Common but differentiated leadership: strategies and challenges for carbon neutrality by 2050 across industrialized economies

Abstract

Given their historic emissions and economic capability, we analyze a leadership role for representative industrialized regions (EU, US, Japan, and Australia) in the global climate mitigation effort. Using the global integrated assessment model REMIND, we systematically compare region-specific mitigation strategies and challenges of reaching domestic net-zero carbon emissions in 2050. Embarking from different emission profiles and trends, we find that all of the regions have technological options and mitigation strategies to reach carbon neutrality by 2050. Regional characteristics are mostly related to different land availability, population density and population trends: While Japan is resource limited with respect to onshore wind and solar power and has constrained options for carbon dioxide removal (CDR), their declining population significantly decreases future energy demand. In contrast, Australia and the US benefit from abundant renewable resources, but face challenges to curb industry and transport emissions given increasing populations and high per-capita energy use. In the EU, lack of social acceptance or EU-wide cooperation might endanger the ongoing transition to a renewable-based power system. CDR technologies are necessary for all regions, as residual emissions cannot be fully avoided by 2050. For Australia and the US, in particular, CDR could reduce the required transition pace, depth and costs. At the same time, this creates the risk of a carbon lock-in, if decarbonization ambition is scaled down in anticipation of CDR technologies that fail to deliver. Our results suggest that industrialized economies can benefit from cooperation based on common themes and complementary strengths. This may include trade of electricity-based fuels and materials as well as the exchange of regional experience on technology scale-up and policy implementation.

EMF 35 JMIP study for Japan’s long-term climate and energy policy: scenario designs and key findings

“…In a similar vein, Kato and Kurosawa ( 2019 ) examined 2050 emissions reduction of 80% and more, and found that reduced service demands and the availability of BECCS would be vital to achieve 90% emissions reduction. Schreyer et al ( 2020 ) used the ReMIND model to compare 2050 net-zero targets for Australia, the European Union, Japan, and the United States, and found a smaller share of variable renewables in Japan because of its high population density.…”

Roadmaps to net-zero emissions systems: Emerging insights and modeling challenges

“…29 A leading determinant in the extent of fossil fuel reductions in net-zero scenarios appears to ll be CDR costs, availability, and deployment with higher fossil fuel use in scenarios with higher CDR deployment, a point made in intra-model comparisons with different CDR assumptions. 19,21,25 Note the qualitative agreement in high-level findings between country-level netzero studies and global-scale analysis for metrics presented in Figure 1, though magnitudes differ as do more specific features of scenarios (e.g., renewables shares, infrastructure buildout). This consistency could suggest that using top-down scenarios to diagnose trends is a promising approach, though analysis with appropriate resolution should be consulted depending on questions decision-makers are trying to answer.…”

Assessment of carbon dioxide removal potentialviaBECCS in a carbon-neutral Europe

“…1 Although Europe does not have a carbon dioxide removal (CDR) strategy yet, [1][2][3][4] CDR via bio-energy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) will most likely be needed to counteract residual emissions from hard-to-abate sectors. [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] To reach carbon-neutrality, it has been estimated that up to 7.5 billion tons of CO 2 may have to be sequestered through BECCS in Europe until 2050. 13 BECCS involves the capture and permanent sequestration of biogenic CO 2 produced during energy conversion from biomass [14][15][16][17] and is considered promising due to its degree of commercial maturity.…”