CO2 abatement economics - a practical view

Abstract

The present studies aim at bridging between sophisticated scientific research and the broader society. The present work examines the economic stimulus required for the intended transition from fossil sources to renewables. To estimate cost competitiveness in energy supply from the various primary sources, a practicable, yet comprehensively levelized and fully described framework is applied. The estimates are compared with previous field reports and projection studies. In result, renewables have principally become cost-competitive to fossil sources in energy production. The overall transition to renewables is found to potentially come cost-neutral. It is argued that no special discounting be necessary if carbon emissions reduction is established in the order of 3 %/year (year-on-year) for about 100 years. Regarding transmission belts, it is advocated to cap plain CO2 pricing at 50 $/tCO2 and moreover, to emphasize distributive and differentiative regulation when considering free-market-based mechanisms such as CO2 pricing and carbon certification/crediting.

An environmental CGE model of China’s economy: Modeling choices and application

“…Neglecting these interactions might lead to an overestimation of policy effectiveness or an underestimation of economic costs. Liu et al (2022) [72] selected carbon pricing policy, renewable energy policy, energy efficiency improvement, and electricity substitution policy after reviewing prominent domestic and international carbon neutrality policies. The study aims to address the lack of understanding regarding the effectiveness, trade-offs, and synergies among policies in achieving China's dual carbon goals.…”

Climate change through the essentials–nature's offering and humankind's sine qua non

“…At global level, it is possible that ∼90% of the present CO 2 emissions can be abated at neutral cost [ (Anderl, 2022d) supported by Deng et al, 2011, Supplementary material S6]. Regarding the total lifecycle cost/benefit, net cost contribution is attributed to forestry, cost/benefit balance to the power sector (levelized costs of renewables having approached those from fossils), and net benefits to the other sectors (Supplementary material S6).…”

“…For instance, a CO 2 levy of 50 $/tCO 2 means an additional annual burden for each US citizen of 720 $/person/year, and in Europe likewise (50 Euro/tCO 2 ) an annual expenditure increase of 300 Euro/person/year. Heating costs would be elevated by ∼30% at 50 $/tCO 2 or doubled upon 150 $/tCO 2 (Anderl, 2022d), with residential heating contributing 5% to total emissions on global average (based on Anderl, 2021d). The impact of CO 2 taxation on inflation ("greenflation") depends on the implementation period.…”

“…The 90% of cost-neutral emissions reduction mentioned earlier is feasible without carbon capture and utilization/storage (CCUS) (Anderl, 2022d, Supplementary material S6) (cf. Section 2.2.2).…”

“…Detailed analysis has been performed on a series of aspects with the focus to uncover reproducibility of the results from sophisticated research since transparency is regarded key to facilitating common understanding (Anderl, 2021a(Anderl, ,b,c,d, 2022a. The covered topics are in brief: reading the temperature contribution of atmospheric CO 2 for equilibrium climate states from paleo-data (Anderl, 2021a); revealing near-proportionality of this temperature contribution to the atmospheric concentrations of CO 2 and associated H 2 O (Anderl, 2022a); quantifying the cooling effects of CO 2 and H 2 O by simple modeling (Anderl, 2021b); decomposing equilibrium climate states within Earth's energy budget (Anderl, 2021c); consolidating CO 2 emissions data by contributing sector (Anderl, 2021d); projecting the atmospheric CO 2 concentration on the millennium time scale (Anderl, 2022b); disentangling the CO 2 emissions from land use change to detect mitigation potentials (Anderl, 2022c); estimating the transition cost for the zero-CO 2 world (Anderl, 2022d). The present article synthesizes the essentials viewed required to form a common information base.…”