Quitting fossil fuels: how fast can the world do it?

J. Jewell, M. Vetier, V. Vinichenko, O.M. Lægreid, S. Pai, A. Cherp, H. Brauers, I. Braunger, L. Nacke, H. Zerriffi. (2022). Quitting fossil fuels: how fast can the world do it? Policy brief.

To meet climate targets, fossil fuel use needs to rapidly decline. Has anything similar happened in the past? Do current coal phase-out efforts put us on the path to save the climate? And how would such radical fossil fuel decline affect fossil fuel workers? To answer these questions, we analyzed historical precedents of fossil fuel decline, current efforts to phase-out coal and future pathways to reach climate targets.

We find surprising precedents of decline in the 1970s and 80s when industrialized wealthy economies responded to the oil crises. At the same time, the current pledges of coal phase-out are insufficient to deliver on the 1.5°C targets and are limited to countries with low costs and high enough capacity to overcome those costs. Nevertheless, in spite of the opposition from fossil fuel workers to transitions, we identify opportunities for low-carbon jobs to replace fossil fuel jobs.

Download and read the policy brief from the Contractions project.

Cost of non-uniform climate policies

A. Cherp. (2021). Cost of non-uniform climate policies. Nature Climate Change, 1-2. Gated. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-01133-3. Free SharedIt link (view only).

Economically optimal climate strategies may be politically less feasible because they need strong collective action. Fortunately, achieving climate goals through more realistic differentiated policies may not be much more expensive.

National growth dynamics of wind and solar power compared to the growth required for global climate targets

A. Cherp, V. Vinichenko, J. Tosun, J. Gordon & J. Jewell. (2021). National growth dynamics of wind and solar power compared to the growth required for global climate targets. Nature Energy 6, 742–754. Gated. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-021-00863-0. Free SharedIt link (view only) code on GitHub: https://github.com/poletresearch/RES_article

Climate mitigation scenarios envision considerable growth of wind and solar power, but scholars disagree on how this growth compares with historical trends. Here we fit growth models to wind and solar trajectories to identify countries in which growth has already stabilized after the initial acceleration. National growth has followed S-curves to reach maximum annual rates of 0.8% (interquartile range of 0.6–1.1%) of the total electricity supply for onshore wind and 0.6% (0.4–0.9%) for solar. In comparison, one-half of 1.5 °C-compatible scenarios envision global growth of wind power above 1.3% and of solar power above 1.4%, while one-quarter of these scenarios envision global growth of solar above 3.3% per year. Replicating or exceeding the fastest national growth globally may be challenging because, so far, countries that introduced wind and solar power later have not achieved higher maximum growth rates, despite their generally speedier progression through the technology adoption cycle.

Limited emission reductions from fuel subsidy removal except in energy-exporting regions

J. Jewell, D. McCollum, J. Emmerling, C. Bertram, D.E.H.J. Gernaat, V. Krey, L. Paroussos, L. Berger, K. Fragkiadakis, I. Keppo, N. Saadi, M. Tavoni, D.P. van Vuuren, V. Vinichenko, & K. Riahi. (2018). Limited emission reductions from fuel subsidy removal except in energy-exporting regions. Nature. Gated. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature25467. PrePrint.

Many governments use subsidies for fossil fuels to reduce the cost of energy for domestic consumption. This has led to the frequent argument that removing subsidies could play an important part in mitigating climate change. Now, Jessica Jewel and colleagues show that subsidy removal would indeed substantially lower emissions in fossil-fuel-exporting countries, but would reduce global carbon dioxide emissions by only a few per cent by 2030. This small reduction would largely be due to offsetting effects from international trade and fuel substitution. The authors also find that subsidy removal would not dramatically increase the use of renewable energy, adding to the suggestion that extensive revisions of subsidy policies would not produce a major benefit for climate mitigation.

Comparison and interactions between the long-term pursuit of energy independence and climate policies

J. Jewell, V. Vinichenko, D. McCollum, N. Bauer, K. Riahi, T. Aboumahboub, O. Fricko, M. Harmsen, T. Kober, V. Krey, G. Marangoni, M. Tavoni, D.P. Van Vuuren, B. Van Der Zwaan & A. Cherp. (2016). Comparison and interactions between the long-term pursuit of energy independence and climate policies. Nature Energy 1, 1-9. Gated. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nenergy.2016.73.

Ensuring energy security and mitigating climate change are key energy policy priorities. The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group III report emphasized that climate policies can deliver energy security as a co-benefit, in large part through reducing energy imports. Using five state-of-the-art global energy-economy models and eight long- term scenarios, we show that although deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions would reduce energy imports, the reverse is not true: ambitious policies constraining energy imports would have an insignificant impact on climate change. Restricting imports of all fuels would lower twenty-first-century emissions by only 2–15% against the Baseline scenario as compared with a 70%reduction in a 450 stabilization scenario. Restricting only oil imports would have virtually no impact on emissions. The modelled energy independence targets could be achieved at policy costs comparable to those of existing climate pledges but a fraction of the cost of limiting global warming to 2 ◦ C.

