Carlo Carraro

• Ph. D. Princeton University
• Professor (Full) at Ca' Foscari University of Venice

The Working Group III (WG III) contribution to the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) assesses literature on the scientific, technological, environmental, economic and social aspects of mitigation of climate change. The report reflects new findings in the relevant literature and builds on previous IPCC reports, including the WG III contribution t...

The link between natural resources and conflict has been extensively analysed by the empirical literature. Yet, there is disagreement on both the existence and the type of relationship connecting resources to conflict. Existing research has focused on demonstrating the impact of resource scarcity or abundance on the risk of conflict, but no effort...

This paper proposes a novel approach to investigating the determinants of academic performance: GPA and time to degree. We match administrative records with questionnaire responses for a large set of undergraduate students from one Italian public university. By exploiting reforms implemented by the University, we estimate the effect of the excess t...

Il 2017 ha segnato un importante punto di svolta dell’ articolato e lungo percorso di sostenibilità del nostro Paese. Nel quadro di riferimento dettato dall’ Agenda 2030 dell’ONU sullo Sviluppo Sostenibile e dalla Strategia nazionale di Sviluppo Sostenibile (SNSvS) , l’elaborazione del Primo Rapporto sullo Stato del Capitale Naturale in Italia ha...

This analysis lies in the stream of research related to the quantitative assessment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted by the United Nations at the end of September 2015. We assemble a composite multi-dimensional index and a worldwide ranking of current sustainability. This makes it possible to assess the strengths and weaknesses...

This paper describes the methodology and main results from an overall assessment on future achievement of sustainable development goals. The proposed approach consists of a model-based, looking forward composite sustainable development index—FEEM sustainability index—projected to the future. It represents a first experiment to reproduce the future...

Trainer (2017) criticizes cost estimates of climate change mitigation presented in the Working Group III Report to the IPCC and is concerned by lack of transparency and dubious practices in summarizing the literature. This commentary shows that this critique is based on several mistakes. Trainer (2017) mixes evidence on investment changes and evide...

This chapter analyses a set of new scenarios for energy markets in Europe to evaluate the role of natural gas across a range of assumptions on climate policy (including the post-Copenhagen Pledges and the EU Roadmap). The goal is to identify whether current trend and policies are leading to an economically efficient and, at the same time, climate-f...

The EU has a consolidated climate and energy policy, which has played a pioneering role by adopting a wide range of emission reduction measures. However, it is often claimed that these measures have a negative effect on the economy, especially in terms of growth and competitiveness. This chapter reviews the recent literature on the European experie...

Comitato Capitale Naturale (2017), Primo Rapporto sullo Stato del Capitale Naturale in Italia, Roma.

Keeping the momentum going after the early entry into force of the Paris Agreement (November 4th 2016) was no easy task. Yet, the very slogan chosen by the Moroccan Presidency for COP 22 - the “COP of action”- had stressed the intention of giving the event the political weight and significance it needed to step up the implementation of the Paris Ag...

The Paris Agreement culminates a six-year transition towards an international climate policy architecture based on parties submitting national pledges every five years. An important policy task will be to assess and compare these contributions. We use four integrated assessment models to produce metrics of Paris Agreement pledges, and show differen...

This article is divided into three parts. First, it provides an overview of the main outcomes of the last IPCC assessment report, both in terms of economic drivers of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and in terms of impacts of climate change, in particular for the agriculture sector. Then, it focuses on policy options and their optimal design, takin...

This report analyses the climate model projections for various emissions scenarios and discusses the possibility of meeting the 1.5 and 2.0 degree Celsius goals established in the Paris Agreement. Stopping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius probably cannot be met. the 2 degree Celsius goal will require a far stronger commitment than can be curr...

International negotiations on climate change control are moving away from a global cooperative agreement (at least from the ambition to achieve it) to adopt a bottom-up framework composed of unilateral pledges of domestic measures and policies. This shift from cooperative to voluntary actions to control GHG emissions already started in Copenhagen a...

Implementing an effective climate policy is one of the main challenges for the future. Curbing greenhouse gas emissions can prevent future irreversible impacts of climate change. Climate policy is therefore crucial for present and future generations. Nonetheless, one may wonder whether future economic and social development could be harmed by clima...

The FEEM project APPS – Assessment, Projections and Policy of Sustainable Development Goals – focuses on the quantitative assessment of the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted by the United Nations at the end of September 2015. The project consists of two phases. The first, retrospective, computes indicators for all SDGs in 139...

