A global perspective to achieve a low-carbon society (LCS): scenario analysis with the ETSAP-TIAM model

Global warming caused by an increase of the concentration of greenhouse gases (GHG) from human activities is threatening the natural and human environment by extinction of species, sea-level rise, and change in the availability of water or increased frequency of extreme weather events. Within the UK—Japan Low Carbon Society (LCS) project, the global, technology-rich ETSAP-TIAM model has been applied to analyse, by means of a scenario analysis, strategies to realize deep GHG emission reductions on a global level. The scenario analysis shows that, without any explicit abatement efforts, energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are estimated to double by the middle of this century compared with the year 2000. With CO2 abatement measures being equivalent to a CO2 price of up to $100/t in 2050, CO2 emissions can be reduced by 23% relative to levels in 2000. Further efforts to halve CO2 emissions in 2050 relative to 2000 levels can be achieved in a future energy system characterized (besides efficiency improvements and increased use of renewables, especially biomass) by an almost entirely decarbonized power generation sector (through carbon capture and storage power plants, renewable technologies and nuclear power), which provides electricity as the major final energy carrier to the end-use sectors. Since the majority of the emission reductions occur in the present developing countries, cooperation between developed and developing countries in the implementation of these measures is indispensable in order to realize these ambitious reduction targets.

Low-carbon production of iron and steel: Technology options, economic assessment, and policy

Radley Horton,1,a Daniel Bader,1,a Yochanan Kushnir,2 Christopher Little,3 Reginald Blake,4 and Cynthia Rosenzweig5 1Columbia University Center for Climate Systems Research, New York, NY. 2Ocean and Climate Physics Department, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, Palisades, NY. 3Atmospheric and Environmental Research, Lexington, MA. 4Physics Department, New York City College of Technology, CUNY, Brooklyn, NY. 5Climate Impacts Group, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies; Center for Climate Systems Research, Columbia University Earth Institute, New York, NY

Coherent or conflicting? Assessing natural gas subsidy and energy efficiency policy interactions amid CO2 emissions reduction in Malaysia electricity sector

This paper addresses the conditions behind energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in Poland following its accession to the European Union. The study analyzed some energy, fossil fuel, economic, and environmental indicators, such as energy use, CO2 emissions, driving factors, decoupling elasticity status, and decoupling effort status. It relied on the Kaya identity and Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index (LMDI) in determining the drivers of CO2 emissions. As shown by the results, between 2004 and 2020, energy consumption in Poland grew at an average annual rate of 0.8%, while fossil fuel carbon emissions declined at 0.7% per year. Energy intensity was found to be the key force behind the reduction in CO2 emissions, whereas rapid economic growth was the main driver of CO2 emissions. While other factors, i.e., carbon intensity, energy mix, and population, also contributed to reducing the emissions, they had a much smaller—if not marginal—effect. In turn, the decoupling elasticity analysis showed that Poland mostly witnessed strong decoupling states, which means a strong decoupling of CO2 emissions from economic growth. Furthermore, it follows from the decoupling effort analysis that strong decoupling effort statuses prevailed throughout the study period, suggesting that the changes in the considered factors significantly contributed to reducing CO2 emissions. However, both the decoupling elasticity indices and the decoupling effort indices revealed the presence of an adverse trend. The above means that Poland witnessed a decline both in the strength of decoupling CO2 emissions from economic growth and in the efficiency of policies and measures designed to reduce CO2 emissions.

This work aims to identify the main factors influencing the energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the iron and steel industry in China during the period of 1995–2007. The logarithmic mean divisia index (LMDI) technique was applied with period-wise analysis and time-series analysis. Changes in energyrelated CO2 emissions were decomposed into four factors: emission factor effect, energy structure effect, energy consumption effect, and the steel production effect. The results show that steel production is the major factor responsible for the rise in CO2 emissions during the sampling period; on the other hand the energy consumption is the largest contributor to the decrease in CO2 emissions. To a lesser extent, the emission factor and energy structure effects have both negative and positive contributions to CO2 emissions, respectively. Policy implications are provided regarding the reduction of CO2 emissions from the iron and steel industry in China, such as controlling the overgrowth of steel production, improving energy-saving technologies, and introducing low-carbon energy sources into the iron and steel industry.

