Preface and introduction to EMF 27

Abstract

This Special issue of Climatic Change documents the main findings of Energy Modeling Forum Model Inter-comparison Project (MIP) number 27 (EMF 27) entitled “The EMF27 Study on Global Technology and Climate Policy Strategies”. This study focused on the development and cross model comparison of results from a new generation of comprehensive international climate policy intervention scenarios focusing on technology strategies for achieving climate policy objectives. These scenarios enabled the community to exercise enhanced modeling capabilities that were focused on in previous EMF studies on the international trade implications of climate policies; the representation of technological change; and the incorporation of multi-gas mitigation and land use emissions and mitigation policy alternatives. This introduction has four objectives: (1) describe the motivation for the EMF 27 study, (2) put this study in the context of other past and current IAM inter-model comparison projects, (3) describe the structure of this special issue of Climatic Change, and (4) give a brief overview of the insights developed in the papers produced by the individual modeling teams that are included in this special issue. EMF 27 focused on the interactions between climate change policy architectures and advanced energy technology availabilities at global scale. It followed on previous EMF climate change oriented Model Inter-comparison Projects (MIPs): EMF 12 on carbon emission limits (EMF 12 1993; Gaskins and Weyant 1993; Weyant 1993), EMF 14 on carbon concentration limits (EMF 14 1996; Haites et al. 1997), EMF 16 on the costs and energy system impacts of the Kyoto Protocol (Weyant 1999), EMF 19 on carbon constraints and advanced energy technologies (Weyant 2004), EMF 21 on non-CO2 Kyoto gas mitigation (de la Chesnaye andWeyant 2006), and EMF 22 on climate control scenarios (focusing on phased participation in a climate mitigation coalitions and the possibility overshooting long run climate targets (Clarke et al. 2009; Fawcett et al. 2009)). As such, this study was able to take advantage of all Climatic Change (2014) 123:345–352 DOI 10.1007/s10584-014-1102-7