Speaker: Leonardo Massai, Senior Lecturer, Catholic University of Lille, co-founder of Climalia. 
Discussant: Xavier Labandeira, Director, FSR Climate 

The Paris Agreement undoubtedly forms a milestone in the fight against climate change. It sets the framework for the first long-term global common action against greenhouse gas emissions, by both developed and developing countries. The coming period up to 2020 will tell whether the structure and rules of the new treaty form a workable framework to tackle climate change and keep the global temperature rise well below 2C above pre-industrial levels. One of the first challenges in this respect will be to strenghten the commitments of the parties, as the combined effect of their current contributions would bring up the temperature far more than 2°C.

Watch the recording of the live streaming here:

 
Listen to the audio recording: 

Download the Power Point presentation by Leonardo Massai.

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Leonardo Massai is Senior Lecturer of EU Law, International and EU Environmental Law, Climate Change Law, Human Rights and Environment at the Catholic University of Lille in France. He is also Legal Advisor to the Coalition for Rainforest Nations where he provides direct counsel, assistance, advice and training to rainforest nations on international environmental law, climate change governance, climate compatible development plans and multilateral negotiations. Since 2014, he is Alternate Member of the Enforcement Branch to the Compliance Committee of the Kyoto Protocol, where he will serve until 31 December 2017. In 2015 he co-founded the start-up Climalia, specialist consulting, communications and digital application company providing high level expertise in climate change adaptation, mitigation and risk management.

FSR Regulatory Policy Workshop Series 2015-2016

In recent years, wind- and solar-based generation contributed with the greatest volumes to the penetration of renewable energy into the pre-existing electricity market. The electricity output from these technologies is intrinsically less predictable and programmable than generation from conventional or traditional technologies. Consequently, generation outputs will become more variable and a higher degree of flexibility will be required.

This flexibility can be provided, at least in part, by existing resources; but the scale of the challenge is such that additional resources, such as demand response, will have to be harnessed.

As most of the new renewable-based generation capacity will be connected to the distribution grid and some of these resources will also be provided at distribution level; the variability/flexibility challenge might have to be managed both by Distribution System Operators (DSOs) and Transmission System Operators (TSOs).

While TSOs have traditionally been responsible for keeping the electricity system in balance, DSOs have, until now, mainly focused on developing, maintaining and operating the distribution grid. The expected developments in the electricity sector may therefore lead DSOs to assume new roles and responsibilities, somewhat more similar to those traditionally performed by TSOs. One of the main consequences might be that more timely and detailed data on consumption patterns and electricity prices will have to become available to final consumers, or to other actors (e.g. aggregators) operating on their behalf. This clearly raises data and consumer protection concerns, especially on how to ensure consumers’ provision of flexibility in an affordable and consumer-friendly way.

This Workshop aims at defining the new roles and responsibilities that DSOs will have to assume in connection with this greater need for system flexibility. This issue involves a number of different aspects and it is nowadays widely addressed. The Workshop instead will focus specifically on the following questions:

1. To what extent the variability/flexibility challenge will have to be managed at distribution system level?
2. If DSOs have to be engaged, what is expected from DSOs is similar to what TSOs have been performing for many years?
3. What level and form of cooperation and interface between the DSOs’ and TSOs’ system operation functions is required?
4. What changes in the organisation, business model and, possibly, culture is required from DSOs to perform any new function relate to the variability/flexibility challenge?

To address these questions, the Workshop will be structured in two sessions. Session I will focus on the operational and coordination aspects. Session II will examine the organisational implications for DSOs.

This workshop is open exclusively to National Regulators, representatives from public bodies and FSR donors. Special registration requests must be submitted to the Coordinator of this workshop, Ilaria Conti.

Registration deadline: 27 April 2016

Download the programme

Register here

The Ownership Links and Enhanced EUTL Dataset Project, coordinated at the Climate Policy Research Unit, provides a public reference database linking accounts in the EU Transaction Log (EUTL) of the EU’s Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) with the ultimate owners of these accounts.

Objectives of the webinar:

• To explain the background and relevance of the database project. 
• To outline potential uses of the database for empirical research on the EU ETS.

Aleksandar Zaklan is a Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute, and collaborates with FSR  Climate. He coordinates the database project.

