I investigate the economics of sustainable transport and land-use. I am Lead Author of the IPCC AR5 and the Global Energy Assessment writing for the transport chapters. My workplace is in the Department Economics of Climate Change at the TU Berlin, chaired by Professor Ottmar Edenhofer. Together with Ottmar Edenhofer, I am teaching Human Settlements, Infrastructures and Climate change. Until recently, I was postdoctoral fellow at the Berkeley Institute of the Environment working with Daniel Kammen and a Visiting Fellow at the Energy Foundation China in Beijing. In my former life, I studied information theoretic aspects of invariance recognition in neural systems. Publications on sustainable economics are here, papers in computational neuroscience here.
New publications
F. Creutzig, A. Popp, R. Plevin, G. Luderer, J. Minx, O. Edenhofer (2012)
Reconciling top-down and bottom-up modeling on future bioenergy deployment.
Nature Climate Change (in print) Abstract.
The IPCC's Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation (SRREN) assesses the role of bioenergy as a solution to meeting energy demand in a climate-constrained world. Based on integrated assessment models, the SRREN states that deployed bioenergy systems will contribute the highest proportion of primary energy among renewable energies and result in GHG emission reductions. The Report also acknowledges insights on life-cycle emissions from biofuels. But the SRREN fails to reconcile results on indirect land-use change in inductive bottom-up studies, such as life-cycle analyses, and deductive top-down assessment.
F. Creutzig (2012)
Transport costs, urban form and optimal public transit
submitted to the Journal of Urban Economics Abstract.
Urban form and transportation infrastructure mutually influence each other. For example, dense Hong Kong boasts a viable and efficient public transit network, whereas many sprawled US cities are best served with automobiles. Here we present a simple model of a monocentric city with public transit and automobiles that explains modal share as a function of urban form, infrastructure investment and marginal transport costs. The contribution to the literature is two-fold. First, adding to urban economic theory, we derive two conditions of optimal public transport infrastructure provision. We also identify a market failure: A private mass transport provider under- invests into public transport infrastructure. Second, adding to the ongoing discussion on urban transport and energy use, we argue that this two-modal model is a useful explanatory framework to investigate empirical observations on urban form, transport energy use and modal share.
In the Media
Our transport policy review efforts were well received in the media:
Strassenverkehr koennte mehr zum Klimaschutz beitragen, ZEIT
Emissionshandel auch fuer Autoverkehr, Klimaretter
Climatecon Website Launch
Consider visiting our department new website and meet our team!
Blog at Environmental Research Web
I am regularly writing for Environmental Research Web. The currents posts can be found here, and a compilation of past blogs is linked on the media site.
SRREN - as Contributing Author
Sathaye et al. (2011)
Renewable Energy in the Context of Sustainable Development
In: IPCC Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation, IPCC [O. Edenhofer, R. Pichs - Madruga, Y. Sokona, K. Seyboth, P. Matschoss, S. Kadner, T. Zwickel, P. Eickemeier, G. Hansen, S. Schlömer, C. von Stechow (eds)], Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA. Abstract.
Historically, economic development has been strongly correlated with increasing energy use and growth of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Renewable energy (RE) can help decouple that correlation, contributing to sustainable development (SD). In addition, RE offers the opportunity to improve access to modern energy services for the poorest members of society, which is crucial for the achievement of any single of the eight Millennium Development Goals.
Theoretical concepts of SD can provide useful frameworks to assess the interactions between SD and RE. SD addresses concerns about relationships between human society and nature. Traditionally, SD has been framed in the three-pillar model - Economy, Ecology, and Society - allowing a schematic categorization of development goals, with the three pillars being interdependent and mutually reinforcing. Within another conceptual framework, SD can be oriented along a continuum between the two paradigms of weak sustainability and strong sustainability. The two paradigms differ in assumptions about the substitutability of natural and human-made capital. RE can contribute to the development goals of the three-pillar model and can be assessed in terms of both weak and strong SD, since RE utilization is defined as sustaining natural capital as long as its resource use does not reduce the potential for future harvest...
Mitchell et al. (2011)
Policy, Financing and Implementation
In: IPCC Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation, IPCC [O. Edenhofer, R. Pichs - Madruga, Y. Sokona, K. Seyboth, P. Matschoss, S. Kadner, T. Zwickel, P. Eickemeier, G. Hansen, S. Schlömer, C. von Stechow (eds)], Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA. Abstract.
Renewable energy can provide a host of benefits to society. In addition to the reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, governments have enacted renewable energy (RE) policies to meet a number of objectives including the creation of local environmental and health benefits; facilitation of energy access, particularly for rural areas; advancement of energy security goals by diversifying the portfolio of energy technologies and resources; and improving social and economic development through potential employment opportunities. Energy access and social and economic development have been the primary drivers in developing countries whereas ensuring a secure energy supply and environmental concerns have been most important in developed countries. An increasing number and variety of RE policies - motivated by a variety of factors - have driven substantial growth of RE technologies in recent years. Government policies have played a crucial role in accelerating the deployment of RE technologies. At the same time, not all RE policies have proven effective and efficient in rapidly or substantially increasing RE deployment. The focus of policies is broadening from a concentration almost entirely on RE electricity to include RE heating and cooling and transportation...
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Felix Creutzig
Group Leader
Technische Universität Berlin
Room EB 238-240 (EB 4-1)
Straße des 17. Juni 145, 10623 Berlin
http://www.user.tu-berlin.de/creutzig
felix.creutzig@tu-berlin.de
Tel: +49 30 314 78864
Mobile: +49 163 682 7317
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