How States Like Texas Are Driving the Clean Energy Boom in the Trump Era
Despite federal rollbacks, both red and blue states are using federal and state incentives to drive investment and upgrade energy infrastructure.
Writing
My columns, essays, books, as well as research and teaching materials like case studies.
Climate shift uncertainty and economic damages
by Romain Fillon, Manuel Linsenmeier and Gernot Wagner
How can Ørsted overcome its US challenges?
Financial Times business school teaching case study
How should solar-panel makers respond to falling prices?
Financial Times business school teaching case study
The Climate Policy Pendulum
Although US President-elect Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans give climate advocates plenty to worry about, all hope is not lost. Clean-energy technologies still have decisive physical advantages over the alternatives, and economic common sense will eventually win out.
What Will Trump’s Victory Mean for the Climate?
On climate and especially environmental policy, the return of Donald Trump to the White House is clearly bad news. But the outlook is uncertain, because Trump has sent mixed signals about the kinds of policy changes he might pursue, and it remains to be seen what effect he can have on broader technological and market trends.
Capture or cut carbon to make steel greener?
Financial Times business school teaching case study
Floods are wreaking havoc around the world. Vienna might have found an answer
The Austrian capital has been spared the worst of recent flooding. Its experience could be a lesson in how to tackle the climate crisis
Gute Industriepolitik ebnet den Weg zu effektiven CO2-Preisen
Es gibt handfeste Gründe dafür, effizienten Technologien zum Durchbruch zu verhelfen.
The Best Climate Policy Puts Carrots Before Sticks
Economists have long insisted that the only way to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases rapidly and at scale is to put a price on them. But while that is true, the key to a successful, politically sustainable climate policy is to ensure that the benefits precede the costs.
Tipping Carbon
Going, Going, Gone?
Don’t Slam the Door on Inexpensive Chinese Electric Vehicles
by Gernot Wagner & Conor Walsh
Averting Climate Catastrophe Requires Economic Growth
Improving energy efficiency is not enough for advocates of degrowth, who espouse energy sufficiency as the best way to fight climate change. But their argument is absurd: using limited inputs more efficiently is the definition of economic productivity – which, in turn, boosts growth.
The Right Response to China’s Electric-Vehicle Subsidies
by Gernot Wagner & Shang-Jin Wei
What Does Trump Mean for the Climate?
Even if Donald Trump defeats President Joe Biden and tries to take a wrecking ball to US climate and environmental policies, he ultimately would be powerless to derail the inevitable renewables revolution that is gaining momentum worldwide. His anti-climate agenda would be another wall that never gets built.
The Ukraine War Blew Up the World’s Energy Economy
And the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act is surprisingly well-designed to deal with the fallout.
Supply, demand and polarization challenges facing US climate policies
by Matthew G. Burgess, Leaf Van Boven, Gernot Wagner, Gabrielle Wong-Parodi et al
How to Assess the Outcome of COP28
Given that this year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference was hosted by a petrostate and led by a fossil-fuel CEO, climate campaigners understandably had low expectations. Yet the summit did deliver some new commitments, and there is good reason to think that they are more than just empty words.
What Steel Decarbonization Needs
It is both technically possible and economically feasible to eliminate almost all the carbon dioxide from iron and steel production by mid-century, thus cleaning up an industry that accounts for 10% of global emissions. But progress will not happen without a concerted policy push.
