Dynamic Evaluation of Policy Feasibility, Feedbacks and the Ambitions of COALitions

S. Bi, N. Bauer, J. Jewell. (2021). Dynamic Evaluation of Policy Feasibility, Feedbacks and the Ambitions of COALitions. In Review. Research Square. PrePrint.

The Paris Agreement prioritised international bottom-up climate negotiations. Meanwhile, research has asserted the coal exit as a prerequisite for Paris-consistent pathways. The Powering Past Coal Alliance (PPCA), an opt-in initiative toward phasing-out coal-fired electricity by mid-century, embodies both paradigms but currently encompasses just 5% of global coal demand. To assess its long-term prospects against Paris-consistent pathways, we couple the energy-economy model REMIND to an empirical coalition accession model and demonstrate a novel scenario analysis technique, Dynamic Policy Evaluation (DPE). Capturing co-evolutionary feedbacks between policy uptake and global energy markets, we simulate nationally-and-temporally-fragmented PPCA accession and analyse its sensitivity to coalition growth, sectoral ambition, and Covid-19-related uncertainty. Surprisingly, we find that virtually global PPCA participation achieves <3% of 1.5oC-consistent coal declines, as non-electric consumption remains unregulated. In contrast, our median-estimate scenario (82% accession) assuming economy wide coverage achieves ~53% efficacy (virtually-global: ~85%), suggesting that the PPCA should prioritise policy ambition over coalition expansion.