Economics of using fossil fuels and tackling climate change

This cumulative thesis consists of three individual research articles and primarily contributes to the environmental and resource economics literature. Motivated by the recent U.S. shale gas boom, the first article aims to improve the understanding of endogenous technological change in models of resource extraction. Consistent with current trends, the theory explains how gas prices can follow a U-shaped path. Furthermore, it shows that a carbon tax could drastically change the temporal patterns of shale gas extraction. The second article introduces the option of solar geoengineering in an integrated assessment model of climate change. It provides an analytic description of an optimal deployment strategy, models realistic strategic interactions between regions, and analyzes the effects of solar geoengineering on the social cost of carbon. The third article focuses on Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) and the storage in different reservoir types. It investigates optimal CDR deployment, and derives implications for optimal mitigation efforts.