In the context of growing concerns for climate change, the objective of this dissertation is to bring some insights on two environmental issues. The first one deals with the question of whether environmental policies are efficient enough to significantly decrease greenhouse gases emissions and energy consumption and the second one concerns the way households’ well-being is affected by environmental changes. France committed to reduce greenhouse gases emissions and energy consumption in residential sector. In a first time, we study the determinants of residential energyconsumption in France. An in-depth understanding of energy consumption is needed to design adequate energy policies and achieve a low-carbon society. We show that to improve buildings' energy efficiency, the challenge is to induce households to undertake renovations and to adopt energy-saving equipments. This is the objective of public policies, such as tax credit or subsidies. We evaluate in a second time the impact of these measures, using a simulation model. The results show that while current policies are effective, they are not sufficient to reach the objectives. Finally, we focus on the impact of the tax credit on households’ behavior. The impact of the measure on renovation rate is very low compared to its cost and this is partially due to free riding. Emerging countries are more exposed to climate disasters than developed ones. Therefore, the most important concern in emerging countries is to find a way to limit the consequences of climate change. In this context, our objective is to understand how deforestation, that increases fuel scarcity, affects population. We focus on women, living in rural India. We show that fuel scarcity increases the probability for women to be involved in natural resource collection. Through this, it has a negative effect on the labor force participation, especially on family business and wage activities.
