As early as 1990, economists proposed the establishment of a cap and share system: a global carbon market whose revenues would be allocated on an equal per capita basis. In a working paper, we show, with the help of surveys on 56,000 respondents, that acceptance of a cap and share is not only very strong in each of the 20 countries covered, but that it is also sincere. In accordance with these survey results, the hypothesis of this project is that a majority of the population (particularly in high-income countries) would accept a global redistribution policy such as cap and share. The project is divided into two parts. The first part will test our hypothesis using new opinion surveys. In the light of previous results, we expect this hypothesis to be confirmed. I will carry out additional surveys and semi-structured interviews to test alternative hypotheses that could temper the declared support by (1) warm glow, (2) other antagonistic concerns, or (3) concrete obstacles to the realization of a cap and share. The second part will seek to draw the consequences of this new perspective towards a cap and share, established by an alliance of countries within a “climate coalition”, by carrying out preparatory studies for its establishment. On the one hand, we will simulate the economic effects of a cap and share using an integrated economic-energy model, with different scenarios for participation in the climate coalition. On the other hand, we will study the dynamics linking carbon prices and oil (and gas) prices for different scenarios of geopolitical alliances (climate coalition, cartel of oil-exporting countries).

There is a growing scientific consensus around the need to significantly reduce the consumption of animal-based products. Springmann et al. (2016) estimate that food production could account for 52% of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 if nothing is done, but could decrease to only 15% if humanity adopts plant-based diets. Regarding health, Tilman and Clark (2014) conclude the cessation of meat consumption would reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes by 41%, cancer risk by 10%, and coronal diseases by 20%. The last few years have seen the emergence of a real social dynamic aimed at reducing meat consumption and engaging in animal welfare. A recent report by the CREDOC estimated that the consumption of meat products per capita fell by 12% between 2007 and 2016. This reduction in meat consumption has also been accompanied by increased consideration of citizens for animal welfare. The 2016 European Eurobarometer survey noted that 88% of French citizens declared that farm animals should be better protected than they are now. This strong concern for animal welfare has also entered the political game with the creation of an animalist party in 2016, which managed to pass the minimum threshold to obtain public fundings in 86 constituencies at the 2017 legislative elections. Surprisingly, until very recently, economics has shown little interest in the question of the consumption of animal-based products. This projects aims at developing an economic approach of the consumption of animal-based products. Works in psychology mainly developed a behavioral analysis of meat consumption based on the cognitive dissonance perspective considering the so-called meat paradox (the fact that many individuals care for animal welfare but keep consuming products that induce great damages to animals). They showed that the cognitive dissonance between one’s preferences for animal welfare and one’s dietary choices leads individuals to engage in motivated reasoning. Economists have also devoted a few works, but in a much more modest number, to the discrepancy between consumption choices and political preferences for meat consumption. Lusk and Nordwood illustrate this vote-buy gap with Proposition 2 passed in 2008 in California by referendum: although most of the eggs sold in this state originated from caged egg-laying hens, a vast majority of citizens voted in favor of the proposition which imposed free-range for egg-laying hens exploitation. The authors explain the discrepancy between collective and private choices as a free-riding problem: the marginal impact of consuming a free-range egg on animal welfare is very limited, but there would be a great gain in collectively improving animal welfare. This public good approach to animal-based products can also be generalized to environmental and health concerns. This research project contains three work packages mobilizing mostly experimental methods. The first package investigates the consumption of animal-based products as a private choice. Study 1.1 develops economic methods to disentangle cognitive dissonance from naive ignorance. Study 1.2 explores how cognitive dissonance impacts social learning regarding animal-based diets. Study 1.3 proposes a multidisciplinary approach to the vegetarian/vegan epiphanies, i.e., the sudden awareness of the necessity to adopt a plant-based diet. The second package analyzes animal-based diets as a collective choice. Study 2.1 looks at the effectiveness of NGOs' discourses to convince people to adopt plant-based diets. Study 2.2 analyzes how the creation of a French animalist party impacted political competition. The third work package investigates the gap between private and collective choices. Study 3.1 documents the vote-buy gap in the European Union, by combining survey data, consumption data, and experimental data. Study 3.2 explores the efficiency of legal tools to regulate the externalities associated with the consumption of animal-based products.