In global climate warming, energy shortage, pollution increasingly serious international background, the development of marked by low energy consumption, low emissions of low-carbon economy and sustainable development are becoming the common choice of economic development around the world. Low carbon economy is a new choice of China faces, new opportunities. New challenges are to improve the ecological environment and promote the development of the change of the pattern of economic development pattern. Power industry is as the most energy consumption. CO2 emissions as one of the largest sector of the future development path is correct or not directly affects the effect and the success or failure of the low carbon economy in our country. Power industry energy conservation and emissions reduction under low carbon economy theory research of the path is feasible and provides reference to the planning power industry in our country and draw lessons from. It has good theoretical value and practical significance. Introduction Climate warming has become a 21st century one of the most serious challenges facing humanity. Global warming will cause the melting glaciers, rising sea levels and frequent natural disasters. The deep influence of agriculture and food security is ecological security. Public health security and energy security, such as a direct threat is to human survival and development. Connotations framework of low carbon city is seen as Fig. 1. And increasing greenhouse gas emissions from human activity is one of the most main cause of global warming. It has found atmosphere can produce nearly 30 kinds of greenhouse gases, which play an important role in our fleet. In the greenhouse gases causing global warming effect, the effect of our fleet is as high as 77%. Therefore, to reduce the emissions of our fleet is an important problem to be solved. Fig. 1. Connotations framework of low carbon city Low carbon economy is not a simple technical or economic issue. It involves politics, society, environment, international and many other issues. Any country and any areas develop low carbon economy alone cannot achieve the reduction of global greenhouse gas emissions. All countries International Conference on Education Technology, Management and Humanities Science (ETMHS 2015) © 2015. The authors Published by Atlantis Press 254 around the world need all groups to discuss. In power generation industry in China is as our fleet emissions in the national economy one of the largest, accounting for 38.76% of carbon emissions. Our country electric power production is given priority to with coal energy use by a coal accounts for the proportion of the power structure of more than 70%. Because it has a longer service life of a generator, the power industry has a strong carbon lock effect. The electric power industry for a long time of our fleet emissions will be locked by the current power structure. Therefore research under the background of low carbon economy under the premise of how to ensure continuous and stable development to achieve energy conservation and emissions reduction. It is an important problem faced by the current power industry.

Article 2 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) calls for stabilization of greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations at levels that prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference (DAI) in the climate system. However, some of the recent policy literature has focused on dangerous climatic change (DCC) rather than on DAI. DAI is a set of increases in GHGs concentrations that has a non-negligible possibility of provoking changes in climate that in turn have a non-negligible possibility of causing unacceptable harm, including harm to one or more of ecosystems, food production systems, and sustainable socio-economic systems, whereas DCC is a change of climate that has actually occurred or is assumed to occur and that has a non-negligible possibility of causing unacceptable harm. If the goal of climate policy is to prevent DAI, then the determination of allowable GHG concentrations requires three inputs: the probability distribution function (pdf) for climate sensitivity, the pdf for the temperature change at which significant harm occurs, and the allowed probability (“risk”) of incurring harm previously deemed to be unacceptable. If the goal of climate policy is to prevent DCC, then one must know what the correct climate sensitivity is (along with the harm pdf and risk tolerance) in order to determine allowable GHG concentrations. DAI from elevated atmospheric CO2 also arises through its impact on ocean chemistry as the ocean absorbs CO2. The primary chemical impact is a reduction in the degree of supersaturation of ocean water with respect to calcium carbonate, the structural building material for coral and for calcareous phytoplankton at the base of the marine food chain. Here, the probability of significant harm (in particular, impacts violating the subsidiary conditions in Article 2 of the UNFCCC) is computed as a function of the ratio of total GHG radiative forcing to the radiative forcing for a CO2 doubling, using two alternative pdfs for climate sensitivity and three alternative pdfs for the harm temperature threshold. The allowable radiative forcing ratio depends on the probability of significant harm that is tolerated, and can be translated into allowable CO2 concentrations given some assumption concerning the future change in total non-CO2 GHG radiative forcing. If future non-CO2 GHG forcing is reduced to half of the present non-CO2 GHG forcing, then the allowable CO2 concentration is 290–430 ppmv for a 10% risk tolerance (depending on the chosen pdfs) and 300–500 ppmv for a 25% risk tolerance (assuming a pre-industrial CO2 concentration of 280 ppmv). For future non-CO2 GHG forcing frozen at the present value, and for a 10% risk threshold, the allowable CO2 concentration is 257–384 ppmv. The implications of these results are that (1) emissions of GHGs need to be reduced as quickly as possible, not in order to comply with the UNFCCC, but in order to minimize the extent and duration of non-compliance; (2) we do not have the luxury of trading off reductions in emissions of non-CO2 GHGs against smaller reductions in CO2 emissions, and (3) preparations should begin soon for the creation of negative CO2 emissions through the sequestration of biomass carbon.

Changes in energy-related carbon dioxide emissions of the agricultural sector in China from 2005 to 2013

Climate change is a complex and contentious public issue, but the risk-management options available to us are straightforward and have well-characterized strengths and weaknesses.

Accurate and reliable forecasting on energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions is of great significance for climate policy decision making and energy planning. Due to the complicated nonlinear relationships of CO2 emissions with its driving forces, the accurate forecasting for CO2 emissions is a tedious work, which is an important issue worth studying. In this study, a novel CO2 emissions prediction method is proposed which employs the latest nature-enlightened optimization method, named the Whale optimization algorithm (WOA), to search the optimized values of two parameters of LSSVM (least squares support vector machine), namely the WOA-LSSVM model. Meanwhile, the driving forces of CO2 emissions including GDP (gross domestic product), energy consumption and population are chosen to be the import variables of the proposed WOA-LSSVM method. Taking China’s CO2 emissions as an instance, the effectiveness of WOA-LSSVM-based CO2 emissions forecasting is verified. The comparative analysis results indicate that the WOA-LSSVM model is significantly superior to other selected models, namely FOA (fruit fly optimization algorithm)-LSSVM, LSSVM, and OLS (ordinary least square) models in terms of CO2 emissions forecasting. The proposed WOA-LSSVM model has the potential to effectively improve the accuracy of CO2 emissions forecasting. Meanwhile, as a new nature-enlightened heuristic optimization algorithm, the WOA has the prospect for wide application.

