Spring frosts, as experienced in Europe in April 2016 and 2017, pose a considerable risk to agricultural production, with the potential to cause significant damages to agricultural yields. Meteorological blocking events (stable high-pressure systems) have been shown to be one of the factors that trigger cold spells in spring. While current knowledge does not allow for drawing conclusions as to any change in future frequency and duration of blocking episodes due to climate change, the combination of their stable occurrence with the biological system under a warming trend can lead to economic damage increases. To evaluate future frost risk for apple producers in south-eastern Styria, we combine a phenological sequential model with highly resolved climate projections for Austria. Our model projects a mean advance of blooming of –1.6 ± 0.9 days per decade, shifting the bloom onset towards early April by the end of the 21st century. Our findings indicate that overall frost risk for apple cultures will remain in a warmer climate and potentially even increase due to a stronger connection between blocking and cold spells in early spring that can be identified from observational data. To prospectively deal with frost risk, measures are needed that either stabilize crop yields or ensure farmers’ income by other means. We identify appropriate adaptation measures and relate their costs to the potential frost risk increase. Even if applied successfully, the costs of these measures in combination with future residual damages represent additional climate change related costs.

Industrial processes currently contribute 40% to global CO 2 emissions and therefore substantial increases in industrial energy efficiency are required for reaching the 2 • C target. We assess the macroeconomic effects of deploying low carbon technologies in six energy intensive industrial sectors (Petroleum, Iron and Steel, Non-metallic Minerals, Paper and Pulp, Chemicals, and Electricity) in Europe, China and India in 2030. By combining the GAINS technology model with a macroeconomic computable general equilibrium model, we find that output in energy intensive industries declines in Europe by 6% in total, while output increases in China by 11% and in India by 13%. The opposite output effects emerge because low carbon technologies lead to cost savings in China and India but not in Europe. Consequently, the competitiveness of energy intensive industries is improved in China and India relative to Europe, leading to higher exports to Europe. In all regions, the decarbonization of electricity plays the dominant role for mitigation. We find a rebound effect in China and India, in the size of 42% and 34% CO 2 reduction, respectively, but not in Europe. Our results indicate that the range of considered low-carbon technology options is not competitive in the European industrial sectors. To foster breakthrough low carbon technologies and maintain industrial competitiveness, targeted technology policy is therefore needed to supplement carbon pricing.

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The objective of the United Nations Paris Agreement to limit global warming to well below 2°C, with efforts to reach 1.5°C, requires a strict limitation of future global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions based on a global carbon budget. Applying equity considerations allows for the derivation of national carbon budgets. A key question then arises: How can these national budgets be allocated at the sectoral level? A new method is proposed to allocate carbon budgets at the sectoral level. First, a cost-based approach is used to indicate a necessary carbon budget for each sector. However, the aggregation of these initial sectoral carbon budgets usually exceeds the available national carbon budget. This indicates the relevance of working with sectoral carbon budgets and the required reductions to remain within the overall national carbon budget. This conceptual approach aims at, first, a cost-effective sectoral effort-sharing; second, the design of corresponding strict carbon emission reduction pathways (at both the sector and aggregate levels); and, third, the redesign of investment policies for capital stock improvements to remain within the aggregate carbon budget (involving trade-offs in investment induced emissions for operational emission reduction). Policy relevance Limiting global warming according to the United Nations Paris Agreement requires a strict limitation of future global GHG emissions. A new method is presented to allocate national carbon budgets to the national sectoral level. The carbon budget concept has the potential to provide a transparent and informative tool for the analysis, policy design and monitoring of GHG emission pathways, particularly for the long time horizons involved. The area of activity involving the construction and use of buildings, termed embodied and operational GHGs, requires a particularly large fraction of the national carbon budget. Compared with other sectors, these activities have the highest potential for keeping countries within their national carbon budgets as far as enabling capital stock improvements are concerned that over-proportionally reduce use emissions. The approach can link carbon budgets at the municipal, city and regional levels. It could lend itself to an initially voluntary initiative, later compulsory policy framework for substantial and cost-effective emission reductions.

Construction and operation of buildings are responsible for 37% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In contrast, the Austria’s National Inventory Report attributes a mere 10% of national emissions to buildings – including only direct operational emissions of residential and service sector buildings. This narrow definition of the buildings sector neglects important environmental hotspots attributable to building-related life cycle emissions and calls for a comprehensive analysis of GHG emissions of Austrian buildings. In this study, we assess annual building related GHG emissions for the Austrian building stock from a full life cycle perspective (i.e. including operational and embodied emissions). For embodied emissions, we model emissions using both a process-based and an input-output based life cycle assessment (LCA) approach. Building LCA case studies and statistical building stock data are used to estimate embodied emissions from a bottom-up perspective, which are complemented by estimated emissions from the input-output based LCA approach. Our work illustrates the importance of adopting a life-cycle perspective on building-related emissions to inform the different stakeholders and advance climate action in the built environment. While both the chosen system boundaries and methods significantly determine the results, we argue that emission reduction measures should be based on a comprehensive system boundary of building-related emissions to contribute towards the achievement of a climate-neutral built environment and the stringent climate targets. By adding indirect emissions and non-residential buildings to the officially reported building emissions, the operational emissions alone increase by a factor of 2.4. As expected, the process-based LCA yields lower embodied emissions than the input-output based approach. Depending on the method, they can be responsible for up to 40% of total buildings related emissions. Summing up, total buildings related emissions rise by a factor of 3 to 4 when extending the system boundaries to comprise the whole area of action buildings, and go from 7 Mt CO2-eq/a (direct operational emissions, 10% of national emissions), to 22-31 Mt CO2-eq/a for the case of Austria.