POTTIER Antonin

To contribute to the goal of containing global warming to 1.5°C, the French government has adopted the objective of zero net greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. As the main greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide, and most CO2 emissions are due to the combustion of fossil fuels, this thesis focuses on achieving carbon neutrality of French energy-related CO2 emissions by 2050. This thesis aims to study the relative role of different low-carbon options in the energy sector to achieve carbon neutrality. Specifically, this thesis first studies the French power sector, first in a fully renewable system, and then in one incorporating other mitigation options, i.e. nuclear power and carbon capture and storage. I study the impact of uncertainties related to the development of renewable energy costs and storage options and address the robustness of an all-renewable power system to cost uncertainties. Later, adding other low-carbon options in the electricity sector, I analyze the relative role of different options. Similarly, to encourage investment in renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power, I study the investment risk associated with the volatility of prices and volumes of renewable electricity technologies, and the performance of different public support schemes. The analysis in this thesis goes beyond the power system and also considers the entire energy system in the presence of sectoral coupling. During this thesis, I have developed a family of investment and operation optimization models to answer different questions concerning the French energy transition. These models minimize the cost of the considered system (power system or energy system as a whole) by satisfying the supply/demand balance at each hour for at least one year, respecting the main technical, operational, resource and land use constraints. Thus, the short and long term variability of renewable energies is taken into account. Using these models, I answer the questions raised above. These models are not used to find a single optimal solution, but several optimal solutions under different scenarios of weather conditions, costs, energy demand, and technology availability. Therefore, the importance of robustness to uncertainties is central to the methodology used, as well as optimality. The results of my thesis show that renewable energy sources are the main enablers of the energy transition, not only in the power system but also in the whole energy system. While the elimination of nuclear power only marginally increases the cost of a carbon-neutral energy system, the elimination of renewables is associated with high inefficiencies in both costs and emissions. In fact, if renewable gas is not available, even a social cost of carbon of €500/tCO2 will not be sufficient to achieve carbon neutrality. This is partly due to the negative emissions it can produce with carbon capture and storage, and partly due to the economics of internal combustion engines fueled by renewable gas. The central message of this thesis is that achieving carbon neutrality at the lowest cost requires a largely renewable energy system. Therefore, if we are to prioritize investments in low-carbon options, renewable gas and electricity technologies are of utmost importance.

The environmental concern born of the observation of the damaging pressure exerted by economic activities on the biosphere has led to the multiplication of initiatives and regulations intended to curb destruction. Economic theory has responded to the fact that economic actors interact with nature in an economic manner (by taking resources, transforming environments, discharging waste, etc.) with efforts to understand these interactions and to develop economic policy instruments to regulate them. This multidisciplinary book (economics, sociology, history, social studies of science and technology) explores the multiple facets of these economicizations of the environment (through its exploitation, through economic theory, and through environmental policies) based on historical and contemporary analyses that show the issues, limits, and opportunities. The balance sheet remains contrasted, as these different ways of economizing the environment can tend to neglect the biogeochemical specificities of nature to the point of not really taking the environment into account.

This thesis examines the methodological issues raised by the inclusion of the physical dimension of the economic process in economic theory. To this end, it focuses on the thermodynamic conception of the economy, developed in particular by Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen and Robert Ayres. More precisely, this thesis studies the way in which the thermodynamic conception of the economy is embodied in two formal representations of production, the neo-thermodynamic theory and the flow-fund theory, and how these approaches confront the neoclassical theory of resources. In order to understand the methodological issues associated with these various theories, the thesis focuses on issues related to modeling and interdisciplinarity. It shows that neoclassical resource theory and neo-thermodynamic theory share a common conception of modeling, which is reflected in the use of aggregate production functions. However, this representation of production proves inadequate to account for the physical dimension of production, both conceptually and empirically. On the contrary, the flow-fund theory constitutes a radical methodological break with the aggregate production function. It is better able to grasp the physical dimension of production from a conceptual point of view, but suffers from a lack of application. Overall, the thesis shows that methodological issues related to modeling should receive more attention when it comes to accounting for the physical dimension of the economic process.

