Seminar: Population aging and future carbon emissions in the United States
October 16, 2006 at 12:00pm
Brian O'Neill and Michael Dalton
Joint Global Change Research Institute
8400 Baltimore Avenue, Suite 201
College Park, MD 20740-2496
College Park, MD 20740-2496
Abstract
Changes in the age composition of U.S. households over the next several decades could affect energy use and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, the most important greenhouse gas. This article incorporates population age structure into an energy-economic growth model with multiple dynasties of heterogeneous households. The model is used to estimate and compare effects of population aging and technical change on baseline paths of U.S. energy use, and CO2 emissions. Results show that population aging reduces long-term emissions, by almost 40% in a low population scenario, and effects of aging on emissions can be as large, or larger than, effects of technical change in some cases. These results are derived under standard assumptions and functional forms that are used in economic growth models. The model also assumes a closed economy, substitution elasticities that are fixed, and identical across age groups, and patterns of labor supply that vary by age group, but are fixed over time.
About the Speaker
Brian O’Neill is the Leader of the Population and Climate Change (PCC) Program and a co-Leader of the Greenhouse Gas Initiative at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Laxenburg Austria. He holds a Ph.D. in Earth Systems Science and an M.S. in Applied Science, both from New York University. He has worked as a member of the science staff of the Environmental Defense Fund in New York, and as an Associate Professor (Research) at Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies (an appointment he still holds). In 2004, he received a European Young Investigator (EURYI) award which provides principal funding for the PCC Program. His research interests are in the science and policy of global climate change and population-environment interactions, and he has published in a variety of journals, including Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA, and Population and Development Review. He is also currently serving as a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Fourth Assessment Report, in a volume on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability (Working Group II).
Michael Dalton is an Economist at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), an Associate Professor at California State University Monterey Bay, and a Guest Research Scholar at the Population and Climate Change program at IIASA. He received a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Minnesota in 1995, and worked as a Post Doctoral Research Associate in the Department of Economics and Institute for International Studies at Stanford University until 1998. His research interests are in the areas of human-climate-policy interactions, primarily energy economics and climate change policy, and effects of climatic variability and spatial regulations on economic behavior in U.S. West Coast fisheries. He serves as a member of the Scientific and Statistical Committee of the Pacific Fishery Management Council. He has published articles in the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Science, Marine Resource Economics, and Ecological Economics.