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is broadly viewed as the world’s most legitimate scientific assessment body that periodically assesses the economics of climate change (among many other topics) for policy audiences. However, growing procedural inefficiencies and limitations to substantive coverage have made the IPCC an increasin...

This is the first English translation of Benedetto Cotrugli’s The Book of the Art of Trade, a lively account of the life of a Mediterranean merchant in the Early Renaissance, written in 1458. The book is an impassioned defense of the legitimacy of mercantile practices, and includes the first scholarly mention of double-entry bookkeeping. Its four p...

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is broadly viewed as the world’s most legitimate scientific assessment body that periodically assesses the economics of climate change (among many other topics) for policy audiences. However, growing procedural inefficiencies and limitations to substantive coverage have made the IPCC an increasin...

The global average temperature has been constantly rising over the last 100 years. More and more frequently environmental disasters have hit various regions around the globe, drastically affecting the lives of millions of people. Climate change is probably one of the most pressing and imminent economic problems the world is facing right now, more u...

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has proven its value as an institution for large-scale scientific collaboration to synthesize and assess large volumes of climate research for use by policy-makers, as well as for establishing credibility of findings among diverse national governments. But the IPCC has received considerable criti...

Investments in low carbon infrastructures are essential to reduce current emissions trajectories and to stimulate economic growth. Yet many economies are failing to mobilize sufficient financial resources due to the lack of public financing capacity, to the market perception that investments in energy infrastructures are high-risk, and to the size...

This book presents provides a rigorous yet accessible treatment of the main topics in climate change policy using a large body of research generated using WITCH (World Induced Technical Change Hybrid), an innovative and path-breaking integrated assessment model. © Valentina Bosetti, Carlo Carraro, Emanuele Massetti and Massimo Tavoni 2014. All righ...

The first IPCC Assessment Report was released in 1990 and served as the scientific basis of the decisions taken within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), signed in 1992. In 1997, the Convention adopted the Kyoto Protocol, which entered into force on 16 February 2005 as the first international agreement to reduce gre...

This paper investigates the determinants of academic achievements of post-reform undergraduate students of Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. Academic achievements are measured with the students’ grade point averages and time to graduation. The set of independent variables contains information on students’ personal characteristics, prior academic ac...

The reduction of GHG emissions is one of the most important policy objectives worldwide. Nonetheless, concrete and effective measures to reduce them are hardly implemented. One of the main reasons for this deadlock is the fear that unilateral actions will reduce a country’s competitiveness, and will benefit those countries where no GHG mitigation m...

The FEEM Sustainability Index (FEEM SI) proposes an integrated methodological approach to quantitatively assess sustainability performance across countries and over time. Three are the main features of this approach: (1) the index considers sustainability based on economic, environmental and social indicators simultaneously; (2) the framework used...

This paper proposes a new tool to assess sustainability and make the concept of sustainable development operational. It considers its multi-dimensional structure combining the information deriving from a selection of relevant sustainability indicators belonging to economic, social and environmental pillars. It reproduces the dynamics of these indic...

This paper estimates factor-specific technical change and input substitution using a structural approach. It contributes to the existing literature by introducing various technology drivers for factor productivities and by assessing the impact of endogenous technical change on the elasticity of substitution. The empirical results suggest that facto...

Implementing an effective climate policy is one of the main challenges for our future. Even though ambitious mitigation targets are necessarily costly, curbing GHG emissions can prevent future irreversible impacts of climate change on human kind and the environment. Climate policy is therefore crucial for present and future generations. Nonetheless...

This paper analyzes a set of new scenarios for energy markets in Europe to evaluate the consistency of economic incentives and climate objectives. It focuses in particular on the role of natural gas across a range of climate policy scenarios (including the Copenhagen Pledges and the EU Roadmap) to identify whether current trends and policies are le...

This article provides an analysis of international environmental treaties and coalition building by focusing on the economic incentives to cooperate in environmental protection and on the main drivers that explain the success or failure of international environmental negotiations.

The paper evaluates the impacts on investments and public finance of a transition to a green, low carbon, economy induced by carbon taxation. Four global tax scenarios are examined using the integrated assessment model WITCH. Taxes are levied on all greenhouse gases (GHGs) and lead to global GHG concentrations equal to 680, 560, 500 and 460 ppm CO2...

1 Motivation for the RECIPE projectThe economics of decarbonization have become an important topic over the last decade, asmany research groups have explored the costs and technologies of decarbonization. Thesescenarios have been widely used by institutions like the Intergovernmental Panel on ClimateChange (IPCC) and many national advisory bodies a...

