Elsevier

Energy Policy

Volume 55, April 2013, Pages 152-164
Energy Policy

Deep greenhouse gas emission reductions in Europe: Exploring different options

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2012.11.047Get rights and content

Abstract

Most modelling studies that explore emission mitigation scenarios only look into least-cost emission pathways, induced by a carbon tax. This means that European policies targeting specific – sometimes relatively costly – technologies, such as electric cars and advanced insulation measures, are usually not evaluated as part of cost-optimal scenarios. This study explores an emission mitigation scenario for Europe up to 2050, taking as a starting point specific emission reduction options instead of a carbon tax. The purpose is to identify the potential of each of these policies and identify trade-offs between sectoral policies in achieving emission reduction targets. The reduction options evaluated in this paper together lead to a reduction of 65% of 1990 CO2-equivalent emissions by 2050. More bottom-up modelling exercises, like the one presented here, provide a promising starting point to evaluate policy options that are currently considered by policy makers.

Highlights

► We model the effects of 15 climate change mitigation measures in Europe. ► We assess the greenhouse gas emission reduction potential in different sectors. ► The measures could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 60% below 1990 levels in 2050. ► The approach allows to explore arguably more relevant climate policy scenarios.

Introduction

In order to limit global mean temperature increase to less than 2 °C as mentioned as a goal for international climate policy in both the Copenhagen Accord (UNFCCC, 2009) and the Cancun Decisions (UNFCCC, 2011), stringent emission reductions will be required. For instance, scenarios that limit the increase in radiative forcing to a level of 2.5–3 W/m2 in 2100 (corresponding to a probability of 50–70% of staying below 2 °C) typically reduce global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 40–80% by 2050 (Rogelj et al., 2011, van Vuuren and Riahi, 2011, van Vuuren et al., 2007). Given the rapid emission growth in developing countries, such global emission reductions would require even steeper emission reductions in high-income countries. In fact, the European Union (EU) has indicated that a reduction of European GHG emissions of 80% to 95% below 1990 levels would be required by 2050 for a 2 °C scenario (European Commission, 2011a).

In the last few years, the scientific community has started to explore scenarios that achieve such emission reductions. Examples at the global scale include those by Edenhofer et al. (2010) and van Vuuren et al. (2011). Most studies in this context look at emission reductions in a perfect world in which climate goals are achieved by implementing least-cost emission abatement options, typically, by imposing a global carbon tax or shadow price in model simulations. The focus on cost-optimal scenarios is partly for methodological reasons, but also because modellers intend to inform policy-makers about the most cost-effective way to achieve the required emission reductions. Given the focus on this generic price instrument, studies pay little attention to what implementation issues may arise. Clearly, the ‘real world’ situation is different. Some costly measures are likely to be implemented, while other cost-saving measures are not. For instance, in several European countries expensive PV solar cells are already being deployed, whereas much cheaper or cost-saving measures like building insulation are not always deployed (Boermans and Petersdorff, 2007). In that light, it is useful to also focus on more realistic mitigation pathways. Several scenario studies have taken on this challenge by looking into the impacts of limited participation of countries in climate policy or limited technology availability (Clarke et al., 2009, Lüken et al., 2011). The study presented here takes yet another approach. Instead of implementing a global carbon tax to induce mitigation measures, it starts from specific emission reduction options. We quantify GHG emission reductions resulting from 15 climate change mitigation options in Europe. This scenario study should be seen as explorative and is intended to get a better understanding of European mitigation scenarios and the technical reduction potential resulting from specific mitigation options.

The main objective of this study is to (1) gain more insight into the effectiveness of different specific climate policy measures, and (2) identify trade-offs between sectoral policies in achieving ambitious climate goals. The set of measures is not meant to be exhaustive (see Section 2.3). The aim is not to answer the question whether a European reduction target of 80% to 95% is feasible, but instead to provide insight into the effectiveness of some typical measures discussed in the context of fragmented climate policy—and so get a more concrete feeling of the level of effort involved in deep emission reductions.

Section 2 describes the methodology, including the baseline, the models used for this study, and the policy measures that are assessed. The results are discussed in Section 3. Conclusions and a discussion are provided in Section 4.

Section snippets

Models used

To project the emission reductions from the measures, we used the TIMER energy model of the IMAGE Integrated Assessment modelling framework, as described by van Vuuren et al. (2006) and the detailed European power model Power ACE.

TIMER is used to analyse specific mitigation options in industry, transport and the residential sector. It is an energy-system simulation model, describing the demand and supply of 12 different energy carriers for a set of 26 world regions on a yearly basis throughout

Results

In 3.1 Transport sector, 3.2 Residential sector, 3.3 Industry, 3.4 Power generation sector, 3.5 Agricultural sector, 3.6 Non-CO, the effects of the measures per sector are described, without taking account of interactions, synergies and trade-offs between sectors. An overview of the combined effect of all measures is given in Section 3.7.

Conclusions and discussion

This study analysed the potential GHG emission reductions in Europe from specific mitigation options in the main emitting sectors with the objective to (1) gain more insight into the effectiveness of different specific measures, and (2) identify trade-offs between sectoral policies in achieving ambitious climate goals.

The combination of all options could reduce GHG emissions to 65% below European 1990 CO2-equivalent emissions by 2050. Although this is less than the objective of the EU to reduce

Acknowledgements

This paper has been written as part of the RESPONSES project, co-funded by the European Commission within the Seventh Framework Programme. We would like to thank our colleagues in both the RESPONSES project and the OECD Environmental Outlook project for the joint work in these projects and the specific thoughts and comments they provided.

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