Climate Change Mitigation and the Global Energy System

The international community has become increasingly concerned with sustainable development and particularly with preventing climate change. The COVID-19 pandemic and global recession of 2020 will exacerbate the situation not just for 2020–2021, but for many years to come. Sadly, it is a game-changer. The necessity to solve problems of poverty (energy poverty) and inequality, as well as growth and climate change mitigation, now haunts intellectuals, forecasters, and politicians. These three problems constitute the global energy trilemma (GET). There is a wide range of forecasts, scenarios, and political plans emerging after the Paris Agreement in 2015. They demonstrate concerns about the slow progress on the matter; however, they still increase the goals for 2030–2050. The global capital formation is a key tool for changes while also representing the hard-budget investment constraints. This article examines practical features of recent trends in energy, poverty, and climate change mitigation, arguing that allocation and coordinated management of sufficient financial resources are vital for a simultaneous solution of GET. No group of countries can hope to solve each of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) separately. The global economy has reached the point where it has an urgent need for cooperation.

Download Full-text

Decarbonizing the Global Energy System: An Updated Summary of the IPCC Report on Mitigating Climate Change

Energy Technology ◽

10.1002/ente.201500387 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 4 (1) ◽

pp. 19-30 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Thomas Bruckner

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Energy System ◽

Global Energy ◽

Ipcc Report ◽

Global Energy System

Download Full-text

Climate Change Mitigation Potential of Wind Energy

Climate ◽

10.3390/cli9090136 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 9 (9) ◽

pp. 136

Author(s):

Rebecca J. Barthelmie ◽

Sara C. Pryor

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Wind Energy ◽

Wind Turbines ◽

Climate Change Mitigation ◽

Energy System ◽

Rapid Expansion ◽

Low Carbon ◽

Mitigation Potential ◽

Installed Capacity ◽

Change Mitigation

Global wind resources greatly exceed current electricity demand and the levelized cost of energy from wind turbines has shown precipitous declines. Accordingly, the installed capacity of wind turbines grew at an annualized rate of about 14% during the last two decades and wind turbines now provide ~6–7% of the global electricity supply. This renewable electricity generation source is thus already playing a role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector. Here we document trends within the industry, examine projections of future installed capacity increases and compute the associated climate change mitigation potential at the global and regional levels. Key countries (the USA, UK and China) and regions (e.g., EU27) have developed ambitious plans to expand wind energy penetration as core aspects of their net-zero emissions strategies. The projected climate change mitigation from wind energy by 2100 ranges from 0.3–0.8 °C depending on the precise socio-economic pathway and wind energy expansion scenario followed. The rapid expansion of annual increments to wind energy installed capacity by approximately two times current rates can greatly delay the passing of the 2 °C warming threshold relative to pre-industrial levels. To achieve the required expansion of this cost-effective, low-carbon energy source, there is a need for electrification of the energy system and for expansion of manufacturing and installation capacity.

Download Full-text

Pametna i socijalno odgovorna energetska tranzicija u regionima sa intenzivnom eksploatacijom uglja

Energija, Ekonomija, Ekologija ◽

10.46793/eee21-3.73l ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 23 (3) ◽

pp. 73-79

Author(s):

Jasmina Mandić Lukić ◽

◽

Đorđina Milovanović ◽

Maja Stipić ◽

Sanja Petrović Bećirović ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Climate Change Mitigation ◽

Action Plan ◽

Energy Transition ◽

Transition Process ◽

Energy System ◽

Mitigation Measures ◽

Low Carbon ◽

The Law ◽

Change Mitigation

Faced with forthcoming international obligations related to climate change mitigation measures, primarily planned to be reflected through the Law and Action Plan on Low Carbon Development Strategy, as well as the Law on Climate Change, all of which are currently being defined and adopted, Serbia is increasingly facing a need to switch its coal-fired facilities to alternative, environmentally more acceptable options. The related measures will have to be implemented much sooner than initially planned. Knowing that 80% of national GHG emissions originate from the energy sector, as well as that the dominant portion of those emissions results from the use of locally available coal, it is clear that the most efficient climate change mitigation measure would be a switch to alternative fuel options. However, having in mind that such an energy transition process is coupled with significant technological, environmental, economic, social, and other difficulties, the EU has initiated several projects, and one of them is TRACER, launched under the Horizon 2020 program, that strives to shed light on the best research and innovation strategies facilitating easier transition to the sustainable, low carbon energy system. The project addresses actions across nine coal-intensive European regions, including Kolubara Region in Serbia. The paper presents technological, environmental, and social challenges in the transition process, with an emphasis on the Kolubara region, and a proposal for the energy transition in Serbia respecting R&I strategies and Smart Specialization.

Download Full-text

Future Regional Contributions for Climate Change Mitigation: Insights from Energy Investment Gap and Policy Cost

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su11123341 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 11 (12) ◽

pp. 3341

Author(s):

Hongjie Sun ◽

Shuwen Niu ◽

Xiqiang Wang

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Climate Change Mitigation ◽

Developing Regions ◽

Energy Investment ◽

Global Energy ◽

Climate Stability ◽

The Future ◽

Policy Cost ◽

Change Mitigation

Mitigating climate change and ensuring regional equity development is equitable are matters of global concern. Systematic and in-depth research into theseissues is seldom conducted. In this research we combine qualitative and quantitative studies and use six state-of-the-art energy-economy analysis models and four long term scenarios to explore the distribution of regional contributions for climate change mitigation in the future. We focus on the energy investment gap and policy cost. The study’s conclusion is that, under the assumption of carbon tax as a source of energy investment from 2025, the global positive energy investment gap in the climate change mitigation scenario will not appear until around 2035–2040. Asia and OECD90+EU (Countries from the OECD 1990, EU and its candidates) are the regions that will have a significant direct impact on the global energy investment gap under climate policies in the future. However, from the perspective of the relative value (the percentage of the energy investment gap relative to the energy investment in the Current Policies (CPol) scenario), Asia will contribute the most to the global energy investment gap under the climate stability policies. Under the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) scenario, Asia will contribute the most in the near term and REF will contribute the most in the medium term.The findings show that OECD90+EUwill bear more cost in the pledges scenario, and Asia will bear more cost in the climate stability scenarios in the medium term. Contrary to the common sense expectation, the developed regions will contribute the least in terms of the proportion of the policy cost to the respective economic aggregates under the climate stability scenarios in the medium and long term, but the opposite is true in the developing regions. By and large, from the perspective of the current climate change mitigation policies, the developed regions and developing regions will achieve a win-win situation in the long run, but the relative contribution of the developed regions is not as great as was previously expected. These novel findings should prove to be useful to policy makers when developing transition strategies for climate change mitigation.

Download Full-text