Carbon Emissions Scenarios in Europe Based on an Endogenous Growth Model

Abstract

Carbon dioxide emissions are a major force driving climate change. We construct scenarios of CO2 emissions from fossil energy until 2100 in Europe. Major innovations are first that economic growth is based on an endogenous economic growth model and second that we calibrate our model to historical data on population and GDP since 1850. We provide statistically valid confidence intervals of economic growth to indicate the accuracy of our forecasts and we show that aggregate forecasts vary with their spatial resolution. We find stronger income divergence between Western- and Eastern European countries than is projected in the ‘Middle of the Road’ scenario of the so-called Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP2), a framework which was adopted together with the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC AR5).