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Introduction
Professor Michael Grubb is a distinguished economist and academic. His new book, Planetary Economics, attempts to define “three domains” of sustainable development, and provides new perspectives on a range of energy and economic issues.
The seminar will present some key points from the author’s recent book Planetary Economics and outline implications for energy and climate change policy in the UK and Europe, with a focus on integration of security and economic concerns. The book argues that stable policy needs to integrate three different domains of economic decision-making, each of which implies different pillars of policy. Many of the failures and instabilities of energy markets and policies over the past few years can be traced to over-reliance on one or other of these pillars, without understanding their interdependence and interactions. This seminar will explore these interactions, and also their links to both concerns about energy bills, and wider debates in macroeconomics. In this talk he will aim to discuss a number of recent events and developments, including events in the Ukraine, EU climate policy, and recent IPCC reports and set these in the context of the thinking in his new book.
Michael Grubb
Michael Grubb is Professor of International Energy and Climate Change Policy at University College London, with the Institute of Sustainable Resources, and Senior Advisor on Sustainable Energy Policy to the UK Energy Regulator Ofgem. He is editor-in-chief of the journal Climate Policyand is on the editorial board of Energy Policy. His former positions include Senior Research Associate at Cambridge University (Departments of Economics and Land Economy); Chair of the international research organization Climate Strategies; Chief Economist at the Carbon Trust; Professor of Climate Change and Energy Policy at Imperial College London; and head of Energy and Environment at Chatham House, and he continues to be associated with these institutions.Professor Grubb has also served on the UK Climate Change Committee, established under the UK Climate Change Bill to advise the government on future carbon budgets and to report to Parliament on their implementation. In 2013 he was the Specialist Advisor to a House of Lords European Committee enquiry. ‘No Country is an Energy Island: securing investment for the EU’s Future’ (2013).
Michael Grubb is author of eight books, fifty journal research articles and numerous other publications. He has held many advisory positions with governments, companies and international studies on climate change and energy policy, and has been a Lead Author for several reports of the IPCC on mitigation, including the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. His book Planetary Economics, which brings together the lessons from 25 years of research and implementation of energy and climate policies, was published in March 2014: it has received widespread accolade as a ‘seminal’ contribution, ‘comprehensive and profoundly important’ for its presentation of a new approach to both the theoretical underpinnings and the practical policies for tackling energy and climate change challenges.
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