15 April 2014

11:00-11:30 am CET

Presented by: Aleksandar Zaklan

Moderator: Riccardo Galletta

Presented by: Claudio Marcantonini
Moderator: Magdalena Moś

Presented by: Stefano Verde

Moderator: Magdalena Moś

The study of climate over the earth’s history is a topic of current interest whose relevance has increased rapidly with the growing concern over climate change. Reconstructing climates of the past (sometimes referred to as the “hockey stick” problem) has been used to understand whether the current climate is anomalous in a millennial context. To this end, various statistical climate field reconstructions (CFR) methods have been proposed to infer past temperature from (paleoclimate) multiproxy networks.

We propose a novel statistical climate field reconstruction method that aims to use recent advances in statistics, and in particular, high dimensional sparse covariance estimation to tackle this problem. The new CFR method provides a flexible framework for modeling the inherent spatial heterogeneities of high-dimensional spatial fields and at the same time provide the parameter reduction necessary for obtaining precise and well-conditioned estimates of the covariance structure of the field, even when the sample size is much smaller than the number of variables. Our results show that the new method can yield significant improvements over existing methods, with gains uniformly over space. We also show that the new methodology is useful for regional paleoclimate reconstructions, and can yield better uncertainty quantification. We demonstrate that the increase in performance is directly related to recovering the underlying structure in the covariance of the spatial field. We also provide compelling evidence that the new methodology performs well even at spatial locations with few proxies. (Joint work with D.Guillot and J. Emile-Geay).

Seminar

Speaker: Bala Rajaratnam, Stanford University

WTO agreements discipline the use of subsidies, particularly for upstream manufacturing or exports. Unlike tariff rules, the Subsidies Code lacks exceptions for transboundary externalities like human health or resource conservation, including those related to combatting global climate change.

Support for Green Goods?

Support policies for green goods (like renewable energy) are much more popular internationally than imposing a cost on bads (like carbon taxes).

These support policies may encourage downstream consumption (renewable energy deployment) or upstream development and manufacturing of those technologies. The strategic trade literature has devoted little attention to the range of market failures related to green goods.

The market for a new environmental good 

We consider the market for a new environmental good (e.g., an alternative renewable energy technology) that when consumed downstream may provide external benefits (like reduced emissions). The technology is traded internationally, but provided by a limited set of upstream suppliers that may operate in imperfect markets, such as with market power or external scale economies.

National incentives and global rationales

We examine the national incentives and global rationales for offering production and consumption subsidies in producer countries, allowing that some of the downstream market may lie in non-regulating third-party countries. While producer countries can benefit from restraints on upstream subsidies, global welfare is higher without them, and market failures imply that optimal subsidies are even higher.

Optimal subsidies?

We supplement the analysis with numerical simulations of the case of renewable energy, exploring optimal subsidies for the major renewable energy producing and consuming regions.

Speaker: Carolyn Fischer, Senior Fellow, Resources for the Future / Senior Researcher FEEM

“Public transport, and its image, could be vastly improved with fleets of ultra-clean and silent buses. Clean, silent service and delivery vehicles could transform the quality of urban life”  Siim Kallas, 18/09/2014,The future of electromobility in Europe.

Security of energy supply as well as reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission is currently high on the European policy agenda. Therefore, in any sector great support is given to strategies aimed at relieving the pressure on the supply side, namely through reduction of energy consumption, increase of energy efficiency, and diversification of the energy mix towards renewables.

The aim of the 5th Florence Urban Transport Forum is to look at energy efficiency in urban public transport, and see what are the obstacles and incentives to gradually phase out of conventionally fuelled vehicles from the urban environment. Following the usual format of the Florence School of Regulation, we aim at offering a platform to senior stakeholders from regulators, politics, operators, municipalities, authorities, associations to discuss with prominent academics and to take stock of topics relevant to urban transport regulation and policies. Four panels will focus on how the resource efficiency goal applies to urban public transport, the impact of technology, the influence of the private operators and their interaction with the public sector that is managing the tendering procedures, and the role of local governance and citizens.  Isabelle Maes (DG MOVE, Clean Transport and Sustainable Urban Mobility) will discuss the topic with relevant stakeholders representing associations ( UITP ), city administrations (Stockholm , Copenhagen , Munich ), operators ( EJRC and Car Postal ) as well as renowkned researchers, such as Claus Seibt (Programme Director Sustainable Transport and Mobility Services at the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy) and Raimondo Orsini (Director of the Sustainable Development Foundation).

