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The lack of equal globally binding GHG's emission reduction targets is currently leading to a set of diverging GHG's emission prices across the world (or even no price for GHG's emission in some regions). This may result in distortions with direct implications on competitiveness of the industries in regions with strict climate policies (as the European Union) and can cause the issue of carbon leakage. Carbon leakage is defined as 'the increase in emission outside a region as a direct result of the policy to cap emission in this region'. This paper is the first part of the set of two analysis aiming at the carbon leakage assessment. In the following paper (aimed to be published this year), we will assess the impact of free allowances for emission intensive trade exposed industries (EITE) and the NDCs in the rest of the world countries - for the sake of brevity, we decided to remove these results from the current paper, but they will be presented later this year. The purpose of this paper is to assess the possible scale of the carbon leakage using different assumptions and policy scenarios and identify channels to efficiently prevent the carbon leakage phenomenon. The analysis has been carried out using the computable general equilibrium d-PLACE model developed within the Centre for Climate and Policy Analysis (CAKE).2 Our model is a recursive dynamic multi-regional and multi-commodity tool in which emissions are modelled in great detail, for example, the process and each fossil fuel combustion related emission are modelled separately. Furthermore, the big advantage of the applied model is a very detailed modelling of EU ETS as well as non-ETS emission targets. In the paper, the simulations using two versions of model was presented - with and without endogenous technical change to elaborate on how the assumptions on technical change affect the modelling results and consequent scale of the carbon leakage. Moreover, this paper aims mainly at the assessment of different channels of carbon leakage; therefore, we do not take into account either NDCs in the rest of the world or free allowances for emission intensive trade exposed sectors. These problems will be handled in the next paper, aimed to be published later this year. Using the above mentioned CGE (computable general equilibrium model, we captured the main factors, that determine the carbon leakage rates. We assessed the contribution of three channels - demand channel, competitiveness channel and carbon intensity channel to the risk of carbon leakage. It turned out that carbon intensity channel and competitiveness channel are the most important, while demand channel contributes to changes in GHG's emission only in the most restrictive scenario. Moreover, energy channel was further decomposed to the impact of sectoral structure and influence in emission intensity within each sector - the impact of these two channels is also similar, but dependent on the analysed scenario. Such a decomposition allowed us to determine the main channels through which the carbon leakage occur and pursue relevant policy recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper measures the economic impacts of Brazil's climate mitigation strategies contained in its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC). To do so, we employ the computable general equilibrium MIT Economic Projection and Policy Analysis model and simulate alternative carbon pricing scenarios (sectoral versus economy-wide carbon markets), set to achieve the country's overall emissions targets announced under the Paris Agreement. The results show relatively cheap emissions reductions from land-use changes and agriculture in the short run: the cost of the Brazilian NDC is predicted to be only 0.7 per cent of GDP in 2030. Further efforts to reduce carbon emissions beyond 2030 would require policy changes, since all the potential emissions reductions from deforestation would be finished and the capacity to expand renewable energy sources would be constrained. In this case, an economy-wide carbon pricing system would help substantially to avoid higher compliance costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ocean acidification is most frequently framed by the scientific community as a concurrent threat to climate change, rather than an effect of it. This separation of the two phenomena has long been deemed as a way of garnering heightened policy attention for ocean acidification rather than having it bound up in the often contested politics of climate change. This effort, however, appears to have resulted in the inadvertent placing of ocean acidification outside of the mandate of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This has created a significant gap in the global governance of this issue with no multilateral agreement understood as having jurisdiction over the mitigation of rising ocean acidity. For these reasons this paper argues that an alternative framing of ocean acidification as an effect of climate change is warranted. This would include ocean acidification in the core obligations of the Convention, thereby filling the mitigation governance gap and avoiding perverse implementation outcomes. It is contended that interpreting the UNFCCC in this way is more consistent with its objective and purpose than the existing interpretations that place ocean acidification beyond the remit of the Convention. Key policy insights Ocean acidification is best understood as an effect of climate change in the context of the UNFCCC, and therefore is included in its obligations to combat climate change and its adverse effects. An obligation to address ocean acidification has implications for the way that the provisions of the Convention, particularly on mitigation, are implemented. Mitigation activities that exacerbate ocean acidification or lead to emission reduction pathways that do not prevent dangerous acidification should be deemed inconsistent with the Convention. Protection, conservation and restoration of coastal and marine ecosystems should become a priority area for action within the UNFCCC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After tentative efforts during the 1990s, the past two decades have seen a rapid increase in the number of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions mitigation policies, initially in a few frontrunner countries and more recently spreading globally. Over the same period, GHG emissions have continued to rise, but the rate of growth has recently slowed. Are mitigation policies having an effect? To