TY - JOUR A1 - Bertram, Christoph A1 - Riahi, Keywan A1 - Hilaire, Jérôme A1 - Bosetti, Valentina A1 - Drouet, Laurent A1 - Fricko, Oliver A1 - Malik, Aman A1 - Nogueira, Larissa Pupo A1 - van der Zwaan, Bob A1 - van Ruijven, Bas A1 - van Vuuren, Detlef P. A1 - Weitzel, Matthias A1 - Longa, Francesco Dalla A1 - de Boer, Harmen-Sytze A1 - Emmerling, Johannes A1 - Fosse, Florian A1 - Fragkiadakis, Kostas A1 - Harmsen, Mathijs A1 - Keramidas, Kimon A1 - Kishimoto, Paul Natsuo A1 - Kriegler, Elmar A1 - Krey, Volker A1 - Paroussos, Leonidas A1 - Saygin, Deger A1 - Vrontisi, Zoi A1 - Luderer, Gunnar T1 - Energy system developments and investments in the decisive decade for the Paris Agreement goals JF - Environmental research letters N2 - The Paris Agreement does not only stipulate to limit the global average temperature increase to well below 2 °C, it also calls for 'making finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions'. Consequently, there is an urgent need to understand the implications of climate targets for energy systems and quantify the associated investment requirements in the coming decade. A meaningful analysis must however consider the near-term mitigation requirements to avoid the overshoot of a temperature goal. It must also include the recently observed fast technological progress in key mitigation options. Here, we use a new and unique scenario ensemble that limit peak warming by construction and that stems from seven up-to-date integrated assessment models. This allows us to study the near-term implications of different limits to peak temperature increase under a consistent and up-to-date set of assumptions. We find that ambitious immediate action allows for limiting median warming outcomes to well below 2 °C in all models. By contrast, current nationally determined contributions for 2030 would add around 0.2 °C of peak warming, leading to an unavoidable transgression of 1.5 °C in all models, and 2 °C in some. In contrast to the incremental changes as foreseen by current plans, ambitious peak warming targets require decisive emission cuts until 2030, with the most substantial contribution to decarbonization coming from the power sector. Therefore, investments into low-carbon power generation need to increase beyond current levels to meet the Paris goals, especially for solar and wind technologies and related system enhancements for electricity transmission, distribution and storage. Estimates on absolute investment levels, up-scaling of other low-carbon power generation technologies and investment shares in less ambitious scenarios vary considerably across models. In scenarios limiting peak warming to below 2 °C, while coal is phased out quickly, oil and gas are still being used significantly until 2030, albeit at lower than current levels. This requires continued investments into existing oil and gas infrastructure, but investments into new fields in such scenarios might not be needed. The results show that credible and effective policy action is essential for ensuring efficient allocation of investments aligned with medium-term climate targets. KW - Paris Agreement KW - energy investments KW - mitigation policies KW - climate policy KW - integrated assessment modelling Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac09ae SN - 1748-9326 VL - 16 IS - 7 PB - IOP Publishing CY - Bristol ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Harmsen, Mathijs A1 - Kriegler, Elmar A1 - van Vuuren, Detlef P. A1 - van der Wijst, Kaj-Ivar A1 - Luderer, Gunnar A1 - Cui, Ryna A1 - Dessens, Olivier A1 - Drouet, Laurent A1 - Emmerling, Johannes A1 - Morris, Jennifer Faye A1 - Fosse, Florian A1 - Fragkiadakis, Dimitris A1 - Fragkiadakis, Kostas A1 - Fragkos, Panagiotis A1 - Fricko, Oliver A1 - Fujimori, Shinichiro A1 - Gernaat, David A1 - Guivarch, Céline A1 - Iyer, Gokul A1 - Karkatsoulis, Panagiotis A1 - Keppo, Ilkka A1 - Keramidas, Kimon A1 - Köberle, Alexandre A1 - Kolp, Peter A1 - Krey, Volker A1 - Krüger, Christoph A1 - Leblanc, Florian A1 - Mittal, Shivika A1 - Paltsev, Sergey A1 - Rochedo, Pedro A1 - van Ruijven, Bas J. A1 - Sands, Ronald D. A1 - Sano, Fuminori A1 - Strefler, Jessica A1 - Arroyo, Eveline Vasquez A1 - Wada, Kenichi A1 - Zakeri, Behnam T1 - Integrated assessment model diagnostics BT - key indicators and model evolution JF - Environmental research letters N2 - Integrated assessment models (IAMs) form a prime tool in informing about climate mitigation strategies. Diagnostic indicators that allow comparison across these models can help describe and explain differences in model projections. This increases