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Economics of climate change under uncertainty: Benefits of flexibility

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  • Anda, Jon
  • Golub, Alexander
  • Strukova, Elena

Abstract

The selection of climate policy has to be made in an extremely uncertain environment: both benefits and costs of a particular climate policy are unknown and in the best case could be described by the probability distribution of various outcomes. Dominated in literature, the expected value approach to the cost-benefit analysis of climate policy under uncertainties relies on the aggregated estimation of various outcomes of climate policy weighted and averaged by probabilities. The variance, skewness, and kurtosis are important characteristics of uncertainties but can be easily lost in the process of aggregation. The real option analysis (ROA) explicitly accounts for both the expected value of underling assets and the variance of the expected value (as well as skewness and kurtosis that are important to describe a fat tail phenomenon). In the paper, we propose an application of the real option analysis in order to formulate rules for the selection of a climate policy (emission target) and estimate the economic value of the future flexibility created by interim climate policy, which may be corrected in the future in response to new knowledge that hopefully reduces uncertainties. The initially selected interim policy has an option value and methodology for its valuation presented in the paper.

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  • Anda, Jon & Golub, Alexander & Strukova, Elena, 2009. "Economics of climate change under uncertainty: Benefits of flexibility," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 1345-1355, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:37:y:2009:i:4:p:1345-1355
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Marshall, Liz & Kelly, Alexia, 2010. "The Time Value of Carbon and Carbon Storage: Clarifying the terms and the policy implications of the debate," MPRA Paper 27326, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Alexander Golub & Oleg Lugovoy & Anil Markandya & Ramon Arigoni Ortiz & James Wang, 2013. "Regional IAM: analysis of risk-adjusted costs and benefits of climate policies," Working Papers 2013-06, BC3.
    3. Golub, Alexander (Голуб, Александр), 2018. "Methodological Issues of Assessing Investment Risks in Projects Weakening the Dependence of the Russian Economy on Natural Resources and Providing a Transition to Low-Carbon Development [Методологи," Working Papers 071802, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.
    4. Steve Newbold & Charles Griffiths & Christopher C. Moore & Ann Wolverton & Elizabeth Kopits, 2010. "The "Social Cost of Carbon" Made Simple," NCEE Working Paper Series 201007, National Center for Environmental Economics, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, revised Aug 2010.
    5. Alexander Golub & Michael Brody, 2017. "Uncertainty, climate change, and irreversible environmental effects: application of real options to environmental benefit-cost analysis," Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Springer;Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences, vol. 7(4), pages 519-526, December.
    6. Alexander Golub & Jon Anda & Anil Markandya & Michael Brody & Aldin Celovic & Angele Kedaitiene, 2022. "Climate alpha and the global capital market," Working Papers 2022.19, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    7. Yuanfeng Hu & Yixiang Tian & Luping Zhang, 2023. "Green Bond Pricing and Optimization Based on Carbon Emission Trading and Subsidies: From the Perspective of Externalities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(10), pages 1-20, May.
    8. Dobes Leo & Jotzo Frank & Stern David I., 2014. "The Economics of Global Climate Change: A Historical Literature Review," Review of Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 65(3), pages 281-320, December.
    9. Valentina Bosetti & Ruben Lubowski (ed.), 2010. "Deforestation and Climate Change," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 13733.
    10. Dobes, Leo, 2010. "Notes on applying ‘real options’ to climate change adaptation measures, with examples from Vietnam," Working Papers 249384, Australian National University, Centre for Climate Economics & Policy.
    11. Brody, Michael & Eshchanov, Bahtiyour & Golub, Alexander (Голуб, Александр), 2020. "Approaches to Optimize Uzbekistan’s Investment in Irrigation Technologies," Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, vol. 2, pages 136-147, April.
    12. Golub, Alexander & Lubowski, Ruben & Piris-Cabezas, Pedro, 2017. "Balancing Risks from Climate Policy Uncertainties: The Role of Options and Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 90-98.
    13. Lee, Shun-Chung & Shih, Li-Hsing, 2010. "Renewable energy policy evaluation using real option model -- The case of Taiwan," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(Supplemen), pages 67-78, September.
    14. Sylvie Geisendorf, 2018. "Evolutionary Climate-Change Modelling: A Multi-Agent Climate-Economic Model," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 52(3), pages 921-951, October.
    15. Gren, Ing-Marie & Carlsson, Mattias & Elofsson, Katarina & Munnich, Miriam, 2012. "Stochastic carbon sinks for combating carbon dioxide emissions in the EU," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 1523-1531.
    16. Golub, Alexander A. & Lubowski, Ruben N. & Piris-Cabezas, Pedro, 2020. "Business responses to climate policy uncertainty: Theoretical analysis of a twin deferral strategy and the risk-adjusted price of carbon," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 205(C).
    17. World Bank, 2011. "Climate Change and Fiscal Policy : A Report for APEC," World Bank Publications - Reports 2734, The World Bank Group.
    18. Cheng, Ching-Tsung & Lo, Shang-Lien & Lin, Tyrone T., 2011. "Applying real options analysis to assess cleaner energy development strategies," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(10), pages 5929-5938, October.
    19. Sylvie Geisendorf, 2016. "The impact of personal beliefs on climate change: the “battle of perspectives” revisited," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 26(3), pages 551-580, July.
    20. Paul Watkiss & Alistair Hunt & William Blyth & Jillian Dyszynski, 2015. "The use of new economic decision support tools for adaptation assessment: A review of methods and applications, towards guidance on applicability," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 132(3), pages 401-416, October.
    21. Glanemann, Nicole, 2014. "The Optimal Climate Policy of Mitigation and AdaptationːA Real Options Theory Perspective," WiSo-HH Working Paper Series 15, University of Hamburg, Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences, WISO Research Laboratory.
    22. Golub, Alexander & Herrera, Diego & Leslie, Gabriela & Pietracci, Breno & Lubowski, Ruben, 2021. "A real options framework for reducing emissions from deforestation: Reconciling short-term incentives with long-term benefits from conservation and agricultural intensification," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).

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