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Will economic growth and fossil fuel scarcity help or hinder climate stabilization?

Authors
/persons/resource/Elmar.Kriegler

Kriegler,  Elmar
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research;

/persons/resource/ioanna.mouratiadou

Mouratiadou,  Ioanna
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research;

/persons/resource/Gunnar.Luderer

Luderer,  Gunnar
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research;

/persons/resource/Nicolas.Bauer

Bauer,  Nicolas
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research;

/persons/resource/brecha.robert

Brecha,  Robert J.
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research;

Calvin,  K.
External Organizations;

De Cian,  E.
External Organizations;

Edmonds,  J.
External Organizations;

Jiang,  K.
External Organizations;

Tavoni,  M.
External Organizations;

/persons/resource/Ottmar.Edenhofer

Edenhofer,  Ottmar
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research;

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Citation

Kriegler, E., Mouratiadou, I., Luderer, G., Bauer, N., Brecha, R. J., Calvin, K., De Cian, E., Edmonds, J., Jiang, K., Tavoni, M., Edenhofer, O. (2016): Will economic growth and fossil fuel scarcity help or hinder climate stabilization? - Climatic Change, 136, 1, 7-22.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-016-1668-3


Cite as: https://publications.pik-potsdam.de/pubman/item/item_21063
Abstract
We investigate the extent to which future energy transformation pathways meeting ambitious climate change mitigation targets depend on assumptions about economic growth and fossil fuel availability. The analysis synthesizes results from the RoSE multi-model study aiming to identify robust and sensitive features of mitigation pathways under these inherently uncertain drivers of energy and emissions developments. Based on an integrated assessment model comparison exercise, we show that economic growth and fossil resource assumptions substantially affect baseline developments, but in no case they lead to the significant greenhouse gas emission reduction that would be needed to achieve long-term climate targets without dedicated climate policy. The influence of economic growth and fossil resource assumptions on climate mitigation pathways is relatively small due to overriding requirements imposed by long-term climate targets. While baseline assumptions can have substantial effects on mitigation costs and carbon prices, we find that the effects of model differences and the stringency of the climate target are larger compared to that of baseline assumptions. We conclude that inherent uncertainties about socio-economic determinants like economic growth and fossil resource availability can be effectively dealt with in the assessment of mitigation pathways.