The environmental concern born of the observation of the damaging pressure exerted by economic activities on the biosphere has led to the multiplication of initiatives and regulations intended to curb destruction. Economic theory has responded to the fact that economic actors interact with nature in an economic manner (by taking resources, transforming the environment, discharging waste, etc.) with efforts to understand these interactions and to develop economic policy instruments to regulate them. This multidisciplinary book (economics, sociology, history, social studies of science and technology) explores the multiple facets of these economicizations of the environment (through its exploitation, through economic theory, and through environmental policies) based on historical and contemporary analyses that show the issues, limits, and opportunities. The balance sheet remains contrasted, as these different ways of economizing the environment can tend to neglect the biogeochemical specificities of nature to the point of not really taking the environment into account.

The environmental concern born of the observation of the damaging pressure exerted by economic activities on the biosphere has led to the multiplication of initiatives and regulations intended to curb destruction. Economic theory has responded to the fact that economic actors interact with nature in an economic manner (by taking resources, transforming environments, discharging waste, etc.) with efforts to understand these interactions and to develop economic policy instruments to regulate them.This multidisciplinary book (economics, sociology, history, social studies of science and technology) explores the multiple facets of these economicizations of the environment (through its exploitation, through economic theory, and through environmental policies) based on historical and contemporary analyses that show the issues, limits, and opportunities. The balance sheet remains contrasted, as these different ways of economizing the environment can tend to neglect the biogeochemical specificities of nature to the point of not really taking the environment into account.

In "Why environmental management may yield no-regret pollution abatement options", Ecological Economics, 2009, Bréchet and Jouvet claim to have theoretically shown that profits maximizing firms can reduce pollution compared to laissez-faire and increase their profits. We correct multiple errors in their paper, with the conclusion that their claim no longer stands.

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This paperargues that integrated assessment models (IAMs) are useful tools to build corridors ofsocialcosts of carbon (SCC)reflecting divergent worldviews.Instead of pursuing the elusive quest for the right SCC, IAMs could indeed be useful tools to rationalize the different beliefs on climate related parameters (or worldviews) in the climate debate and help build politically coherent corridors of SCCs. We first take the example of the Stern-Nordhaus controversy as an illustration of the impossible quest for the right SCC. Disentangling the drivers of this controversy, we show that the main differences in results come from a mix of ethical choices of therepresentativeagent(puretimepreference),long-termassumptionsontechnicalparameters (abatement cost dynamics) and climate related unknowns (climate sensitivity). We then argue that these sources of disagreement can be best understood as differing worldviews rather than purescientificuncertainties. ThisimpliesthatIAMsareoflimitedhelpindetermining theright SCC,in linewithPindyck(2017).Butcontrary tohim, weconsideritnecessarytoseparatethe wheat from the chaff, and argue for a middle way between the blind confidence in IAMs’ outputs and their full rejection with respect to the SCC debate. Instead, we show how they could help rationalize the climate debates around a corridor of SCCs. We thus analyze the drivers of such corridors of values, or how the sources of divergent worldviews differently impact the SCC-abatementspacewithtime.All inall,theclimatepolicydebatearoundcarbonpricingcan benefitfromarenewedunderstandingoftheroleofIAMs,lessdivinatoryandmoreinstitutionallycentered.

"The Occupation of the World," by Sylvain Piron, is the first volume of a two-volume series (the second volume will appear in May 2019) devoted to Western economic anthropology and its history, within which the thought of the medieval scholastics holds a central place. With Sylvain Piron, center for historical research - CRH / Scholastic anthropology group - GAS, director of studies at EHE SS, Antonin Pottier (to be confirmed) university of Paris I, environmental economist, Philippe Descola, anthropologist, professor at the Collège de France (to be confirmed)." (Source: quaibranly.fr).

Michal Kalecki developed his original model of the business cycle in the early 1930s. Several versions referred as versions I, II and III have been developed until the late 1960s from which Kalecki draw three central propositions on instability and class struggle: (1) the capitalist system “cannot break the impasse of fluctuations around a static position” unless it is shocked by “semi-exogenous factors”, (2) the dynamics of the profit rate and investment – as in version I and II – may be disconnected from “class struggle” and (3) when class struggle impacts the dynamics of the economy – as in version III – this is happening in a context in which expected profitability of new investment projects is negatively related to the profit share. In this article, we want to show that each of these three proposals represents key differences with Marx.

