Microenergysystems in the Context of Climate Change and Economical Development - A Valuable Proposition?

Climate Change Mitigation

Dr. Jan Steckel is one of these important researchers working on the IPCC report. At the moment an update is done numbers and figures that are most recent have to be juggled.

These new numbers conclude on a well-known picture:

• Developing countries suffer most from climate change.
  
• Developed countries cause it.
  

The developing countries both see the most dramatic changes of their local climats and they are also less prepared to adapt to climate changes.

It is a moral dilemma: the south suffers, the north emits the CO2. The World map of wealth correlates well with the stock of emissions in the atmosphere.

The business as usual scenarios see an increase of emissions.

Conclusions

• Development and carbon emissions highly correlated
• At current (relative) prices of fossil fuels it is not realistic to expect a decarbonization of development patters in the short term (without policy intervention)
• Low carbon technologies, particularly renewable energy not cost competitive in the short run
• Even on smallest scale, high income threshold
• Strategies to decarbonize energy systems on large scale are necessary and feasible, but might collide with other development goals
• Short term strategy: Improve institutional quality and provide minimum access to basic infrastructures to help the poor

Further Information

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• Edenhofer et al. (2011): Renewable Energy in the Context of Sustainable Development. In IPCC Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation.
• GEA (2012): Global Energy Assessment – Toward a Sustainable Future, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK and New York, NY, USA and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria.
• Grübler, A., 2004. Transitions in energy use. In: Cleveland, C.G. (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Energy, Vol. 6. Elsevier.
• IEA (International Energy Agency) 2010, World Energy Outlook 2010, OECD/IEA, Paris.
• Jakob, M., M. Haller, R. Marschinski (2012): Will History Repeat Itself? Economic Convergence and Convergence in Energy Use Patterns. Energy Economics 34, p. 95‐104.
• Jakob, M., R. Marschinski, M. Hübler (2013): Between a Rock and a Hard Place: A Trade‐Theory Analysis of Leakage under Production‐ and Consumption‐Based Policies. Environmental and Resource Economics, forthcoming.
• Jakob and Steckel (2013): How climate change mitigation could harm development in poor countries. WIREs Climate Change, forthcoming.
• Knopf, Brigitte; Yen‐Heng Henry Chen, Enrica De Cian, Hannah Förster, Amit Kanudia, Ioanna Karkatsouli, Ilkka Keppo , Tiina Koljonen, Katja Schumacher, Detlef P. van Vuuren: Beyond 2020 ‐ Strategies and costs for transforming the European energy system. Overview paper of the EMF28 model comparison of the EU Energy Roadmap, Climate Change Economics.
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• Steckel, J., M. Jakob, R. Marschinski and G. Luderer (2011): From carbonization to decarbonization? Past trands and future scenarios for China’s CO2 emissions. Energy policy, 39 (6), pp. 3443‐3455.
• Steckel, J, RJ Brecha, M. Jakob, J. Strefler, G. Luderer (2013): Development without energy? Assessing future scenarios of energy consumption in developing countries. Ecological Economics, 90, pp. 53‐67.
• David I. Stern. (2011): The role of energy in economic growth in “Ecological Economics Reviews.” Robert Costanza, Karin Limburg & Ida Kubiszewski, Eds. Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 1219: 26–51.