Full Paper - ESEE 2011 - Advancing Ecological Economics

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Contents Abstract...............................................................................................................................................1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................1 Background .........................................................................................................................................2 Conceptual background ..................................................................................................................2 Global emissions targets.................................................................................................................3 A scenario approach .......................................................................................................................4 Background to the modelling approaches......................................................................................4 Method ...............................................................................................................................................7 Modelling framework: the static baseline model...........................................................................7 Modelling approaches for scenarios: the scenario component of the model................................8 Energy scenario tool extension.....................................................................................................10 Consumer demand scenario tool extension .................................................................................13 The overall modelling framework.................................................................................................13 Data Sources and Limitations ...........................................................................................................13 Data sources..................................................................................................................................14 Emissions data uncertainties ........................................................................................................14 Standard limitations of energy models.........................................................................................15 Scenario limitations ......................................................................................................................15 Conclusion.........................................................................................................................................15 References ........................................................................................................................................17 Appendix A........................................................................................................................................21 Appendix B ........................................................................................................................................21 Appendix C ........................................................................................................................................23 Technical Limitations of MRIO ......................................................................................................23
Abstract The official way of accounting for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is established under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The UK is party to the UNFCCC agreement, but while the UNFCCC system generally takes into account all greenhouse gas emissions from UK territory, it fails to account for emissions embedded in UK imports consumed in the UK. When comparing the two ways of emissions accounting it has been found that over recent years as UK territorial emissions have reducing, consumer emissions continue to increase (T Wiedmann et al. 2010b). This paper outlines the use of an environmentally extended multi-regional input output model (EEMRIO) to examine the implications of UK climate change strategies on the UK's consumer emissions. It presents the methods used to extend and soft-link the EEMRIO with external data in order to address three key research questions: firstly what impact do territorial mitigation pathways have on the UK's consumption based emissions; secondly how can changes in consumption levels and profiles contribute to mitigation; and thirdly how much carbon leaks out of mitigation efforts due to imports from countries that operate outside the UNFCCC (defined here as non-Annex B countries)? Introduction This paper is set in the context of global climate change and the necessity to reduce GHG emissions to a level where there is a minimised risk of dangerous climate change. The wider project from which this paper is derived will develop a number of climate change mitigation and adaptation scenarios for the UK consistent with 2 and 4 degree global warming and explore how these vary under territorial and consumption based approaches to emissions accounting. This paper explains how a number of tools and techniques have been adapted and soft-linked in order to quantify the scenarios as robustly as possible, within the boundaries and constraints of the data and the models themselves. To set the boundaries and emissions objectives for the scenarios cumulative emissions budgets have been calculated and the scenarios will be used to explore how different technological, economic and policy futures will contribute to the progress to meet those targets. The modelling framework has been set up so that it is possible to quantify these different elements of the scenario and consider them from the consumption perspective. This will add an additional perspective to the territorial accounting that takes places under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) as it can explore the possibility of carbon leakage from countries with binding emission reduction targets to those without under each scenario. The basis for the calculation of UK territorial and consumption based emissions accounts is an environmentally extended multi-regional input-output model. This type of modelling is useful for considering emissions from a consumption perspective, but it does have a number of limitations such as; a lack of product detail, a static economic structure, limited industrial energy demand data and limited scope for analysis the balance of energy use across different sectors of the economy. The paper therefore presents a method for combining a basic EEMRIO model with additional scenario tools and more detailed data in an effort to overcome some of these limitations. 1
Page 1: Paper prepared for the 9th conferen
Page 5 and 6: Figure 1 UK GHG Emissions, 1992 to
Page 7 and 8: The Multi-Regional Input-Output Mod
Page 9 and 10: of this work. The resulting underly
Page 11 and 12: Bottom-up Top-down Simulation Simul
Page 13 and 14: E = energy use ES = energy service
Page 15 and 16: Changes to the direct emissions imp
Page 17 and 18: might lead to errors in the assignm
Page 19 and 20: References Agnolucci, P., Ekins, P.
Page 21 and 22: Office of National Statistics (2010
Page 23 and 24: Appendix A The standard generalised
Page 25 and 26: 50 atp Air transport 51 cmn Communi

Full Paper - ESEE 2011 - Advancing Ecological Economics

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?