Research Seminar of International Laboratory for Macroeconomic Analysis: Irina Bakalova «Can we reach an effective and stable international agreement on solar geoengineering?»

Dear Colleagues,

International Laboratory for Macroeconomic Analysis invite everyone to join our research seminar on the 01st  of  July 2021 (Thursday) at 04:00 PM (Moscow). 

Speaker: Irina Bakalova (ILMA, HSE)

Theme: « Can we reach an effective and stable international agreement on solar geoengineering?»

Abstract:

Abatement of greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions is indispensable. Yet, it is expensive and slow in reducing climate change risks. Therefore, solar geoengineering (SG) is increasingly discussed as a potential instrument of the global climate policy portfolio aimed at reducing climate risks. SG is commonly referred to as “fast, cheap, and imperfect”. This is because SG can reduce temperature faster than a reduction in carbon concentration and its deployment costs are low. Yet, SG does not perfectly compensate for local climate changes driven by GHGs. Due to its low cost and large local benefits, the incentives for unilateral deployment (referred to as free driving) are strong. At the same time, SG deployment, if done in a certain way, can make some countries worse off. Thus, in the absence of international coordination, SG poses a real threat to global communities. We develop a formal game-theoretical framework to capture a range of current speculations about the potential design of international agreement on SG in a more formally precise way. We propose a transfer scheme that has the potential to foster stability of the agreement. We show that if direct costs of deployment are negligible, any coalition may counteract a potential free driver’s incentive in the amount of the gain from free driving. We also demonstrate that the grand coalition is stable with transfers even in the absence of restrictions on the non-signatories. These results are quite optimistic in that they suggest that the free-driving problem may be solved if transfers are an available option. What’s more, an existing precedent in the international agreements suggests feasibility of such a transfers scheme.

Working language: English

Link: https://zoom.us/j/8915494425

ID: 891 549 4425

Looking forward to see you.