Although our knowledge of the impact of climate change on hydrology and water resource availability in France has progressed significantly in the recent years, our ability to think prospectively about sectoral and spatialized adaptation and mitigation strategies remains limited, especially in the long term and at a large scale (France). We observe that we do not currently have an integrative multisectoral modeling approach that places water in its various dimensions (production factor, common resource, public good) at the heart of the analysis. This is the main challenge of WAT-IMPACTS, which proposes to develop regionalised dynamic macro-economic models at the scale of France (Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) modes) explicitly integrating hydrosystems in order to assess the long-term economic (in particular on employment, economic growth and competitiveness), social (inequalities between categories of economic agents or between sectors) and environmental impacts of future water resource evolution scenarios. WAT-IMPACTS will also question sectoral adaptation and mitigation measures by proposing accompanying measures (public water policies) within the framework of long-term prospective approaches (national and territorial) involving water stakeholders. One ambition of the WAT-IMPACTS project is to produce innovative scientific common goods useful to a wide range of stakeholders. Thus, the production of structured, documented and reusable data will be an objective of the project. WAT-IMPACTS aims at producing conceptual and operational works on tutelary values of water. Such values, spatialized and likely to vary over time, allow to indicate to private actors, but also to public authorities, the social value associated with saving or protecting the water resources in different contexts.

This project will explore how augmented reality (AR) systems can reduce the spatial and temporal distance between people’s choices and their environmental consequences, in order to reveal the impact of both individual habits and global policies. More concretely, we will design interactive visualizations that integrate concrete environmental consequences (e.g. waste accumulation, rare earth mining) directly into user's surroundings. This interdisciplinary research will be informed and validated by incentivized and controlled behavioral economics experiments based on game-theoretical models, and guided by real environmental scenarios

How and to what extent the French food production system could ensure healthy and sustainable diets for its population while increasing its capability for self-sufficiency? From a political point of view, there is a growing demand from consumers/citizens for what is considered a better control of the food chain and its social/societal externality, for a more sustainable development with a re-appropriation of the territorial space at proximity. Political leaders now seem to follow and even support this trend, with political agendas. However, the goal of self-sufficiency is also criticized for various reasons, and, above all, the many dimensions of the food system, such as health, environmental impact, acceptability and self-sufficiency, are not necessarily aligned. We aim to analyze the tensions surrounding the implementation of a higher self-sufficiency in the agricultural production of foods ensuring healthier and more sustainable diets. We will identify the pressures for an increase or decrease in the different domestic agricultural productions, when aiming to produce more healthy and sustainable diets while reducing and redistributing the imports. We will provide an analysis of the conflicts over the different objectives (nutrition/health, environment and self-sufficiency) and we will explore the trade-offs on which an optimal food system could be based. We will also describe the prospective adaptability of the system to alleviate the tensions, for instance with changes in agricultural productions and transportation modes. We will analyze the regional and local contingencies and the extent to which agricultural socio-economic metabolism can adapt to support local transformation to better meet a new prospective food demand. This interdisciplinary research project combines both systemic approaches considering the population diets, the production capability and transport network at the level of the country and detailed case scenarios at the level of small agricultural regions. The approach largely resort on modelling, with optimization and simulation models to identify the demand for agricultural products needed for healthier and more sustainable diets, iteratively recalibrate the environmental footprint of the reshaped domestic production, and understand the key parameters that favor or oppose the matching of production system network to this prospective new demand. Therefore, the research project includes (i) analyzing the conflicts between nutrition/health, environment and self-sufficiency, and delivering compromised diets as scenarios of demand for agricultural products, (ii) understanding how agricultural production could be reshaped in the national network so as to lower energy and GHGe associated with transports, and (iii) understanding how locally production areas could be transformed with different land uses and livestock allocations so that the production would better align with changes required in the national demand. The project includes a strong dissemination program toward the scientific community, the general public and political stakeholders.