The 'Free Rider' Problem with Energy Subsidies - Mark Jaccard July 8, 2009

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Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2009/06/23/Energy_Markets_and_Policy_Developments_Around_the_Globe

Mark Jaccard discusses potential problems with subsidizing energy efficiency. He uses a refrigerator subsidy to explain that if "the people who get the $50...were going to buy the more efficient fridge anyway, then we haven't changed the world."

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An international panel of experts discuss how energy policy is being implemented across the globe.

They explore which policies have succeeded and which have failed and describe potential roadmaps to a cleaner, more sustainable world.

Speakers include: Kenneth B. Medlock, Energy Fellow, Rice University; Mark K. Jaccard, Professor, Simon Fraser University; Carlo Andrea Bollino, Chairman, GSE S.p.A.; Paul Tempest, CEO and Director, Windsor Energy Group. - International Association for Energy Eonomics

Mark Jaccard has been professor in the School of Resource and Environmental Management at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, since 1986, interrupted from 1992-97 while he served as Chair and CEO of the British Columbia Utilities Commission. Jaccard's PhD is from the Energy Economics and Policy Institute at the University of Grenoble. Internationally, Mark is known for his work since the 1990s on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Nobel Peace Prize in 2007), the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (currently co-chair of task force for sustainable coal use), and the Global Energy Assessment (convening lead author for sustainable energy policy). He is a member of Canada's National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy and a research fellow at the CD Howe Institute. He has over 90 academic publications. His 2005 book, Sustainable Fossil Fuels, won the Donner Prize for best policy book in Canada.