Reconciling Energy Security, Climate Policy and Prosperity? An Assessment of the German Energy Transition

March 31, 2015,
5:00pm - 6:30pm

Modern energy policy tends to pursue three central objectives: energy security, affordability, and sustainability. Usually these objectives are seen as competing with each other to some extent, requiring trade-offs and balancing priorities. And yet, R. Andreas Kraemer, currently a Senior Fellow with the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) and a well-known expert on German energy and climate policy, argues that the German energy transition (Energiewende) provides a case study on how these three objectives can be reconciled: evidence from Germany suggests that German energy security has improved, greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants have fallen, and overall costs incurred by the energy system have remained stable or fallen. He takes into account co-benefits such as innovation, tax revenue and balance of trade effects. A. Denny Ellerman, formerly of the European University Institute in Florence and the MIT Sloan School of Management, will serve as a discussant.