power sector / David Newbery. Cambridge : Energy Policy Research Group, 2016, 35 p. (EPRG Working Paper 1607) http://www.eprg.group.cam.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/1607-PDF.pdfGiven the agreed urgency of decarbonizing electricity and the need to guide decentralized private decisions, an adequate and credible carbon price appears essential. The paper defines and quantifies the useful concept of the break-even carbon price for mature zero-carbon electricity investments. It appears an attractive alternative given the difficulty of measuring the social cost of carbon, but modelling shows it extremely sensitive to projected fuel prices, the rate of interest, and the capital cost of generation options, all of which are very uncertain. This has important implications, and justifies combining a carbon price floor with suitable long-term contracts for electricity investments. The same sensitivity demonstrated for the break-even carbon price translates into similar sensitivities for marginal abatement cost curves.