2°C and SDGs: united they stand, divided they fall?

C. von Stechow, J. C. Minx, K. Riahi, J. Jewell, D. L. McCollum, M. W. Callaghan, C. Bertram, G. Luderer & G. Baiocchi. (2016). 2°C and SDGs: united they stand, divided they fall? Environmental Research Letters, 11 (3), 034022. Open Access. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/11/3/034022.

The adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the new international climate treaty could put 2015 into the history books as a defining year for setting human development on a more sustainable pathway. The global climate policy and SDG agendas are highly interconnected: the way that the climate problem is addressed strongly affects the prospects of meeting numerous other SDGs and vice versa. Drawing on existing scenario results from a recent energy-economy-climate model inter-comparison project, this letter analyses these synergies and (risk) trade-offs of alternative 2 °C pathways across indicators relevant for energy-related SDGs and sustainable energy objectives. We find that limiting the availability of key mitigation technologies yields some co-benefits and decreases risks specific to these technologies but greatly increases many others. Fewer synergies and substantial trade-offs across SDGs are locked into the system for weak short-term climate policies that are broadly in line with current Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), particularly when combined with constraints on technologies. Lowering energy demand growth is key to managing these trade-offs and creating synergies across multiple energy-related SD dimensions. We argue that SD considerations are central for choosing socially acceptable 2 °C pathways: the prospects of meeting other SDGs need not dwindle and can even be enhanced for some goals if appropriate climate policy choices are made. Progress on the climate policy and SDG agendas should therefore be tracked within a unified framework.

Post-2020 climate agreements in the major economies assessed in the light of global models

M. Tavoni, E. Kriegler, K. Riahi, D. P. van Vuuren, T. Aboumahboub, A. Bowen, K. Calvin, E. Campiglio, T. Kober, J. Jewell, G. Luderer, G. Marangoni, D. McCollum, M. van Sluisveld, A. Zimmer & B. van der Zwaan. (2014). Post-2020 climate agreements in the major economies assessed in the light of global models. Nature Climate Change, 5 (2), 119-126. Open Access. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2475.

Integrated assessment models can help in quantifying the implications of international climate agreements and regional climate action. This paper reviews scenario results from model intercomparison projects to explore different possible outcomes of post-2020 climate negotiations, recently announced pledges and their relation to the 2 °C target. We provide key information for all the major economies, such as the year of emission peaking, regional carbon budgets and emissions allowances. We highlight the distributional consequences of climate policies, and discuss the role of carbon markets for financing clean energy investments, and achieving efficiency and equity.

Energy security under de-carbonization scenarios: an assessment framework and evaluation under different technology and policy choices

J. Jewell, A. Cherp & K. Riahi. (2014). Energy security under de-carbonization scenarios: an assessment framework and evaluation under different technology and policy choices. Energy Policy, 65, 743-760. Gated. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2013.10.051.

How would a low-carbon energy transformation affect energy security? This paper proposes a framework to evaluate energy security under long-term energy scenarios generated by integrated assessment models. Energy security is defined as low vulnerability of vital energy systems, delineated along geographic and sectoral boundaries. The proposed framework considers vulnerability as a combination of risks associated with inter-regional energy trade and resilience reflected in energy intensity and diversity of energy sources and technologies. We apply this framework to 43 scenarios generated by the MESSAGE model as part of the Global Energy Assessment, including one baseline scenario and 42 “low-carbon” scenarios where the global mean temperature increase is limited to 2°C over the pre-industrial level. By and large, low-carbon scenarios are associated with lower energy trade and higher diversity of energy options, especially in the transport sector. A few risks do emerge under low-carbon scenarios in the latter half of the century. They include potentially high trade in natural gas and hydrogen and low diversity of electricity sources. Trade is typically lower in scenarios which emphasize demand-side policies as well as non-tradable energy sources (nuclear and renewables) while diversity is higher in scenarios which limit the penetration of intermittent renewables.

Energy security of China, India, the EU and the US under long-term scenarios: results from six IAMs

J. Jewell, A. Cherp, V. Vinichenko, N. Bauer, T. Kober, D. McCollum, D.P. van Vuuren, B. van der Zwaan. (2013). Energy security of China, India, the EU and the US under long-term scenarios: results from six IAMs. Climate Change Economics, 4(4), 1340011. Gated. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.1142/s2010007813400113.

This paper assesses energy security in three long-term energy scenarios (business as usual development, a projection of Copenhagen commitments, and a 450 ppm stabilization scenario) as modeled in six integrated assessment models: GCAM, IMAGE, MESSAGE, ReMIND, TIAM-ECN and WITCH. We systematically evaluate long-term vulnerabilities of vital energy systems of four major economies: China, the European Union (E.U.), India and the U.S., as expressed by several characteristics of energy trade, resource extraction, and diversity of energy options. Our results show that climate policies are likely to lead to significantly lower global energy trade and reduce energy imports of major economies, decrease the rate of resource depletion, and increase the diversity of energy options. China, India and the E.U. would derive particularly strong benefits from climate policies, whereas the U.S. may forego some opportunities to export fossil fuels in the second half of the century.