Closing the emission price gap

Edenhofer, Ottmar; Jakob, Michael; Creutzig, Felix; Flachsland, Christian; Fuss, Sabine; Kowarsch, Martin; Lessmann, Kai; Mattauch, Linus; Siegmeier, Jan; Steckel, Jan Christoph

doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2015.01.003

Cited by 79 publications

(45 citation statements)

References 128 publications

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“…The generation of revenues by carbon pricing could be an additional motivation for countries to foster climate policy. Those revenues could be used for infrastructure investment or tax or debt reduction (26,27).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Drivers for the renaissance of coal

Steckel

Edenhofer

Jakob

2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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117

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Coal was central to the industrial revolution, but in the 20th century it increasingly was superseded by oil and gas. However, in recent years coal again has become the predominant source of global carbon emissions. We show that this trend of rapidly increasing coal-based emissions is not restricted to a few individual countries such as China. Rather, we are witnessing a global renaissance of coal majorly driven by poor, fast-growing countries that increasingly rely on coal to satisfy their growing energy demand. The low price of coal relative to gas and oil has played an important role in accelerating coal consumption since the end of the 1990s. In this article, we show that in the increasingly integrated global coal market the availability of a domestic coal resource does not have a statistically significant impact on the use of coal and related emissions. These findings have important implications for climate change mitigation: If future economic growth of poor countries is fueled mainly by coal, ambitious mitigation targets very likely will become infeasible. Building new coal power plant capacities will lead to lock-in effects for the next few decades. If that lock-in is to be avoided, international climate policy must find ways to offer viable alternatives to coal for developing countries. Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to limit and reduce greenhouse gas emission to prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system (1), global emissions have continued to rise steadily. Since 1971 global annual energy-related CO 2 emissions have more than doubled (Fig. 1A). In recent years emission growth has accelerated further, interrupted only briefly during the recent economic crisis. Assessments of the factors driving these developments using the Kaya* identity have identified growing per-capita incomes, especially in developing and newly industrializing countries, as the dominant reason for rising emissions (2, 3). [The Kaya* identity decomposes changes in emissions into changes in population, percapita income, the energy intensity of gross domestic product (GDP), and the carbon intensity of energy production. See Steckel et al. (2) for further information.] However, the growing carbon intensity of energy production (i.e., the amount of emissions generated to produce one unit of energy) also has played an important role, and the increased use of coal has been particularly important (2). Coal consumption not only has risen in line with a growing global economy but has outpaced the growth of total energy use. Although coal was central to the industrial revolution (4), it increasingly was superseded by oil and gas in the 20th century. With these recent developments, however, coal again has become the most important source of energy-related emissions on the global scale (Fig. 1B).The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (5) identifies the replacement of coalfired power plants by less carbon-intensive energy technologies as one of the most cost-efficient options...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Drivers for the renaissance of coal

Steckel

Edenhofer

Jakob

2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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117

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“…The analysis has been largely limited to the coeffects of mitigation on one sustainability objective at a time-and in some cases vice versa (see Section 4.1). This body of research can be an important source of evidence for policy makers, potentially changing the incentive structure for global mitigation efforts if nearterm benefits for other objectives (e.g., local air quality) are more explicitly taken into account (36,(38)(39)(40)(41)(42)(43)(44). This strand focuses, however, on the coeffects of mitigation pathways in nonmonetary …”

Section: A Conceptual Welfare-theoretic Framework For Assessing the Cmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrating Global Climate Change Mitigation Goals with Other Sustainability Objectives: A Synthesis

Stechow

McCollum

Riahi

et al. 2015

Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour.

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Achieving a truly sustainable energy transition requires progress across multiple dimensions beyond climate change mitigation goals. This article reviews and synthesizes results from disparate strands of literature on the coeffects of mitigation to inform climate policy choices at different governance levels. The literature documents many potential cobenefits of mitigation for nonclimate objectives, such as human health and energy security, but little is known about their overall welfare implications. Integrated model studies highlight that climate policies as part of well-designed policy packages reduce the overall cost of achieving multiple sustainability objectives. The incommensurability and uncertainties around the quantification of coeffects become, however, increasingly pervasive the more the perspective shifts from sectoral and local to economy wide and global, the more objectives are analyzed, and the more the results are expressed in economic rather than nonmonetary terms. Different strings of evidence highlight the role and importance of energy demand reductions for realizing synergies across multiple sustainability objectives.

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“…One example would be to establish bottom-up carbon pricing systems in individual countries which can create a number of co-benefits. 34 The overall picture of climate policy development can be described as slow progress at the global regime level, contrasted by a proliferation of regional, national, and subnational policies and instruments to mitigate climate change, the effectiveness of which has been assessed with mixed results. 35 In this situation, the questions arise of what is known about the development of low-carbon practices at the level of individual citizens or consumers and how can these developments be understood.…”

Section: Climate Policy Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Anthropogenic climate change: how to understand the weak links between scientific evidence, public perception, and low-carbon practices

Engels¹

2016

EECT

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This review article presents an overview of recent literature on: the scientific consensus about the attribution of climate change to anthropogenic sources; successes and failures to create a global policy regime to lower worldwide carbon emissions; recent developments in the public perception of climate change and associated risks; and the persistence of highly carbon-intensive practices in spite of scientific evidence on the attribution of climate change to anthropogenic causes. Holistic approaches to understanding patterns of consumption, focusing on ensembles of social practices, may explain this persistence, however, such approaches are still in their infancy with regard to developing proactive ideas for policies to promote low-carbon practices more effectively.

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Closing the emission price gap

Cited by 79 publications

References 128 publications

Drivers for the renaissance of coal

Drivers for the renaissance of coal

Integrating Global Climate Change Mitigation Goals with Other Sustainability Objectives: A Synthesis

Anthropogenic climate change: how to understand the weak links between scientific evidence, public perception, and low-carbon practices

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