After the Paris Agreement a fresh look is needed about the role of carbon prices in climate policies. Paragraph 136 of the Decision which notes the importance of carbon pricing, only applies to " non-party entities " and is not binding upon Parties to the Convention. Carbon prices will thus stay country-specific. This is in contrast with the idea that, in a " first-best " world, carbon prices should represent the social costs of climate change (SCC) and be equated throughout countries and sectors modulo compensating transfers for the losers. De facto, the Paris Agreement gives a pivotal role to INDCs for aligning the +2°C objective and the sustainable development goals (SDGs). Carbon prices will be one of the possible tools of their deployment but their level will be constrained by the pace at which each country can embed them into reforms of its fiscal system and its public policies. This pace will likely not be consistent with the urgency of the climate challenge and leave unsolved how to meet the Article 2 of the Agreement i.e. " making finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development ». The usual response to this carbon price gap lies in complementary non price signals. But, these tools entail the risk of political arbitrariness and economic inefficiencies leading to political distrust of climate policies. The way out is to ground complements to carbon prices on the legitimacy of the paragraph 108 of the Decision of the Paris Agreement which " recognizes the social, economic, and environmental value of mitigation activities and their co-benefits to adaptation, health, and sustainable development " (hereafter SVMA).

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Recent articles have investigated with integrated assessment models the possibility that climate damage bears on productivity (TFP) growth and not on production. Here, we compare the impact of these alternative representations of damage on the social cost of carbon (SCC). We ask whether damage on TFP growth leads to higher SCC than damage on production ceteris paribus. To make possible a controlled comparison, we introduce a measure of aggregate damage, or damage strength, based on welfare variations. With a simple climate-economy model, we compare three damage structures: quadratic damage on production, linear damage on growth and quadratic damage on growth. We show that when damage strength is the same, the ranking of SCC between a model with damage on production and a model with damage on TFP growth is not unequivocal. It depends on welfare parameters such as the utility discount rate or the elasticity of marginal social utility of consumption.

Climate change poses immense problems of intergenerational, intragenerational and international justice. This critical survey describes the intellectual landscape of global climate justice, and clarifies the challenges, positions, arguments and theoretical background of this concept. To do so, we review how equity is mobilised in the climate change economics literature and confront arguments about justice used within or at the periphery of climate negotiations with those of moral and political philosophers. We present the stances of States, NGOs and experts. We discuss the principles of justice underpinning the fair sharing of a carbon budget and their moral justifications. We examine the concepts of climate damage and of responsibility and highlight the hurdles to make way for historical emissions in climate * This survey owes a lot to the research of Olivier Godard on the topic of climate Pottier et al. justice. We conclude on some implications of the Paris Agreement for climate justice and the way forward.

In their letter “Social cost of carbon: Domestic duty” (5 February, p. [569][1]), A. Fraas et al. argue that regulations to limit greenhouse gas emissions in the United States should be evaluated in the light of the domestic benefits they provide instead of global benefits, as recommended by the Interagency Group on the Social Cost of Carbon (2010) ([ 1 ][2]). This idea, which has already been put into practice by some ([ 2 ][3]), may seem reasonable. However, climate change is a special case. No matter where a ton of carbon is emitted, it has the same impact on the atmosphere, and it ultimately leads to the same damages from climate change. As a consequence, if the United States avoids emissions, other countries will also benefit, just as the United States will benefit from other countries reducing emissions. If every country adhered to Fraas et al. 's proposal to focus only on its domestic benefits, all countries would end up worse off. This was demonstrated at the beginning of climate change economics ([ 3 ][4]). . This situation is similar to the prisoner's dilemma ([ 4 ][5]), in which prisoners in separate rooms are given the opportunity to betray each other in exchange for a reduced sentence. Betrayal offers a greater reward than cooperation, unless both prisoners cooperate. Given the rules of the scenario, all rational self-interested prisoners would betray one another, leading to an outcome worse than if they had cooperated. In the case of climate change, we are in a better position than the prisoners in one way: We can talk to each other and decide to cooperate. In fact, we did so already. In Paris, last December, 195 countries decided to hold “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change” ([ 5 ][6]). Meeting this goal will not be possible if every country focuses only on its domestic benefits. The Interagency Group on the Social Cost of Carbon is right to recommend using global benefits to evaluate mitigation projects and regulations, and every country that is not doing so should follow the lead. . 1. [↵][7]Interagency Working Group on Social Cost of Carbon, Technical Support Document: Social Cost of Carbon for Regulatory Impact Analysis Under Executive Order 12866 (White House, Washington, DC, 2013). . . . 2. [↵][8]1. P. Watkiss, 2. C. Hope. , Wiley Interdiscip. Rev. Clim. Change 2, 886 (2011). [OpenUrl][9][CrossRef][10]. . 3. [↵][11]1. W. D. Nordhaus, 2. Z. Yang. , Am. Econ. Rev. 86, 741 (1996). [OpenUrl][12]. . 4. [↵][13]1. E. Rasmusen. 1. A. W. Tucker. , “A two-person dilemma” (Stanford University, 1950), reproduced in Readings in Games and Information, E. Rasmusen , Ed. (Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, 2001). . . 5. [↵][14]Paris Agreement, as contained in the report of the Conference of the Parties on its 21st session, FCCC/CP/2015/10/Add.1. [http://unfccc.int/meetings/paris\_nov\_2015/items/9445.php][15]. . [1]: http://www.

