Massimo Tavoni

                           Associate Professor, Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Organization, 
Politecnico di Milano (PoliMi)

                                                 



Research interests: 
climate change, energy, integrated assessment modeling, environmental economics

Selected research

What are the most important sensitivities of the future CO2 emissions? a new study with Giacomo Marangoni and co-authors estimates the global sensitivity of projected emissions under different socio-economic scenarios


Can renewables policies foster corruption? With Caterina Gennaioli, we examine the impact of wind support in Southern Italy

In this paper, together with colleagues Loic Bergers and Johannes Emmerling, we look at model uncertainty and catastrophic climate change

An article led by Jessica Jewell at IIASA examines the relation between climate change and energy security:

A paper led by Christoph Stechow from PIK reviews the literature on the co-effects of mitigation on multiple sustainable objectives.

This paper, led by Mariesse van Sluiveld out of the LIMITS project, compares model projections of energy system change under 2°C with historically observed ones.


In this article with Laurent Drouet and Valentina Bosetti we have quantified the key uncertainties in the IPCC 5th a.r. and used different decision making criteria to select a range of optimal climate policies under uncertainties. This is meant to provide insights into robust climate policy, as highlighted in the paper commentary written by Rob Lempert.
History of IAM model comparisons
A correspondence in Nature Climate discusses the issue of multi model ensambles in IAMs. We show that model comparisons in IAMs followed a very similar path to those in the climate community (AMIPs, CMIPs etc.).
The Stanford based Energy Modeling Forum organized the first energy modeling comparison already in 1977. Model comparisons played a crucial role in the latest IPCC WGIII assessment. The IPCC scenario database contains around 1000 scenarios generated by IAMs, and is publicly available here.

COBHAM (ERC project) website online

The website of the ERC project about behavioural climate economics is now up. We will be posting information about research on how behavioral economics and new technology can help reducing our carbon footprint.

Post 2020 climate agreements in the light of global models
In this review article we explore different possible outcomes of the ongoing international climate negotiation debate and their impacts on the major economies. We compare the currently discussed pledges to a cooperative agreement in terms of peaking of emissions, regional carbon budgets, distribution of economic costs, and investment gaps. The regional challenges of achieving significant temperature reductions are highlighted.

Shale gas and climate change in 'Nature'

A new article in Nature explores the impact of availability of natural gas on climate change. We find that in the absence of climate policies, increased availability of gas (e.g. via shale) will not have a discernible impact on climate change till mid century.
More on negative emissions

In a commentary on Nature Climate Change we discuss the good and bads of negative emissions for achieving climate stabilization. Though negative emissions play an important role in the modeling assessment of climate policies, many uncertainties remain about the feasibility of their implementation at large scale
EMF27 special issue

The EMF27 Study on Global Technology and Climate Policy Strategies is now available here. It is one of the largest multi model comparison, with a specific focus on the role of clean energy technologies and energy efficiency in achieving climate stabilization. It also looks into coordinated versus fragmented international climate agreements.

The LIMITS study on the Durban platform scenarios and their relation to 2C
 The LIMITS project
has completed the most comprehensive model inter-comparison on the outcome of the Durban negotiation process and the long term climate objectives. The special issue –published in the journal Climate Change Economics- is composed of 12 original papers which are publicly accessible here.
 


Partial Climate Agreement with Open Entry
With Fabio Sferra, a colleague at FEEM and CMCC, we have assessed an international climate agreement partial agreement policy in which non-signatory countries can decide to join or to leave a coalition of the willing at any point in time in a FEEM working paper,
Carbon Dioxide Removal (a.k.a. negative emission technologies).

With Robert Socolow (Princeton University), we have edited a special issue in the journal Climatic Change in which we look at the issue of carbon dioxide removal technologies.This special issue is a self contained report about carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere, with 10 papers complementary exploring CDR through integrated assessment modeling (IAM) and through other disciplinary investigations (ecology, geo-engineering, policy). An overview of the 10 papers and of our reading of the subject are available in the first, editorial article. 

All articles are publicly accessible via open access.


1. CLIM-D-12-00647 Modeling meets science and technology:  An introduction to a Special Issue on Negative Emissions. Tavoni and Socolow. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-013-0757-9#page-1

2. CLIM-D-12-00193 The role of negative CO2 emissions for reaching 2°C - Insights from Integrated Assessment Modelling. van Vuuren et al. http://rd.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-012-0680-5

3. CLIM-D-12-00108R1 Can Radiative Forcing Be Limited to 2.6 Wm-2 Without Negative Emissions From Bioenergy and CO2 Capture and Storage? Edmonds et al.  http://rd.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-012-0678-z

4. CLIM-D-12-00194R1 Is atmospheric carbon dioxide removal a game changer for climate change mitigation? Kriegler et al. http://rd.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-012-0681-4

5. CLIM-D-12-00181R2 Direct Air Capture of CO2 and Climate Stabilization: A Model Based Assessment. Chen and Tavoni. http://rd.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-013-0714-7

6. CLIM-D-12-00115R1 Optimal mitigation strategies with negative emission technologies and carbon sinks under uncertainty. Fuss et al. http://rd.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-012-0676-1

7. CLIM-D-12-00243 Ecological limits to terrestrial biological carbon dioxide removal. Smith and Torn. http://rd.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-012-0682-3

8. CLIM-D-12-00179R1 Adjustment of the natural carbon cycle to negative emission rates. Vichi et al. http://rd.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-012-0677-0

9. CLIM-D-12-00190R1 Direct air capture of CO2 with chemicals: optimization of a two-loop hydroxide-carbonate system using a countercurrent air-liquid contactor. Mazzotti et al. http://rd.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-012-0679-y  

10. CLIM-D-12-00234 Exploring negative territory: Carbon dioxide removal and climate policy initiatives. Meadowcroft. http://rd.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-012-0684-1


Geo-engineering and abatement

With Johannes Emmerling (FEEM and CMCC) we have a new working paper which examines the relation between geo-engineering and abatement in the presence of uncertainty. We find that abatement is decreasing in the probability of success of geo-engineering, but that this relation is concave and thus that significant abatement reductions are optimal only if climate engineering is very likely to be effective.Short policy briefs are also available, at both VOX EU and RE3.











Energy poverty and climate change

Together with Shoibal Chakravarty (Princeton University), I have a paper which examines the relation between energy poverty and climate change policies. Here is a 5 minutes video in which I sum the main findings of our analysis.


We also a short policy brief if you don't feel like reading the whole paper.













Stability of international climate agreements.

A new paper has been recently with colleagues at FEEM (Valentina Bosetti, Carlo Carraro, Enrica De Cian and Emanuele Massetti), where we analyse the incentives to participate in an international climate agreement and the stability of the resulting climate coalition using the integrated assessment model WITCH.