17 November 2023

08:45 – 09:30

Amphithéâtre Painlevé

Patrice Geoffron

With a doctorate in industrial economics, Patrice Geoffron is a professor at Université Paris-Dauphine, where he was interim president (2020) and international vice-president. He was also founding director of the Laboratoire d’Économie de Dauphine. For the past fifteen years, he has specialized in the evaluation of investments in environmental transition and its new business models (electric renewables, green gas, hydrogen, sustainable IT, smart grids, decarbonized mobility, etc.). Among other scientific responsibilities, he is a member of the Scientific Advisory Boards of CEA, Engie and CRE, as well as the Cercle des Économistes. He is co-editor of the journal Economics and Policy of Energy and the Environment and a member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Management and Network Economics. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Elengy (Engie subsidiary in charge of importing liquefied gas) and of the Conseil Français de l’Energy (EDF, Engie, TotalEnergies, etc.). Previously, he served on the world board of the International Association for Energy Economics, and as an expert to the Citizens’ Climate Convention. He is a regular guest professor at various foreign institutions, including Bocconi University (Milan), Fudan (Shanghai), Todai (Tokyo), Saint Joseph (Beirut) and Pittsburg, and has taught at Polytechnique, HEC, Sciences-Po and ENA.

Conference: Financing the transition: at what cost and for what benefit?

The Pisani-Ferry report established the order of magnitude of the financing effort required to make the transition to “net zero”, i.e. some 60 to 70 billion euros a year (¬± 2.5% of GDP). Given that around half of this effort will have to be driven by public funding, its sustainability is questionable, after several years of “whatever it takes”. But this debate cannot be properly investigated without considering the effects produced by these investments’ÄØ: certainly, the primary objective is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which produce “global” effects (distant in space and time), but it is also essential to consider the “local co-benefits” of these transition efforts, most notably improved resilience in the face of health or energy shocks. In an unstable world, this “insurance” dimension cannot be overlooked, as we have painfully learned from the historic shocks of the early part of this decade.