We examine to which extent the Keen model (Keen 1995) is a faithful modelling of Minsky's Finance Instability Hypothesis. We focus on debt, money, and debt-induced crisis. We propose a clear interpretation of the debt: households lend unconsumed income to firms to finance their investments, and money creation is not necessary. We offer a detailed description of the economic collapse and analyse its causes thanks to numerical experiments. The crisis is triggered by profits squeezed by wages and not by debt overhang. We test alternative assumptions on the investors' behaviour to show that behaviour at very low profits is fundamental. We conclude that the Keen crisis has few Minskian flavours.

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This paper aims at providing a consistent framework to appraise alternative modeling choices that have driven the so-called “when flexibility” controversy since the early 1990s, dealing with the optimal timing of mitigation efforts and the social cost of carbon (SCC). The literature has emphasized the critical impact of modeling structures on the optimal climate policy. We estimate within a unified framework the comparative impact of modeling structures and investigate the structural modeling drivers of differences in climate policy recommendations. We use the integrated assessment model (IAM) RESPONSE to capture a wide array of modeling choices. Specifically, we analyse four emblematic modeling choices, namely the forms of the damage function (quadratic vs. sigmoid) and the abatement cost (with or without inertia), the treatment of uncertainty, and the decision framework, deterministic or sequential, with different dates of information arrival. We define an original methodology based on an equivalence criterion to compare modeling structures, and we estimate their comparative impact on two outputs: the optimal SCC and abatement trajectories. We exhibit three key findings: (1) IAMs with a quadratic damage function are insensitive to changes of other features of the modeling structure, (2) IAMs involving a non-convex damage function entail contrasting climate strategies, (3) Precautionary behaviors can only come up in IAMs with non-convexities in damage.

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Dietz and Matei (2015) introduce Time-Stochastic Dominance and apply it to evaluate climate-change mitigation. They compute several preferences classes for which mitigation policies are preferred to business-as-usual. The purpose of the present study is to investigate which standard utility functions (with constant time-discount rate and a constant risk aversion) belong to them. The major contribution is to map preferences classes studied by Dietz and Matei (2015) into the space of time-discount rate and elasticity of marginal utility of consumption, space in which the climate debate has been shaped so far.

This paper discusses attempts to represent the role of R&D in the transition towards a low carbon economy through models with no meaningful granularity to inform the studied phenomenon. By means of a critical analysis of (Acemoglu et al., 2012), we show that the advantage of these models, their analytical tractability, does not make up for their disadvantages, lack of control over policy implications and questionable numerical results. On the one hand, a comprehensive analysis of the results of Acemoglu et al. (2012) shows that even research subsidies do not pave the way for ambitious climate policies with low transitory costs, thus contradicting their policy message. On the other hand, critical parameters such as the elasticity of substitution between clean and dirty technologies, carbon sinks, or the productivity of researchers are not in accordance with existing scientific knowledge. We show that using more realistic parameters leads to even more pessimistic conclusions and that their model provides no leeway for overcoming them. We suggest that a too highly aggregated model can only describe an incorporeal economy and comes to a deadlock. We propose a more promising route for economic research in order to break this deadlock.