This article describes future energy and emissions scenarios in China. Using the scenarios on future economic development, energy use and emissions generated by the Integrated Assessment Model WITCH, a few key messages are highlighted. In particular, for the crucial role that China has and will have in determining global future climate, it is of ut...

This paper analyzes the economic and investment implications of a series of climate mitigation scenarios, characterized by different levels of ambition for long-term stabilization goals and transitional pathways. Results indicate that although milder climate objectives can be achieved at moderate costs, stringent stabilization paths, compatible wit...

This paper looks at the interplay between human capital and innovation in the presence of climate and educational policies. Using recent empirical estimates, human capital and general purpose R&D are introduced in an integrated assessment model that has been extensively applied to study the climate change mitigation. Our results suggest that climat...

This paper analyses the incentives to participate in and the stability of international climate coalitions. Using the integrated assessment model WITCH, the analysis of coalitions’ profitability and stability is performed under alternative assumptions concerning the pure rate of time preference, the social welfare aggregator and the extent of clima...

In the absence of significant greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation, many analysts project that atmospheric concentrations of species identified for control in the Kyoto protocol could exceed 1000 ppm (carbon-dioxide-equivalent) by 2100 from the current levels of about 435 ppm. This could lead to global average temperature increases of between 2.5 and 6°...

The latest round of international negotiations in Copenhagen led to a set of commitments on emission reductions which are unlikely to stabilise global warming below or around 2°C. As a consequence, in the absence of additional ambitious policy measures, adaptation will be needed to address climate-related damages. What is the role of adaptation in...

Given the present climate regime, it is crucial to analyse whether an incentive strategy exists that could induce the US to revise their decision and to comply with the Kyoto commitments. One solution, occasionally proposed in the literature and in actual policymaking, is to link negotiations on climate change control with decisions concerning inte...

Most people would agree that it makes sense to tax a company that pollutes in a way that directly reflects the amount of environmental and social damage it has done. Yet in practice, such taxes are fraught with difficulty and have far-reaching implications. A company facing a new tax may lay off workers, for example, exacerbating an unemployment pr...

This paper provides a summary and a critical survey of the method-ologies and results of the literature on the economics of adaptation. We divide the literature into two broad areas of research. First, we examine the studies that analyse adaptation from a bottom-up per-spective. Second, we introduce the studies that examine adaptation using a top-d...

No abstract available.

The paper examines future energy and emissions scenarios in China, presenting historical data and scenarios generated using the Integrated Assessment Model WITCH. A Business-as-Usual scenario is compared with four scenarios in which Greenhouse Gases emissions are taxed, at different levels. Key insights are provided to evaluate the Chinese pledge t...

In this paper we investigate directed technical change in the energy sector. We develop a dynamic model in which energy demand is satisfied with production derived from renewable and fossil-fuel energy. This framework allows us to estab-lish a long-run relationship between relative energy prices and relative innovation in the two sectors, which is...

In this survey we review the literature that studies the relationship between environmental policy and technical change. We divide the literature in two broad areas of research. First, we look at the studies that evaluate the impact of environmental regulation on technological change after the implementation of environmental policy (ex-post). Secon...

The Venice Conference (12-15 September 2011) gathered experts in climate change adaptation to both learn from Venice’s experiences and activities, and to provide examples of best practices from around the globe to inform Venetian decision makers in the design of a plan of adaptive management and complementary measures for the Venice system. The pla...

In the absence of significant greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation, many analysts project that atmospheric concentrations of species identified for control in the Kyoto protocol could exceed 1000 ppm (carbon-dioxide-equivalent) by 2100 from the current levels of about 435 ppm. This could lead to global average temperature increases of between 2.5 and 6°...

This paper aims at analysing the possible outcomes of the Copenhagen Accord pledges, proposed after the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 15th Conference of the Parties (COP-15). We consider different levels of cooperation that may arise and analyse them with a dynamic Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model of the w...

We propose a realistic approach to climate policy based on the Copenhagen Agreement to reduce Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) emissions. We assess by how much the non-binding, although official, commitments to reduce emissions made in Copenhagen will affect the level of world GHGs emissions in 2020. Our estimates are based on official communications to the...

In this survey we review the literature that studies the relationship between environmental policy and technical change. We divide the literature in two broad areas of research. First, we look at the studies that evaluate the impact of environmental regulation on technological change after the implementation of environmental policy ( ex-post ). Sec...