explore this question, we review and synthesize the empirical literature on the impact of mitigation policies on three key outcomes: GHG emissions, proximate emission drivers like energy intensity and land use, and low-carbon technologies. Our key contribution to the available literature lies in establishing an empirically based track record of climate action, focusing on methodologically sound ex post studies. We find that mitigation policies have had a discernible impact on emissions and multiple emission drivers. Most notably, they have led to reductions in energy use, declines in deforestation rates, as well as cost reductions and capacity expansions of low-carbon technologies in many instances. Furthermore, implemented policies to date are likely to have reduced global emissions by several billion tons of CO2eq per year compared to a world without mitigation policies. In the light of current ambitions on climate action falling short of what is required to limit global warming to the Paris temperature goals, we conclude that there is ample evidence of policy instruments with demonstrable impacts, but that efforts need to be hugely strengthened and expanded. Also, far more attention is required to policy monitoring, evaluation, and learning so as to strengthen the basis for future policy and the attribution of its impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • The application of big data to energy economy modelling is a critical research gap. • Big data has the potential to reduce multiple blind spots in energy economy models. • Bottom-up hybrid models are a logical starting point for big data integration. • Moving from data scarcity to data abundance could completely transform the field. • We explore the research possibilities for revolutionising the state-of-the-art. Abstract Energy economy models are central to decision making on energy and climate issues in the 21st century, such as informing the design of deep decarbonisation strategies under the Paris Agreement. Designing policies that are aimed at achieving such radical transitions in the energy system will require ever more in-depth modelling of end-use demand, efficiency and fuel switching, as well as an increasing need for regional, sectoral, and agent disaggregation to capture technological, jurisdictional and policy detail. Building and using these models entails complex trade-offs between the level of detail, the size of the system boundary, and the available computing resources. The availability of data to characterise key energy system sectors and interactions is also a key driver of model structure and parameterisation, and there are many blind spots and design compromises that are caused by data scarcity. We may soon, however, live in a world of data abundance , potentially enabling previously impossible levels of resolution and coverage in energy economy models. But while big data concepts and platforms have already begun to be used in a number of selected energy research applications, their potential to improve or even completely revolutionise energy economy modelling has been almost completely overlooked in the existing literature. In this paper, we explore the challenges and possibilities of this emerging frontier. We identify critical gaps and opportunities for the field, as well as developing foundational concepts for guiding the future application of big data to energy economy modelling, with reference to the existing literature on decision making under uncertainty, scenario analysis and the philosophy of science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the intertemporal substitution effect, the high inflation expectations can stimulate agents to consume now rather than in the future. However, under the background of global climate policy changes, how inflation expectations affect energy consumption? Using the bootstrap Granger full-sample causality test and sub-sample rolling window tests, this study examines the intertemporal substitution effect of energy consumption in the U.S. The results based on the full-sample data indicate no causality between inflation expectations and energy consumption, which suggests that the intertemporal substitution effect of energy consumption does not exist. Nevertheless, the rolling window method which estimates a time-varying causality identifies a short-lived positive effects of inflation expectations on energy consumption in a distinct sub-period before the global Paris agreement, but disappears since then. Therefore, the intertemporal substitution effect regarding energy consumption does not exist under the background of pressing carbon targets. The effects of energy consumption on inflation expectations can be positive or negative, which tells a cautionary tale about climate policies aiming at engineering lower carbon emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the notion of differentiated responsibility has always included an element of technological transfer, the growing disparity between the deployment of non-scalable renewable energy sources in the rich countries and the massive expansion of fossil infrastructure elsewhere has brought new urgency to issues of climate leadership. Breakthrough innovation into technologies capable of providing an abundance of clean energy now appears necessary not only to broaden energy access but also to ensure that fossil fuels are quickly displaced globally (including in those countries that have failed to take climate change seriously). Moreover, it is reasonable to expect that a climatechanged world in itself will demand abundant energy to facilitate everything from carbon dioxide removal to mass desalination for agriculture and other adaptation measures. Considering the moral and political impossibility of treating sustained poverty as the "solution" to the climate crisis, this paper suggests that rich countries have a moral obligation to invest in breakthrough innovation into technologies that are compatible with a future global economic convergence around OECD-levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2015, the 21st Conference of the Parties reaffirmed the target of keeping the global mean temperature rise below 2 °C or 1.5 °C by 2100 while finding no consensus on how to decarbonize the global economy. In this regard, the speed of decarbonization reflects the (in)flexibility of transforming the energy sector due to engineering, political, or societal constraints. Using economy–energy–climate-integrated assessment models (IAMs), the maximum absolute rate of change in carbon emission allowed from each time step to the