Title: A multi-model analysis of long-term emissions and warming implications of current mitigation efforts
Date: November 2021
Short description: Most of the integrated assessment modelling literature focuses on cost-effective pathways towards given temperature goals. Conversely, using seven diverse integrated assessment models, we project global energy CO2 emissions trajectories on the basis of near-term mitigation efforts and two assumptions on how these efforts continue post-2030. Despite finding a wide range of emissions by 2050, nearly all the scenarios have median warming of less than 3 °C in 2100. However, the most optimistic scenario is still insufficient to limit global warming to 2 °C. We furthermore highlight key modelling choices inherent to projecting where emissions are headed. First, emissions are more sensitive to the choice of integrated assessment model than to the assumed mitigation effort, highlighting the importance of heterogeneous model intercomparisons. Differences across models reflect diversity in baseline assumptions and impacts of near-term mitigation efforts. Second, the common practice of using economy-wide carbon prices to represent policy exaggerates carbon capture and storage use compared with explicitly modelling policies.
Authors: Sognnaes, I., Gambhir, A., Van de Ven, D.J., Nikas, A., Anger-Kraavi, A., Bui, H., Campagnolo, L., Delpiazzo, E., Doukas, H., Giarola, S., Grant, N., Hawkes, A., Koberle, A.C., Kolpakov, A., Mittal, S., Moreno, J., Perdana, S., Rogelj, J., Vielle, M., & Peters, G.P.
Journal: Nature Climate Change
Links:
Tags: Climate-change mitigation Projection Prediction
Title: Challenges in the harmonisation of global integrated assessment models: a comprehensive methodology to reduce model response heterogeneity
Date: August 2021
Short description: Harmonisation sets the ground to a solid inter-comparison of integrated assessment models. A clear and transparent harmonisation process promotes a consistent interpretation of the modelling outcomes divergences and, reducing the model variance, is instrumental to the use of integrated assessment models to support policy decision-making. Despite its crucial role for climate economic policies, the definition of a comprehensive harmonisation methodology for integrated assessment modelling remains an open challenge for the scientific community. This paper proposes a framework for a harmonisation methodology with the definition of indispensable steps and recommendations to overcome stumbling blocks in order to reduce the variance of the outcomes which depends on controllable modelling assumptions. The harmonisation approach of the PARIS REINFORCE project is presented here to layout such a framework. A decomposition analysis of the harmonisation process is shown through 6 integrated assessment models (GCAM, ICES-XPS, MUSE, E3ME, GEMINI-E3, and TIAM). Results prove the potentials of the proposed framework to reduce the model variance and present a powerful diagnostic tool to feedback on the quality of the harmonisation itself.
Authors: Giarola, S., Mittal, S., Vielle, M., Perdana, S., Campagnolo, L., Delpiazzo, E., Bui, H., Anger-Kraavi, A., Kolpakov, A., Sognnaes, I., Peters, G.P., Hawkes, A., Koberle, A., Grant, N., Gambhir, A., Nikas, A., Doukas, H., Moreno, J., & Van de Ven, D.J.
Journal: Science of the Total Environment
Links:
Tags: Integrated assessment modelling Model inter-comparison Harmonisation
Title: The appropriate use of reference scenarios in mitigation analysis
Date: June 2020
Short description: Comparing emissions scenarios is an essential part of mitigation analysis, as climate targets can be met in various ways with different economic, energy system and co-benefit implications. Typically, a central ‘reference scenario’ acts as a point of comparison, and often this has been a no policy baseline with no explicit mitigative action taken. The use of such baselines is under increasing scrutiny, raising a wider question around the appropriate use of reference scenarios in mitigation analysis. In this Perspective, we assess three critical issues relevant to the use of reference scenarios, demonstrating how different policy contexts merit the use of different scenarios. We provide recommendations to the modelling community on best practice in the creation, use and communication of reference scenarios.
Authors: Grant, N., Hawkes, A., Napp, T., & Gambhir, A.
Journal: Nature Climate Change
Links:
Tags: Climate-change mitigation Climate-change policy Energy economics Energy policy
Title: Emissions – the ‘business as usual’ story is misleading
Date: January 2020
Short description: More than a decade ago, climate scientists and energy modellers made a choice about how to describe the effects of emissions on Earth’s future climate. That choice has had unintended consequences which today are hotly debated. With the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) moving into its final stages in 2020, there is now a rare opportunity to reboot.
Authors: Hausfather Z., & Peters, G.P.
Journal: Nature
Links:
Tags: Climate sciences Climate-change Energy
