Jean-Francois Mercure

University of Cambridge

Current Position
Research Fellow

Research Interests
Future energy planning which aims to avoid excessive radiative forcing due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions leading to a global warming of more than 2 degrees C is likely to require an almost complete decarbonisation of the current global energy sector. Such changes may involve large costs due to both facts that low emission energy systems are currently more expensive than high emissions ones and that they require large infrastructure changes. Technological learning however contributes in lowering these costs. The decarbonisation of the world economy moreover requires careful management of natural resources. These considerations taken together were used to build a global model of energy sector, as part of the larger macroeconomic simulation of the world economy E3MG, which was built and extensively used in our research at 4CMR. Such an integrated model allows the study of different future carbon emissions pathways and their associated costs in terms of global GDP, their requirements in terms of policy and the resulting use of natural resources associated with energy production.

Research areas

Contact information

E-mail: jm801@cam.ac.uk

Phone: 01223737126