next, so-called carbon emission inertia (CEI), governs the magnitude of emission change, affecting investment decisions and economic welfare. Employing the model of investment and endogenous technological development (MIND), we conduct a cost-effectiveness analysis and examine anthropogenic global carbon emission scenarios in line with decarbonizing the global economy while measuring the global mean temperature. We examine the role of CEI as a crucial assumption, where the CEI can vary in four scenarios from 3.7% to 12.6% p.a. We provide what-if studies on global carbon emissions, global mean temperature change, and investments in renewable energy production and show that decarbonizing the global economy might still be possible before 2100 only if the CEI is high enough. In addition, we show that climate policy scenarios with early decarbonization and without negative emissions may still comply with the 2 °C target. However, our results indicate that the 1.5 °C target is not likely to be reached without negative emission technologies. Hence, the window of opportunity is beginning to close. This work can also assist to better interpret existing publications on various climate targets when altering CEI could have played a significant role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present an assessment of the plausible Paris-aligned fair share nett cumulative carbon dioxide (CO2) quota for an example nation state, the Republic of Ireland. By Paris-aligned, we mean consistent with the Paris Agreement adopted at the 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, at Paris, France, in December 2015 (UNFCCC 2015). We compare and contrast this quota with both the aspirations expressed in the current Irish National Policy Position and current national emission projections. The fair share quota is assessed as a maximum of c. 391 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (MtCO2), equal to 83 tonnes of carbon dioxide (tCO2) per capita, from 2015, based on a precautionary estimate of the global carbon budget (GCB) and specific interpretation of global equity. Given Ireland's high current CO2 per capita emission rate, this would correspond to sustained year-on-year reductions in nett annual CO2 emissions of over − 11% per year (beginning as of 2016). By contrast, the CO2 mitigation target indicated in the National Policy Position corresponds to nett annual reduction rates in the range of only −4.7% per year (low ambition) up to a maximum of − 8.3% per year (high ambition), and projections based on current and immediately planned mitigation measures indicate the possibility, instead, of sustained increases in emissions at a rate of the order of + 0.7% per year. Accordingly, there is a large gap between Paris-aligned ambition and current political and policy reality on the ground, with a significant risk of early emergence of "CO2 debt" and tacit reliance on rapid deployment of currently speculative (at a relevant scale and feasible cost) negative CO2 emission technologies to actively remove CO2 from the atmosphere. While the detailed policy situation will clearly differ from country to country, we suggest that this methodology, and its CO2debt framing, may be usefully applied in other individual countries or regions. We recommend that such framing be incorporated explicitly into a global mitigation strategy via the statements of nationally determined contributions required to be submitted and updated by all parties under the Paris Agreement processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Air travel is often justified as 'necessary' or 'unavoidable', in the sense that trips have purpose and value. Yet it is evident that people travel for reasons that may include forced and voluntary movement, with motives ranging from visiting friends and family, to leisure, or business. In light of the challenge to decarbonise transport, and the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, this paper discusses the perceived necessity of flight from individual and societal perspectives, while considering moral and economic viewpoints. It suggests that travel motives have different degrees of 'urgency', and that the 'necessity of flight' cannot be generalised. To empirically test this hypothesis in an exploratory survey, we used mixed methods to examine the perspectives of 29 international students at Lund University, Sweden on the perceived importance of their flights (n = 587) over a six-year period (2012–2017). Results show that the value associated with individual flights depends on flight motive, experience, life stage, or situational factors. Notably, almost half of the leisure flights made lack importance. Implications are discussed in the context of climate policy and the future development of the aviation system. • Discusses economic and moral perspectives on the necessity of air travel. • Suggests that perspectives on flight vary between motives, individuals and socities • Indicates that large share of air travel may be considered redundant by travelers. • Highlights differences in the importance assigned to flight. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global environmental goals and the Paris agreement declared the need to avoid dangerous climate change by reducing emissions of greenhouse gases with an ultimate goal to transform today's policies and reach climate neutrality before the end of the century. In the medium to long-term, climate policies imply rising CO 2 price and consequent financial risk for carbon-intensive producers. In this context, there is a need for tools to buffer CO 2 prices within the period of transition to greener technologies when the emission offsetting markets expose high volatility. Contracts for optional future purchase of carbon credits could provide emitters with a cost-efficient solution to address existing regulatory risks. At the same time, this would help to create much needed financing for the projects generating carbon credits in the future. This work presents the concept of a flobsion—a flexible option with benefit sharing—and demonstrates its advantages in terms of risk reduction for both seller and buyer as compared to both a "do nothing" strategy (offsetting at future market price) and a traditional option with a fixed strike price. The results are supported analytically and numerically, employing as a benchmark the dataset on historical CO 2 prices from the European Emission Trading Scheme. Flobsion has the potential to extend the traditional option in financial applications beyond compliance markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]