Optimal mitigation strategies with negative emission technologies and carbon sinks under uncertainty

Abstract

In recent years a body of literature has arisen on the topic of how to compose the optimal portfolio of mitigation options. The focus has been mainly on options involving shifts from high-to low-or even negative-carbon technologies. Natural sinks play an important role in any attempt to stabilize atmospheric CO 2 and usually enter as a constant term in the overall carbon budget. In this paper, we introduce natural sinks to the carbon management problem and analyze the implications for negative emission technology deployment and the overall mitigation strategy. Amongst other sensitivity analyses, we also investigate the impact of uncertainty in the carbon sink, which we find to raise the importance of negative emissions in the mitigation portfolio significantly lowering the cost of the policy mix.

The Role of Bioenergy and Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) in the Case of Delayed Climate Policy – Insights from Cost-Risk Analysis

“…They are used consecutively in a setup where GLOBIOM provides data for MIND. Similar approaches to soft linking of models can be 30 found in Van Vuuren et al (2013), Kriegler et al (2013) and Fuss et al (2013). Additional methods to link structurally similar models are described by Klein (2014c, pp.…”

“…This approach appears to be in line with the available literature. Fuss et al (2013) It has to be noted that the CCS constraint cannot be binding in the short term because of the low bioenergy potential. As bioenergy deployment is independent from CCS, its full potential can be exploited despite limiting the CCS use.…”

“…by Fuss et al (2013) is restricted by converting the bioenergy potential through a factor of 7 GJ/tCO 2 . Such a procedure leads 6 Structurally, it is similar to the carbon removal through CCS equation of Humpenöder et al (2014b).…”

Betting on negative emissions

“…However, while negative emissions might seem more expensive than established mitigation options, including fossil fuel emissions CCS, the mitigation pathways to 2100 excluding negative emissions technologies are all substantially more expensive than the pathways including those technologies 6,14,15 .…”

Modeling meets science and technology: an introduction to a special issue on negative emissions

“…Four are well established state-of-the-art IAMs: GCAM (Edmonds et al 2013), IMAGE (Van Vuuren et al 2013), REMIND (Kriegler et al 2013) and WITCH (Chen and Tavoni 2013). The fifth (Fuss et al 2013) is an original, stylized model tailored to answer specific questions about the interaction of CDR deployment with uncertainties in the magnitude of the climate change threat.…”