transparency and comparability. Earlier, the IAM community has developed an approach to diagnose models (Kriegler (2015 Technol. Forecast. Soc. Change 90 45–61)). Here we build on this, by proposing a selected set of well-defined indicators as a community standard, to systematically and routinely assess IAM behaviour, similar to metrics used for other modeling communities such as climate models. These indicators are the relative abatement index, emission reduction type index, inertia timescale, fossil fuel reduction, transformation index and cost per abatement value. We apply the approach to 17 IAMs, assessing both older as well as their latest versions, as applied in the IPCC 6th Assessment Report. The study shows that the approach can be easily applied and used to indentify key differences between models and model versions. Moreover, we demonstrate that this comparison helps to link model behavior to model characteristics and assumptions. We show that together, the set of six indicators can provide useful indication of the main traits of the model and can roughly indicate the general model behavior. The results also show that there is often a considerable spread across the models. Interestingly, the diagnostic values often change for different model versions, but there does not seem to be a distinct trend. KW - diagnostics KW - integrated assessment models KW - climate policy KW - Assessment Report IPCC KW - renewable energy KW - migration KW - AR6 Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/abf964 SN - 1748-9326 VL - 16 IS - 5 PB - IOP Publishing CY - Bristol ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Lilliestam, Johan A1 - Patt, Anthony A1 - Bersalli, German T1 - The effect of carbon pricing on technological change for full energy decarbonization BT - a review of empirical ex-post evidence JF - Wiley interdisciplinary reviews : Climate change N2 - In order to achieve the temperature goals of the Paris Agreement, the world must reach net-zero carbon emissions around mid-century, which calls for an entirely new energy system. Carbon pricing, in the shape of taxes or emissions trading schemes, is often seen as the main, or only, necessary climate policy instrument, based on theoretical expectations that this would promote innovation and diffusion of the new technologies necessary for full decarbonization. Here, we review the empirical knowledge available in academic ex-post analyses of the effectiveness of existing, comparatively high-price carbon pricing schemes in the European Union, New Zealand, British Columbia, and the Nordic countries. Some articles find short-term operational effects, especially fuel switching in existing assets, but no article finds mentionable effects on technological change. Critically, all articles examining the effects on zero-carbon investment found that existing carbon pricing scheme have had no effect at all. We conclude that the effectiveness of carbon pricing in stimulating innovation and zero-carbon investment remains a theoretical argument. So far, there is no empirical evidence of its effectiveness in promoting the technological change necessary for full decarbonization. This article is categorized under: Climate Economics > Economics of Mitigation KW - carbon pricing KW - climate policy KW - decarbonization KW - technological change Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.681 SN - 1757-7780 SN - 1757-7799 VL - 12 IS - 1 PB - Wiley CY - Hoboken ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Thonig, Richard A1 - Del Rio, Pablo A1 - Kiefer, Christoph A1 - Lazaro Touza, Lara A1 - Escribano, Gonzalo A1 - Lechon, Yolanda A1 - Spaeth, Leonhard A1 - Wolf, Ingo A1 - Lilliestam, Johan T1 - Does ideology influence the ambition level of climate and renewable energy policy? BT - Insights from four European countries JF - Energy sources, part B: economics, planning, and policy N2 - We investigate whether political ideology has an observable effect on decarbonization ambition, renewable power aims, and preferences for power system balancing technologies in four European countries. Based on the Energy Logics framework, we identify ideologically different transition strategies (state-centered, market-centered, grassroots-centered) contained in government policies and opposition party programs valid in 2019. We compare these policies and programs with citizen poll data. We find that ideology has a small effect: governments and political parties across the spectrum have similar, and relatively ambitious, decarbonization and renewables targets. This mirrors citizens' strong support for