Political attention has increasingly focused on limiting warming to 2°C. However, to date the only mitigation commitments accompanying this target are the so-called Copenhagen pledges, and these pledges appear to be inconsistent with the 2°C objective. Diverging opinions on whether this...

Decision makers facing abatement targets need to decide which abatement measures to implement, and in which order. Measure-explicit marginal abatement cost curves depict the cost and abating potential of available mitigation options. Using a simple intertemporal optimization model, we...

The scientific community is now developing a new set of scenarios, referred to as Shared Socio-economic Pathways (SSPs) to replace the SRES scenarios. To be used to investigate adaptation and mitigation, SSPs need to be contrasted along two axes: challenges to mitigation, and challenges to...

This paper investigates the optimal timing of greenhouse gas abatement efforts in a multi-sectoral model with economic inertia, each sector having a limited abatement potential. It defines economic inertia as the conjunction of technical inertia - a social planner chooses investment on...

Decision makers facing abatement targets need to decide which abatement measures to implement, and in which order. This paper investigates the ability of marginal abatement cost (MAC) curves to inform this decision, reanalysing a MAC curve developed by the World Bank on Brazil. Misinterpreting...

This paper finds that it is optimal to start a long-term emission-reduction strategy with significant short-term abatement investment, even if the optimal carbon price starts low and grows progressively over time. Moreover, optimal marginal abatement investment costs differ across sectors of the...

Countries have pledged to stabilize global warming at a 1.5 to 2°C increase. Either target requires reaching net zero emissions before the end of the century, which implies a major transformation of the economic system. This paper reviews the literature on how policymakers can design climate...