The PARIS REINFORCE project contributed to the COP26 European Commission's Policy Publication, "Climate Action in the Post-COVID-19 World", with its brief on "Investigating Optimal Allocations for Green Recovery Funds".

The COVID-19 crisis has had dramatic economic consequences in Europe. Despite significant public interventions, more than 1.8 million jobs were lost in the EU up to September 2020. As fiscal stimulus measures continue to be announced, policymakers have an opportunity to ensure that the short-term stimulus points the economic recovery in a sustainable direction in the long term, considering the trade-off between these goals.

The brief investigated this trade-off between short-term economic gains, in the form of employment, and longer-term CO2 emissions reductions from fiscal stimulus packages. Analysis was performed to identify the optimal energy investment mix of proposed fiscal programmes in terms of new energy sector jobs and CO2 emissions cuts compared with a current policy baseline (see our research here).

We focused primarily on the EU-27 plus the United Kingdom but also analysed five other major emitting regions: Canada, China, India, Japan and the United States (based on our research here). Seven technologies were considered: advanced biofuels, biomass, solar photovoltaics (PV), concentrated solar power, onshore and offshore wind, and nuclear. The analysis compared portfolios with different investment weights for each of these technologies.

The project brief, authored by Alexandros Nikas (NTUA), Dirk-Jan Van de Ven (BC3), Konstantinos Koasidis (NTUA), Aikaterini Forouli (NTUA), Shivika Mittal (Imperial), Ajay Gambhir (Imperial) and Haris Doukas (NTUA), can be found below (and is also available on our policy briefs webpage).