Economy: an indispensable tool for climate and nuclear energy
Economic issues of global warming

As we've just seen, economic science has long been concerned with the issue of effective policies to benefit people, and now also with climate change. In France, public research institutes organized around ANCRE (Alliance nationale de la coordination de la recherche pour l'énergie) are very active on the subject, and in particular the CEA via its Institut de technico-économie des systèmes énergétiques (I-Tésé).

The subject is complex and uncertain. Models can be perfected. But solid conclusions are already emerging:

• it is essential to move towards mitigation actions;

• energy prices will/should rise;

• innovation has a decisive role to play over the long term and at European level;

• many models allow us to derive implicit carbon costs by assuming that carbon emissions correspond to shadow carbon prices.