ambitious action regardless of their ideological self-description. However, whereas political positions on phasing out fossil fuel power are clear across the policy space, positions on phasing in new flexibility options to balance intermittent renewables are vague or non-existent. As parties and citizens agree on strong climate and renewable power aims, the policy ambition is likely to remain high, even if governments change. KW - political ideology KW - climate policy KW - energy policy KW - europe KW - european KW - Union KW - renewable energy KW - flexibility Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/15567249.2020.1811806 SN - 1556-7249 SN - 1556-7257 VL - 16 IS - 1 SP - 4 EP - 22 PB - Taylor & Francis Group CY - Philadelphia ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ollier, Lana A1 - Melliger, Marc André A1 - Lilliestam, Johan T1 - Friends or foes? BT - Political synergy or competition between renewable energy and energy efficiency policy JF - Energies : open-access journal of related scientific research, technology development and studies in policy and management N2 - Energy efficiency measures and the deployment of renewable energy are commonly presented as two sides of the same coin-as necessary and synergistic measures to decarbonize energy systems and reach the temperature goals of the Paris Agreement. Here, we quantitatively investigate the policies and performances of the EU Member States to see whether renewables and energy efficiency policies are politically synergistic or if they rather compete for political attention and resources. We find that Member States, especially the ones perceived as climate leaders, tend to prioritize renewables over energy efficiency in target setting. Further, almost every country performs well in either renewable energy or energy efficiency, but rarely performs well in both. We find no support for the assertion that the policies are synergistic, but some evidence that they compete. However, multi-linear regression models for performance show that performance, especially in energy efficiency, is also strongly associated with general economic growth cycles, and not only efficiency policy as such. We conclude that renewable energy and energy efficiency are not synergistic policies, and that there is some competition between them. KW - energy efficiency KW - renewable energy KW - climate policy KW - policy cycle KW - EU KW - policy competition Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/en13236339 SN - 1996-1073 VL - 13 IS - 23 PB - MDPI CY - Basel ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schütze, Franziska A1 - Fürst, Steffen A1 - Mielke, Jahel A1 - Steudle, Gesine A. A1 - Wolf, Sarah A1 - Jäger, Carlo C. T1 - The Role of Sustainable Investment in Climate Policy JF - Sustainability N2 - Reaching the Sustainable Development Goals requires a fundamental socio-economic transformation accompanied by substantial investment in low-carbon infrastructure. Such a sustainability transition represents a non-marginal change, driven by behavioral factors and systemic interactions. However, typical economic models used to assess a sustainability transition focus on marginal changes around a local optimum, whichby constructionlead to negative effects. Thus, these models do not allow evaluating a sustainability transition that might have substantial positive effects. This paper examines which mechanisms need to be included in a standard computable general equilibrium model to overcome these limitations and to give a more comprehensive view of the effects of climate change mitigation. Simulation results show that, given an ambitious greenhouse gas emission constraint and a price of carbon, positive economic effects are possible if (1) technical progress results (partly) endogenously from the model and (2) a policy intervention triggering an increase of investment is introduced. Additionally, if (3) the investment behavior of firms is influenced by their sales expectations, the effects are amplified. The results provide suggestions for policy-makers, because the outcome indicates that investment-oriented climate policies can lead to more desirable outcomes in economic, social and environmental terms. KW - climate policy KW - green growth KW - macroeconomic models KW - sustainable investment KW - technical progress KW - expectations KW - 1.5 degrees C Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/su9122221 SN - 2071-1050 VL - 9 PB - MDPI CY - Basel ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Sprinz, Detlef F. A1 - de Mesquita, Bruce Bueno A1 - Kallbekken, Steffen