Meso-economic analysis and modeling of environmental and energy policies in France.

Summary The conference of experts held on July 2 and 3, 2009 in Paris on the theme of environmental taxation is a concrete example of the rise of a general awareness, which goes beyond the field of analysis of economists and scientists, on the need to develop public policies at the national, regional and international levels likely to influence behavior and trigger a process of change towards a model of production and consumption that is environmentally friendly. This awareness of the problem of the unsustainability of our current growth model, which has now been extended to civil society actors, non-governmental organizations, and quite simply to every citizen, was preceded for several decades by both theoretical and empirical research on the various economic and regulatory instruments of public policy likely to make our way of life viable in the long term.