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Supply-side climate policy: the road less taken / M. Lazarus, P. Erickson and K. Tempest. Seattle : Stockholm Environment Institute, 2015, 28 p. (SEI Working Paper No. 2015-13) http://www.sei-international.org/publications?pid=2835This paper explains the concept of supply-side climate policy, examines why these options have not been widely used to date, and provides a framework for assessing their effectiveness.Global non-linear effect of temperature on economic production / Marshall Burke, Solomon M. Hsiang &#38; Edward Miguel, Nature, published online 21 October 2015, 16 p. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature15725.htmlGrowing evidence demonstrates that climatic conditions can have a profound impact on the functioning of modern human societies, but effects on economic activity appear inconsistent. Fundamental productive elements of modern economies, such as workers and crops, exhibit highly non-linear responses to local temperature even in wealthy countries. In contrast, aggregate macroeconomic productivity of entire wealthy countries is reported not to respond to temperature while poor countries respond only linearly. Resolving this conflict between micro and macro observations is critical to understanding the role of wealth in coupled human–natural systems and to anticipating the global impact of climate change...Economics: Higher costs of climate change / Thomas Sterner, Nature, published online 21 October 2015, 2 p. http://www.nature.com.gate3.inist.fr/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature15643.htmlAn attempt to reconcile the effects of temperature on economic productivity at the micro and macro levels produces predictions of global economic losses due to climate change that are much higher than previous estimates...World Energy Outlook Special Briefing for COP21. Paris : IEA, October 2015, 11 p. http://www.iea.org/newsroomandevents/pressreleases/2015/october/climate-pledges-for-cop21-slow-energy-sector-emissions-growth-dramatically.htmlThe International Energy Agency (IEA) released on Wednesday a World Energy Outlook (WEO) special briefing that outlines the energy sector implications of national climate pledges submitted for the upcoming climate summit in Paris (COP21). The briefing finds that if all countries meet goals outlined in their submitted pledges, known as Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC), growth in energy-related emissions-- which account for two-thirds of total greenhouse gas emissions --will slow to a relative crawl by 2030 (...). The WEO special briefing finds that all of the INDC submissions take into account energy sector emissions and many include specific targets or actions to address them. If these pledges are met, then countries currently accounting for more than half of global economic activity will see their energy-related greenhouse gas emissions either plateau or be in decline by 2030. Global energy intensity, a measure of energy use per unit of economic output, would improve to 2030 at a rate almost three times faster than the rate seen since 2000. In the power sector, 70% of additional electricity generation to 2030 would be low-carbon. Significantly, the power sector – the world’s largest source of energy-related carbon-dioxide (CO2) emissions – sees emissions plateau at close to today’s levels, effectively breaking the link between rising electricity demand and rising related CO2 emissions...Self-enforcing international environmental agreements and trade: taxes versus caps / Thomas Eichner and Rüdinger Pethig, Oxford Economic papers, Vol 67, N°4, October 2015 - draft : http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2502785This paper studies within a multi-country model with international trade the stability of international environmental agreements (IEAs) when countries regulate carbon emissions either by taxes or caps. Regardless of whether coalitions play Nash or are Stackelberg leaders the principal message is that the choice of caps or taxes matters. International trade and tax regulation are necessary conditions for the existence of the encompassing self-enforcing IEA, and that the latter is attained the more likely, the less severe the climate damage. Hence, cap regulation is inferior to tax regulation insofar as in case of the former there exist no large and effective self-enforcing IEAs, in particular not the encompassing self-enforcing IEA. Further results are that for the formation of encompassing self-enforcing IEAs it does not matter whether climate coalitions play Nash or are Stackelberg leaders or whether fossil fuel is modeled as a consumer good or an intermediate good.