A1 - Stokman, Frans A1 - Saelen, Hakon A1 - Thomson, Robert T1 - Predicting Paris: Multi-Method Approaches to Forecast the Outcomes of Global Climate Negotiations JF - Politics and Governance N2 - We examine the negotiations held under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention of Climate Change in Paris, December 2015. Prior to these negotiations, there was considerable uncertainty about whether an agreement would be reached, particularly given that the world’s leaders failed to do so in the 2009 negotiations held in Copenhagen. Amid this uncertainty, we applied three different methods to predict the outcomes: an expert survey and two negotiation simulation models, namely the Exchange Model and the Predictioneer’s Game. After the event, these predictions were assessed against the coded texts that were agreed in Paris. The evidence suggests that combining experts’ predictions to reach a collective expert prediction makes for significantly more accurate predictions than individual experts’ predictions. The differences in the performance between the two different negotiation simulation models were not statistically significant. KW - climate policy KW - climate regime KW - expert survey KW - forecasting KW - global negotiations KW - Paris agreement KW - prediction KW - simulation Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.v4i3.654 SN - 2183-2463 VL - 4 SP - 172 EP - 187 PB - Cogitatio Press CY - Lisbon ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Pickering, Jonathan A1 - Skovgaard, Jakob A1 - Kim, Soyeun A1 - Roberts, J. Timmons A1 - Rossati, David A1 - Stadelmann, Martin A1 - Reich, Hendrikje T1 - Acting on Climate Finance Pledges: Inter-Agency Dynamics and Relationships with Aid in Contributor States JF - World development N2 - Developed countries have relied heavily on aid budgets to fulfill their pledges to boost funding for addressing climate change in developing countries. However, little is known about how interaction between aid and other ministries has shaped contributors' diverse approaches to climate finance. This paper investigates intra-governmental dynamics in decision-making on climate finance in seven contributor countries (Australia, Denmark, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, the UK, and the US). While aid agencies retained considerable control over implementation, environment and finance ministries have played an influential and often contrasting role on key policy issues, including distribution between mitigation and adaptation and among geographical regions. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. KW - climate policy KW - climate finance KW - development assistance KW - bureaucratic politics Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2014.10.033 SN - 0305-750X VL - 68 SP - 149 EP - 162 PB - Elsevier CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Hickmann, Thomas T1 - Private authority in global climate governance the case of the clean development mechanism JF - Climate & development N2 - The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is a prominent example of the mix of public and private authority in global climate policy-making. While national governments hold the supreme authority in the CDM, the oversight and daily supervision of the project-based mechanism have been delegated via an intergovernmental body to private corporations that evaluate the environmental performance of individual CDM projects. By focusing on the CDM as a particular instance of private authority in global climate governance, this article analyses the consequences associated with the delegation of authority to private actors. The article critically assesses the role of private auditing corporations, labelled Designated Operational Entities, in the regulatory framework of the CDM and points to serious trade-offs which accompany the privatisation of authority. The article's findings suggest that the promise of innovative modes of governance to increase the effectiveness of international regulation is seriously compromised by the profit-seeking behaviour of private actors. Hence, the article underscores the need to reconsider the balance between public and private authority in global (climate) governance. KW - carbon markets KW - Clean Development Mechanism KW - climate policy KW - global climate governance KW - post-2012 negotiations KW - private authority Y1 - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/17565529.2013.768174 SN - 1756-5529 VL - 5 IS - 1 SP - 46 EP - 54 PB - Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group CY - Abingdon ER -