Decision-makers have confirmed the long term objective of preventing a temperature increase greater than 2 °C. This paper aims at appraising by means of a cost-benefit analysis whether decision makers’ commitment to meet the 2 °C objective is credible or not. Within the framework of a cost-benefit type integrated assessment model, we consider that the economy faces climate damages with a threshold at 2 °C. We run the model for a broad set of scenarios accounting for the diversity of “worldviews” in the climate debate. For a significant share of scenarios we observe that it is considered optimal to exceed the threshold. Among those “non-compliers” we discriminate ”involuntary non-compliers” who cannot avoid the exceedance due to physical constraint from ”deliberate compliers” for whom the exceedance results from a deliberate costs-benefit analysis. A second result is that the later mitigation efforts begin, the more difficult it becomes to prevent the exceedance. In particular, the number of ”deliberate non-compliers” dramatically increases if mitigation efforts do not start by 2020, and the influx of involuntary non-compliers become overwhelming f efforts are delayed to 2040. In light of these results we argue that the window of opportunity for reaching the 2 °C objective with a credible chance of success is rapidly closing during the present decade. Further delay in finding a climate agreement critically undermines the credibility of the objective.

In this paper, we reconsider the concept of Berge equilibrium. In a recent work, Colman et al. [(2011) J. Math. Psych.55, 166–175] proposed a correspondence for two-player games between Berge and Nash equilibria by permutation of the utility functions. We define here more general transformations of games that lead to a correspondence with Berge and Nash equilibria and characterize all such transformations.

In Economic Prospects for Our Grandchildren, Keynes articulates his reasoning around three themes: economic growth, human occupation, and the love of money. Existing receptions either focus on a specific theme or ignore part of the reasoning. If one considers the entire argument, Keynes in fact offers a critique of capitalism, which gives free rein to the love of money, stimulates utilitarian activities and destroys the possibility of enjoying the abundance it creates.

Why are greenhouse gas emissions not controlled? The thesis interrogates the toolbox of neo-classical economic analysis and asks the question: how does economic theory form an inadequate mental framework for the climate problem? The thesis identifies shifts in the history of resource economics and shows a recurrent neglect of the material substrate of production. The production function, the preferred tool for modeling technical constraints, is based on a misunderstanding, as the Cambridge controversy taught. Cost-benefit analysis, the only supposedly non-normative approach, is preferred to deal with climate change, even if it means modeling unknown relationships. The damage function extrapolates from shared prejudices, and the repeated controversies over discounting highlight the inconsistency of the current macroeconomic framework. The analysis of a contemporary article makes explicit the functioning of this casual relationship to reality: the loose links between the mathematical structure of a model, the words used to describe it and its numerical results give extraordinary margins for interpretation. The relationship between economic system, ideology and academic discipline is studied through the prism of two symbols, homo economicus and the market. The inadequacy of economic theory to deal with climate change has a deeper root in the current market-centered organization of Western societies. The blocking effects can be seen both in the sociological phenomenon of climate skepticism and in the construction of the carbon market.

Why are greenhouse gas emissions not controlled? The thesis interrogates the toolbox of neo-classical economic analysis and asks the question: how does economic theory form an inadequate mental framing of the climate problem? The thesis identifies shifts in the history of resource economics and shows a recurrent neglect of the material substrate of production. The production function, the preferred tool for modeling technical constraints, is based on a misunderstanding, as the Cambridge controversy taught. Cost-benefit analysis, the only supposedly non-normative approach, is preferred to deal with climate change, even if it means modeling unknown relationships. The damage function extrapolates from shared prejudices, and the repeated controversies over discounting highlight the inconsistency of the current macroeconomic framework. The analysis of a contemporary article makes explicit the functioning of this casual relationship to reality: the loose links between the mathematical structure of a model, the words used to describe it and its numerical results give extraordinary margins for interpretation. The relationship between economic system, ideology and academic discipline is studied through the prism of two symbols, homo economicus and the market. The inadequacy of economic theory to deal with climate change has a deeper root in the current market-centered organization of Western societies. The blocking effects can be seen both in the sociological phenomenon of climate skepticism and in the construction of the carbon market.

This paper examines unconventional monetary policies in a two-period general equilibrium model. Agents exchange goods and also collateralized financial assets through money. An unconventional policy of increasing the quantity of money leads to the existence of only three scenarios compatible with the equilibrium conditions: 1) the economy encounters a liquidity trap. 2) money creation makes trade possible, at the cost of inflation. 3) money creation feeds a bubble that causes a financial crash. This trilemma highlights the transmission channels of monetary policies to real trade. It provides a rigorous foundation for the distinction between Fischerian debt deflation and Keynesian liquidity traps.

The article examines the positions taken in the public debate on climate policies. Arguments for and against climate policies are arranged in three antagonistic pairs, following the classification established by Albert Hirschman. The discourse of climate skeptics appears to be modelled on "reactionary" rhetoric, while that of environmentalists adopts "progressive" rhetoric.