Highlights of Faculty Research
Addressing future climate change
concerns will entail significant reductions of
carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.
Achieving these reductions requires increased
use of new technologies such as wind and solar
energy.
Because of the long-term nature of the climate
problem, understanding links between policy and the
development of new technologies is important both to
provide estimates of the potential costs of climate
policy and to better predict how technology will
evolve if policies are not enacted.
Understanding how policy can shape the
development of new energy and environmental
technologies is the main focus of Professor Popp’s
research.
David is an Associate Professor of Public Administration and a Senior Research Associate at the Center for Policy Research here at the Maxwell School. Trained as an economist, much of his research uses patent data to trace the links between environmental policy and technological change. This work documents the rate at which new technologies develop as energy prices increase, and shows how policy decisions affect the development of new technology. For example, analyzing the effect of the 1990 Clean Air Act on technologies to reduce sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions, he shows while there was more patenting activity related to scrubber technology when the U.S. government mandated that each new power plant install a scrubber to remove sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions, these patents merely reduced the cost of operating a scrubber, rather than improving the rate at which the scrubber reduced SO2 emissions. It was not until a market for tradable SO2 permits began in 1995 that the technologies represented in these patents actually led to improvements in the amount of SO2 removed from emissions. In recent work with Professor Mary Lovely of the Economics Department at Syracuse University, Popp and Lovely show that new environmental technologies also play an important role for developing countries, as they enable these countries to adopt environmental policies at earlier stages of their economic development. Importantly, they show that free trade plays an important role, as countries with freer trade get access to new technologies sooner, and can thus adopt environmental regulations sooner.
Using the results of empirical studies such as these, Popp developed the ENTICE model, a computer simulation of the long-term effects of carbon policy on both the environment and the economy. An important finding from this research is that, while developing new technologies is important for the success of any climate policy, R&D policy alone will not solve the problem. While increased research spending can lead to the development of cleaner energy technologies, it offers no incentives for users to choose these cleaner technologies. Only a policy specifically targeting CO2 emissions can do that. Given the need to both develop and deploy cleaner energy technologies, an effective climate policy should include both R&D and emissions reduction targets.
Popp’s expertise in these areas has led to positions as a member of the General Accounting Office Expert Panel on Climate Change Economics and the Environmental Protection Agency’s Advisory Council on Clean Air Compliance Analysis. In addition, he has served as a consultant for the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development.
For more information about David Popp go to:
http://www-cpr.maxwell.syr.edu/faculty/popp/index.htm
