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Paper has shaped society for centuries and is considered one of humanity's most important inventions. However, pulp and paper products can be damaging to social and natural systems along their lifecycle of material extraction, processing, transportation, and waste handling. The pulp and paper industry is among the top five most energy-intensive industries globally and is the fourth largest industrial energy user. This industry accounts for approximately 6% of global industrial energy use and 2% of direct industrial CO 2 emissions. The pulp and paper industry is also the largest user of original or virgin wood, with deleterious impacts on both human health and local flora and fauna, including aquatic ecosystems. This critical and systematic review seeks to identify alternatives for mitigating the climate impacts of pulp and paper processes and products, thus making the pulp and paper industry more environmentally sustainable. This study reviews 466 studies to answer the following questions: what are the main determinants of energy and carbon emissions emerging from the pulp and paper industry? What are the benefits of this industry adopting low-carbon manufacturing processes, and what barriers will need to be tackled to enable such adoption? Using a sociotechnical lens, we answer these questions, identify barriers for the pulp and paper industry's decarbonization, and present promising avenues for future research. •This review identifies carbon-intensive processes in the pulp and paper industry. •Presents decarbonizing practices, potential transformations and innovations. •Presents promising avenues for future research. •No agreed consensus on the most promising technologies to achieve net-zero in the pulp and paper industry. •Pulp and paper products are associated with other sociotechnical systems that create compelling interdependencies among industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the net effect of renewable energy policy in Spain from 2002 to 2017 and calculates its cost-effectiveness in terms of CO 2 emission reductions in the production of electricity. Our conclusions indicate that although the phasing out of Feed-in Tariffs reduced the regulatory costs, it also limited renewable participation in the electricity market, leading to an increased electricity price and higher emissions. According to our results, the joint effect of (i) the value of avoided emissions due to renewable energy participation and (ii) the merit order effect was able to compensate for the regulatory costs (subsidies) up until 2010, while the sign of the net effect was reversed from 2011 to 2017. Finally, we find that the economic implications of emission reductions are highly dependent on how the social cost of carbon is measured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the impacts of renewable energy support policies on energy prices, fossil fuel supply and thus carbon emissions from fossil fuels. Such supports are climate friendly if the renewables are already competitive against fossil fuels. But if the renewables are not yet competitive, the climate change impacts are often ambiguous and are sensitive to capacity constraints of renewables production and to the fossil fuel market structure. If the renewables do not have capacity constraints, then the subsidies are subject to the Green Paradox under perfect competition, but might be climate friendly under monopoly. Supports for capacity constrained renewables under perfect competition lead to more current fossil fuel supply but delay fossil fuel exhaustion time, and these effects are reversed under monopoly. Our results highlight the importance of considering the long-term effects on fossil fuel supply as well as capacity constraints and market power in designing renewable energy policies and evaluating their carbon footprints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an assessment of alternative, long-term energy supply and low-carbon strategies for the Philippine power sector from 2014 to 2040 using TIMES model. It examines the potential contribution of renewable energy to diversify the Philippine energy supply-mix to meet future electricity demands. The reference scenario compares the impact of four alternative policy goals: (1) carbon tax, (2) targeted renewable-based power generation, (3) limited coal share in supply-mix, and (4) renewables subsidy. The reference scenario shows a significant increase of the share of coal-based power generation and import dependency of fossil-fuel increases from 227 PJ in 2016 to 1073 PJ in 2040. The model results for the alternative policy scenarios show a large potential for renewable energy-based power generation. The alternative policy options show a significant decrease of import dependency in the energy supply-mix for power generation. Most alternative policy scenarios project a higher total system cost, with the exception of the subsidy scenario. System cost increases only 2.6% in the renewables target scenario relative to the reference scenario. However, long-term benefits from investing in the alternative policy options would need to be considered, including diversification of energy supply-mix, improved energy security, and progress toward a low-carbon society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Planning for power systems generation expansion follows environmental policies incorporating technologies based on renewables to reduce CO 2 emissions. These policies are susceptible to unpredictable changes, given dynamic economic and political contexts. This paper analyzes the impact of changes in energy policies, motivated by different environmental objectives. The analysis is done through a novel approach coupling Dynamic Programming and Multi-objective programming to generate several energy policy scenarios and their trade-offs, representing plausible policy changes in the different stages of the planning horizon. The results indicate a clear Pareto front and that energy policy scenarios with abrupt changes should be avoided in favor of scenarios with gradual changes. “Greener” energy policies in a given planning stage are not necessarily the best ones considering the full planning horizon, considering the unfolding impacts of current decisions into the future. The approach is useful in improving planners' future vision from myopic into a perspicacious one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]