Stimulating fuelwood consumption through public policies: An assessment of economic and resource impacts based on the French Forest Sector Model

S. Caurla , P. Delacote , F. Lecocq (1) , A. Barkaoui

1 CIRED - centre international de recherche sur l'environnement et le développement

Stimulating renewable energy is a crucial objective in view of tackling climate change and coping with future fossil fuel scarcity. In France, fuelwood appears to be an important source for the renewable energy mix. Using the French Forest Sector Model, our paper aims to assess the impacts of three policy options to stimulate fuelwood consumption: a consumer subsidy, a producer subsidy and a fixed-demand contract policy. We explored their impacts in terms of five groups of criteria: (1) forest resource dynamics; (2) variations in wood products prices and quantities consumed and produced; (3) trade balance; (4) budgetary costs; and (5) variations in agent surpluses. We show that no policy option is more desirable than another on the basis of all of these criteria and that trade-offs will determine which is the best policy option to be implemented. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd.

Mots clés: Biomass; Climate change; Renewable energy; Forest resources; French forests; Fuelwood; Fuelwood consumption; Policy options; Renewable energies; Trade balance; Commerce; Forestry; Wood products; alternative energy; biomass burning; energy policy; fuel consumption; renewable resource; trade-off; Renewable Resources; Seasonal Variation; France

Domaines: Sciences de l'environnement

S. Caurla, P. Delacote, F. Lecocq, A. Barkaoui. Stimulating fuelwood consumption through public policies: An assessment of economic and resource impacts based on the French Forest Sector Model. Energy Policy, 2013, 63, pp.338-347. ⟨10.1016/j.enpol.2013.07.111⟩. ⟨hal-00945644⟩