Climate Policy Uncertainty and Investment Risk

Our climate is changing. Less certain, however, is the timing and magnitude of climate change, and the cost of transition to a low-carbon world. This book identifies how climate change policy uncertainty may affect investment behaviour in the power sector. For power companies, where capital stock is intensive and long-lived, those risks rank among the biggest and can create an incentive to delay investment. Our analysis results show that the risk premiums of climate change uncertainty can add 40% of construction costs of the plant for power investors, and 10% of price surcharges for the electricity end-users. Climate Policy Uncertainty and Investment Risk tells what can be done in policy design to reduce these costs.