Biography
Dr Pablo Salas Bravo is the Deputy Director of C-EENRG and Teaching Associate for the MPhil in Environmental Policy at the Department of Land Economy of the University of Cambridge. He has plenty of experience in research projects as Principal Investigator (BRIDGE-TESC and B2I), Co-Investigator (FRANTIC) and Researcher (BRIDGE, LINKS2015) on various grants. The funding raised by these projects is approximately £1 million.
Dr Salas is an Economists and Electrical Engineer by training, with degrees from the University of Cambridge (PhD in Land Economy), the University of Hamburg (MSc in Economics) and the University of Chile (Electrical Engineering). Dr Salas interdisciplinary background combines extensive training in physics, mathematics, computing sciences, dynamic systems modelling, economics and public policy.
As part of a consortium effort led by Cambridge Econometrics (E3ME), and involving the University of Cambridge (FTT), and the Open University (GENIE), Dr Salas was part of the team that developed the power sector component of the integrated assessment model E3ME-FTT-GENIE. This modelling suite is currently being used to support policy assessment in several world regions, including Europe (European Commission, at DG ENERGY and DG CLIMA), Asia and America
In parallel to his academic career, Dr Salas has engaged in the development of international programmes on innovation and technology transfer. Some of the partners in this area include the International Outreach Programme at Cambridge Enterprise (the commercialisation arm of the research and intellectual property of the University of Cambridge), Cambridge Cleantech (a network of more than 500 cleantech companies in the UK) and several technology transfer offices in Brazil and Chile.
Before doing his PhD, Dr Salas developed large engineering projects in Chile, including the first large scale system for automatic detection of wildfires (covering an area of 20,000 km2), and the radiocommunication system for the lines 4/4A of the Subway in Santiago.
Research
Dr Salas’ research focuses on the policy responses to major global sustainability challenges, especially climate change and the energy transition. Since his PhD, he has been developing cutting-edge tools to assess environmental and macroeconomic impacts of climate policy. Building on these successful developments, Dr Salas is now part of a multinational interdisciplinary research group, working on several public policy research projects. These projects include:
- Analysis of policy portfolios for global decarbonisation and the transitional risks of stranded fossil fuel assets in the UK (project FRANTIC - Financial Risk and the Impact of Climate Change)
- Building resilient evidence-based energy-water-food nexus policies for Brazil (project BRIDGE – Building Resilience In a Dynamic Global Economy. Complexity across scales in Brazil).
- Development of affordable technological solutions to address energy-water-food nexus challenges (project BRIDGE-TESC - Technological empowerment for family-farming agriculture in Santa Catarina)
- Development of a new framework of policy engagement to effectively inform and support the policy cycle in Brazil to reach objectives of sustainable development (Project B2I – Bridge to Impact).
Publications
Mercure, J.-F., Paim, M. A., Bocquillon, P., Lindner, S., Salas, P., Martinelli, P., Berchin, I., Guerra, J.B.S.O., Derani, C., de Albuquerque Junior, C. L., Marcello, J., Knobloch, F., Pollitt, H., Edwards, N. R., Holden, P. B., Foley, A. Schaphoff, S., Faraco, R., Vinuales, J. E. (2019). ‘System complexity and policy integration challenges: the Brazilian Energy- Water-Food Nexus’. Renewable & Sustainable Energy Reviews, 105, pp 230-243.
Paim, M., Dalmarco, A., Yang, C.-H., Salas, P., Lindner, S., Mercure, J-F., Guerra, B., Derani, C., da Silva, T., and Viñuales, J. E. (2019). ‘Evaluating regulatory strategies for mitigating hydrological risk in Brazil through diversification of its electricity mix’. Energy Policy, 128, pp 383-401.
Mercure, J-F., Pollitt, H., Viñuales, J. E., Edwards, N., Holden, P., Chewpreecha, U., Salas, P., Sognaes, I., Lam, A., Knoblosh, F., (2018). ‘Macroeconomic impact of stranded fossil-fuel assets’. Nature Climate Change, 8, pp 588-593.
Holden, P., Edwards, N., Ridgwell, A., Wilkinson, R., Fraedrich, K., Lunkeit, F., Pollitt, H., Mercure, J-F., Salas, P., Lam, A., Knoblosh, F., Chewpreecha, U. and Viñuales, J. E., (2018). ‘Climate-carbon cycle uncertainties and the Paris Agreement’. Nature Climate Change, 8, pp 609-613
Mercure, J-F., Pollitt, H., Edwards, N., Holden, P., Chewpreecha, U., Salas, P., Lam, A., Knoblosh, F., Vinuales, J., (2018). ‘Environmental impact assessment for climate change policy with the simulation-based integrated assessment model E3ME-FTT-GENIE’. Energy Strategy Reviews, 20, pp 195-208.
Foley, A., Holden, P., Edwards, N., Mercure, J-F., Salas, P., Pollitt, H., Chewpreecha, U. (2016). ‘Climate model emulation in an integrated assessment framework: a case study for mitigation policies in the electricity sector’. Earth System Dynamics, 7, pp 119-132.
Mercure, J-F., Pollitt, H., Chewpreecha, U., Salas, P., Foley, A., Holden, P., Edwards, N. (2014). ‘The dynamics of technology diffusion and the impacts of climate policy instruments in the decarbonisation of the global electricity sector’. Energy Policy 73, pp 686-700.
Mercure, J-F. and Salas, P. (2013). ‘On the global economic potentials and marginal costs of non-renewable resources and the price of energy commodities’. Energy Policy, 63, pp 469-483.
Mercure, J-F. and Salas, P. (2012). ‘An assessment of global energy resource economic potentials’. Energy 46, pp 322-336.