For more information, please contact FSR.Transport@eui.eu

Sustainability plays an increasingly important role in organising urban mobility, and many cities are taking own approaches in promoting more sustainable travel patterns. At the European level ‘indirect’ tools, such as Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMP) or directives on fuel quality and air quality, try to steer the development. In addition, the European Union recognises the importance of sustainable mobility in its planned Urban Mobility Package.

Advocates of a more sustainable lifestyle attribute urban public transport a pivotal role when it comes to lowering pollution and congestions. But are the challenges and aspirations of sustainable urban transport in any way different from the earlier challenges for urban public transport? Or is it simply a new opportunity to gain more support for the traditional goal of increasing the modal share in favour of public transport?

Stakeholders from operators, authorities, the European Commission, associations and academics will identify and discuss the main challenges of sustainable urban mobility. Further, they will determine if and how public transport authorities should become active, and debate mechanisms to reach clean transport patterns. Participants will address, among others, following guiding questions:

• Sustainable Urban Mobility: New challenges or a new label for old problems?
• Are legal requirements about fuels, air quality and pollutants simplifying or complicating the organisation of public transport?
• Are ‘access restriction schemes’ a suitable tool to promote green transport? Are there best practices, which should be harmonised and followed across Europe?
• How can urban public transport contribute to the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMP)? And can the SUMP contribute to increase the modal share of urban public transport?

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European Transport Regulation Observer

Summary of the Presentations

Following the 2nd Florence Urban Transport Forum which focused on the experiences and challenges of tendering urban public transport, the Florence School of Regulation turns to the tendering of urban public transport systems as a whole.

The EC Regulation 1370/2007 leaves room for interpretation and allows the tendering of urban public transport systems as a whole. Tendering systems can bring advantages, it reduces the number of actors involved, it assigns clear responsibilities (if designed thoroughly), and gives operators the flexibility and incentive to improve the system. Nonetheless, it bears risks, competition and its advantages might be reduced, it could disproportionally favour big players, and authorities have fewer opportunities to learn and improve the tendering system.

This 3rd European Urban Transport Regulation Forum will discuss if tendering entire systems is a viable and desirable possibility for urban public transport. Does it really bring the benefits hoped for, such as innovation? Or is it an indirect way to protect incumbent operators or to favour big players? Participants will address among others following guiding questions:

• What does praxis tell us on tendering entire transport systems?
• What does the Regulation 1370/2007 mean for Tendering Urban Public Transport?
• What are necessary factors for the successful tendering of systems?

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European Transport Regulation Observer

Summary of the Presentations

The 2nd Florence Urban Transport Forum aims at a thorough discussion of the question of tendering of urban public transport services within the context of EC regulation 1370 on PSO and contracting. The Forum will give the opportunity to relevant stakeholders to address this by discussing inter alia the following questions:

• What can we learn from the past experiences of tendering of urban public services? What has worked? What has not? And why?
• How does EC regulation 1370 affect the tendering procedures?
• What other challenges have emerged over the past 20 years that need to be taken into account when tendering urban public services?
• How is tendering of urban public services likely to evolve in the years to come?
• What can we learn from other sectors about the tendering of urban public services?

 Keeping to one of FSR’s guiding principles, namely stakeholder involvement, this Forum will feature presentations from representatives of the European Commission, Ministries, regulators, operators, international associations of stakeholders and academics.

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Summary of the presentations

Following previous discussion events on rail transport, we are starting our activities on urban transport by organizing a debate on the role, the function and the status of Transport Authorities.

The discussion will be kicked-off with the following points:

• Who should perform the functions of planning, procuring and delivering urban transport in order to obtain the best possible results?
• What are/should be the exact role and functions of urban transport authorities, also in light of broader agglomerations’ transport?
• What is/should be the nature of contracts? Who is the regulator?
• What should be the relationship between transport authorities and political authorities?

Keeping to one of FSR’s guiding principles, namely stakeholder involvement, this Forum will feature presentations from transport authorities, operators, international associations of stakeholders and academics. The day will be opened, closed, and moderated by Prof Matthias Finger with the aim of fostering open discussion and exchange among all participants.

For more information, please contact FSR.Transport@eui.eu or visit the urban transport dedicated webpage.

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Summary of the presentations