Avoided economic impacts of energy demand changes by 1.5 and 2 °C climate stabilization

Chan Park,Jun’Ya Takakura,Kiyoshi Takahashi,Tomoko Hasegawa,Yasuaki Hijioka,Shinichiro Fujimori

doi:10.1088/1748-9326/aab724

Abstract

Energy demand associated with space heating and cooling is expected to be affected by climate change. There are several global projections of space heating and cooling use that take into consideration climate change, but a comprehensive uncertainty of socioeconomic and climate conditions, including a 1.5 °C global mean temperature change, has never been assessed. This paper shows the economic impact of changes in energy demand for space heating and cooling under multiple socioeconomic and climatic conditions. We use three shared socioeconomic pathways as socioeconomic conditions. For climate conditions, we use two representative concentration pathways that correspond to 4.0 °C and 2.0 °C scenarios, and a 1.5 °C scenario driven from the 2.0 °C scenario with assumption in conjunction with five general circulation models. We find that the economic impacts of climate change are largely affected by socioeconomic assumptions, and global GDP change rates range from +0.21% to −2.01% in 2100 under the 4.0 °C scenario, depending on the socioeconomic condition. Sensitivity analysis that differentiates the thresholds of heating and cooling degree days clarifies that the threshold is a strong factor that generates these differences. Meanwhile, the impact of the 1.5 °C is small regardless of socioeconomic assumptions (−0.02% to −0.06%). The economic loss caused by differences in socioeconomic assumption under the 1.5 °C scenario is much smaller than that under the 2 °C scenario, which implies that stringent climate mitigation can work as a risk hedge to socioeconomic development diversity.

Highlights

Understanding the costs and benefits of climate policies is important, since large investments and lifestyle changes could be required for both mitigation and adaptation actions that aim to reduce the adverse effects of climate change
Energy consumption change of building sector We found that the building sector, against other sectors, shows extreme change of energy consumption in 2100 compared to the no climate change scenario
Energy consumption in the SSP2 and less than 2.0 ◦C increase scenarios shows energy use reduction compared to the no climate change scenario due to larger heating, than cooling, demand change

Summary

Introduction

Understanding the costs and benefits of climate policies is important, since large investments and lifestyle changes could be required for both mitigation and adaptation actions that aim to reduce the adverse effects of climate change. The energy use for space heating and cooling is closely related to climate policy. Changing this energy use is one of the key solutions to adapt to altered intensity and frequency of heat and cold waves due to climate change. Energy use in buildings is strongly affected by climate conditions; the use of air conditioners due to high temperature can be interpreted as an adaptation to climate change. Mitigation options, such as reducing the use of air conditioners, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and suppress climate change, leading to lower air conditioner use. Evaluating mitigation benefits, adaptation costs to adapt to changes in heating and cooling demand, and remaining impacts from climate change would enable us to derive a better strategy to overcome climate change

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Conclusion