Limiting Global Warming to Well Below 2 °C: Energy System Modelling and Policy Development

Abstract

This book addresses a number of key questions arising from the transformational global political agreement reached in Paris in December 2015 to ensure human-induced global temperature increases remain well below 2 °C. How far can countries ratchet up the mitigation ambition presented in the Nationally Determined Contributions? What is the magnitude of potential and necessary carbon dioxide removal, more particularly, biomass energy with carbon capture and storage? How can stranded assets be avoided? Is carbon neutrality achievable with technology innovation alone? These questions are at the core of the global, national and local energy systems modelling analyses in this book that explore the feasibility of roadmaps for a well below 2 °C future. The book is written by more than 20 teams of the IEA Energy Technology Systems Analysis Programme (IEA-ETSAP), a Technology Collaboration Programme supporting about 200 energy systems modelling teams from around 70 countries, which has operated for over 40 years. A key objective of IEA-ETSAP is to assist decision-makers in robustly developing, implementing and assessing the impact of energy and climate mitigation policies with the bottom-up techno-economic models of the MARKAL/TIMES family. This book constitutes a natural follow-up of the first book Informing Energy and Climate Policies Using Energy Systems Models, edited by IEA-ETSAP in 2015, prior to the Paris Agreement on climate change. The methodologies and case studies presented here illustrate how energy systems models have been and are being used to address complex energy and climate policy questions and provide critical insights into the feasibility of enhanced ambition. This responds directly to a requirement of the Paris Agreement and its Talanoa Dialogue to take stock of the collective efforts and determine how we can, all together, move the climate policy agenda forward and turn words into action.