Marginal Abatement Cost Tool (MACTool)

March 19, 2019 by namnews

I bet all environmental economists know about MAC (Marginal Abatement/Control Cost) and MDC (Marginal Damage Cost). In terms of climate change mitigation, the MAC curves could be useful in presenting different alternative projects and policies for decision making.

MAC Tool (by Sustain Success Ltd.) is an Excel add-in that can help constructing the curves, which I recently got to know about from reviewing a PhD thesis in National Economics University Vietnam. The PhD candidate had to buy it for $30, but now it is free of charge here.

The software is fairly simple and easy to use, but it could produce some intuitive results for policy makers.

P/S: If you are interested in analyzing climate change, some more tools could be found in NDC Partnership website (e.g. Cost of Renewable Energy Spreadsheet Tool – CREST, COBRA and Climate Change and Health)

Should we be consistent in dealing with inconsistencies?

April 19, 2013 by namnews

From the economics of climate change, I believe that Carbon trade will benefit the society eventually. That is consistent. However, the effectiveness of this scheme is modelled as a function of carbon price, which is not consistent at all (in either short term or long term). In fact, recent fall of EU carbon price has shaken AUS government’s faith in the policy.

This is an ironic that you will necessarily face if your policy is based on quantitative analysis of data. That’s why I prefer non-data quantitative reasoning such as in AHF model to consider this kind of policy.

P/S: Could the price be constant in long term if we can create a perfectly competitive market for carbon?

Cutting edge conferences on climate change

May 28, 2012 by namnews

It would be a big mistake if I don’t archive some recent conferences here. Indeed, the science of climate change is so new that we could consider conference papers as a main source of reference. This list is updated on a continual basis.

Firstly, pages help update conference lists: AEA, EEPSEA, Bioecon, UNEP

Secondly, conferences that I attempt to go

16 and 17 June 2011: Climate Economics and Law Conference, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.

12-14 July 2011: Four degrees or more, Melbourne University, Melbourne, Australia. (Videos are available)

9-12 July 2012: 2012 World Conference on Natural Resource Modeling, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia (I was late for this one so please remind me next year).

18th June 2013: World Conference on Natural Resource Modeling (Deadline: April 15th 2013)

18-20 March 2013: 1st European Climate Change Adaptation Conference (Deadline 1rd 2013)

December: Annual PhD Conference in Economics and Business at The University of Western Australia’s Business School

5th June 2013: International Conference on Strategic Infrastructure Asset Management for Urban Deltas in Sydney (Deadline: 20 Feb 2013). Paper Formatting Guidelines

July 2013: ACE in Perth (Deadline 30 April 2013)

July 2013: EAERE Feem Summer School

November 2013: PhD conference at ANU

4 Feb 2014: AARES 2014 (Closing date for submission of papers and posters 14 Oct 2013)

The Pacific Trade and Development Conference (PAFTAD) (every 12-18 months)

24-26 September 2014: Deltas in Times of Climate Change II (deadline 15 March).

IRDR conferences 2014 I should not miss it next year. Anw, there are plenty of information on jobs, research and conferences on the webpage.

17th Annual BIOECON Conference Biodiversity, Ecosystem Services and Sustainability (Deadline 22rd May)