Human activities have increased the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) and many other greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere. With the increases in GHGs, the average temperature of the Earth and oceans is on the rise. Projections from climate models show that the global sea level will continue to rise in the 21st century. Though the sea-level rise (SLR) is a slow process, there is an increased risk from waves and storm surges formed over the elevated sea damaging coastal regions. It will also result in the penetration of saline water into the coastal freshwater resources. The coastal cities, fisheries, landscapes, military bases, beaches, and boardwalks face a growing risk from SLR. The impact of climate change on snow, ice sheets, and glaciers is resulting in ice melt and increasing water in the sea. The volume of water in the ocean is expanding on its warming up. These two processes are causing SLR at present at a rate of 3.3 mm per year. The IPCC assessment reports, observed data, and the projections from climate models indicate that in the past few decades, the SLR has accelerated. There are estimates under the different GHG emission scenarios describing the likely severity of the SLR. The threat is not only of some low land and wetlands getting submerged in a few centuries but also a number of impacts on the weather patterns, climate subsystems, agriculture, forests, environment, and ecology. Measures to control the GHG emissions and subsequently reduce the rates of SLR are also described. This chapter aims at deliberating on causes, measuring, risks, and impacts of sea-level rise. It also includes impacts of climate change, projections through climate modeling, and also preparedness through reducing the GHG emissions and responding to SLR impacts.

This paper presents a forecast and analysis of population, economic development, energy consumption and CO2 emissions variation in China in the short- and long-term steps before 2020 with 2007 as the base year. The widely applied IPAT model, which is the basis for calculations, projections, and scenarios of greenhouse gases (GHGs) reformulated as the Kaya equation, is extended to analyze and predict the relations between human activities and the environment. Four scenarios of CO2 emissions are used including business as usual (BAU), energy efficiency improvement scenario (EEI), low carbon scenario (LC) and enhanced low carbon scenario (ELC). The results show that carbon intensity will be reduced by 40–45% as scheduled and economic growth rate will be 6% in China under LC scenario by 2020. The LC scenario, as the most appropriate and the most feasible scheme for China’s low-carbon development in the future, can maximize the harmonious development of economy, society, energy and environmental systems. Assuming China's development follows the LC scenario, the paper further gives four paths of low-carbon transformation in China: technological innovation, industrial structure optimization, energy structure optimization and policy guidance.

Is economic growth compatible with a reduction in CO2 emissions? Empirical analysis of the United States

This paper analyzes regional sea level changes in a climate change simulation using the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPI) coupled atmosphere–ocean general circulation model ECHAM5/MPI-OM. The climate change scenario builds on observed atmospheric greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations from 1860 to 2000, followed by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) A1B climate change scenario until 2100; from 2100 to 2199, GHG concentrations are fixed at the 2100 level. As compared with the unperturbed control climate, global sea level rises 0.26 m by 2100, and 0.56 m by 2199 through steric expansion; eustatic changes are not included in this simulation. The model’s sea level evolves substantially differently among ocean basins. Sea level rise is strongest in the Arctic Ocean, from enhanced freshwater input from precipitation and continental runoff, and weakest in the Southern Ocean, because of compensation of steric changes through dynamic sea surface height (SSH) adjustments. In the North Atlantic Ocean (NA), a complex tripole SSH pattern across the subtropical to subpolar gyre front evolves, which is consistent with a northward shift of the NA current. On interannual to decadal time scales, the SSH difference between Bermuda and the Labrador Sea correlates highly with the combined baroclinic gyre transport in the NA but only weakly with the meridional overturning circulation (MOC) and, thus, does not allow for estimates of the MOC on these time scales. Bottom pressure increases over shelf areas by up to 0.45 m (water column equivalent) and decreases over the Atlantic section in the Southern Ocean by up to 0.20 m. The separate evaluation of thermosteric and halosteric sea level changes shows that thermosteric anomalies are positive over most of the World Ocean. Because of increased atmospheric moisture transport from low to high latitudes, halosteric anomalies are negative in the subtropical NA and partly compensate thermosteric anomalies, but are positive in the Arctic Ocean and add to thermosteric anomalies. The vertical distribution of thermosteric and halosteric anomalies is highly nonuniform among ocean basins, reaching deeper than 3000 m in the Southern Ocean, down to 2200 m in the North Atlantic, and only to depths of 500 m in the Pacific Ocean by the end of the twenty-first century.