Introduction. Adaptation to climate change has become a strategic negotiation issue only recently, although the UNFCCC has referred to it in Article 2 and Article 4. The difficulty of implementing national and international mitigation policies and the increasing awareness of climate inertia eventually put adaptation under the spotlight of science a...

It has become commonly accepted that a successful climate strategy should compound mitigation and adaptation. The accurate combination between adaptation and mitigation that can best address climate change is still an open question. This paper proposes a framework that integrates mitigation, adaptation, and climate change residual damages into an o...

This paper analyzes the economic and investment implications of a series of climate mitigation scenarios, characterized by different levels of ambition in terms of long term stabilization goals and the transition to attain them. In particular, the implications of fairly ambitious scenarios are investigated for the first time by means of the model W...

This paper addresses two basic issues related to technological innovation and climate stabilization objectives: can innovation policies be effective in stabilizing climate? To what extent can innovation policies complement carbon pricing (taxes or permit trading) and improve the economic efficiency of a mitigation policy package? To answer these qu...

It has become commonly accepted that a successful climate strategy should compound mitigation and adaptation. The accurate combination between adaptation and mitigation that can best address climate change is still an open question. This paper proposes a framework that integrates mitigation, adaptation, and climate change residual damages into an o...

Financing for adaptation is a core element in the ongoing international negotiations on climate change. This has motivated a number of recent global estimates of adaptation costs. While important from an agenda setting perspective, many of these estimates nevertheless have a number of limitations. They are typically static (i.e. estimated for one s...

The Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements is a global, multi-disciplinary effort intended to help identify the key design elements of a scientifically sound, economically rational, and politically pragmatic post-2012 international policy architecture for addressing the threat of climate change. It has commissioned leading scholars to...

Based on recent empirical evidence, this paper includes human capital and knowledge in an integrated assessment model and it assesses the interplay between innovation, human capital, climate change, and education policies. Results indicate that climate policy stimulates a dedicated form of energy-knowledge without reducing generic R&D investments....

Preparatory talks to the next round of negotiations seem to indicate that a comprehensive agreement to mitigate climate change will not be easily attainable, despite the intentions of the US administration and the high expectations surrounding the Copenhagen meeting. One key reason is to what extent fast growing economies, and especially China, sho...

Despite the growing concern about actual on-going climate change, there is little consensus on the scale and timing of actions needed to stabilise the concentrations of greenhouse gases. Many countries are unwilling to implement mitigation strategies, at least in the short term, and no agreement on an ambitious global stabilisation target has yet b...

This paper builds on the assumption that OECD countries are (or will soon be) taking actions to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. These actions, however, will not be sufficient to control global warming, unless developing countries also get involved in the cooperative effort to reduce GHG emissions. The paper investigates the best short-term s...

Discussion over post-2012 climate policy is now entering a crucial phase. Despite the potential great risks of prolonged global warming, the success of an international climate stabilization agreement hinges to a great extent on its economic feasibility. This article makes precise the assumptions that underpin current mainstream estimates of the co...

Stabilizing the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHGs) at levels expected to prevent dangerous climate changes has become an important, long-term global objective. It is therefore crucial to identify a cost-effective way to achieve this objective. In this paper, we use WITCH, a hybrid climate–energy–economy model, to obtain a quantit...

This paper analyses whether and how a climate policy designed to stabilize greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is likely to change the direction and pace of technical progress. The analysis is performed using an upgraded version of WITCH, a dynamic integrated regional model of the world economy. In this version, a non-energy R&D Sector, which enhanc...

This article was submitted without an abstract, please refer to the full-text PDF file.

This article was submitted without an abstract, please refer to the full-text PDF file.

This paper analyses the conditions under which a group of firms have the incentive to sign a voluntary agreement (VA) to control polluting emissions even in the presence of free-riding by other firms in the industry. We consider a policy framework in which firms in a given industry decide whether or not to sign a VA proposed by an environmental reg...

This paper uses WITCH, an integrated assessment model with a game-theoretic structure, to explore the prospects for, and the stability of broad coalitions to achieve ambitious climate change mitigation action. Only coalitions including all large emitting regions are found to be technically able to meet a concentration stabilisation target below 550...

This volume provides a broad survey of the recent developments in the new economics of the environment and reports the state of the art on a new set of environmental problems, analytical tools and economic policies. Throughout the volume environmental problems are analyzed in an open, generally noncompetitive economy with transnational or global ex...