Alban Kitous

Fossil resource and energy security dynamics in conventional and carbon-constrained worlds

Fossil resource endowments and the future development of fossil fuel prices are important factors that will critically influence the nature and direction of the global energy system. In this paper we analyze a multi-model ensemble of long-term energy and emissions scenarios that were developed within the framework of the EMF27 integrated assessment model inter-comparison exercise. The diverse nature of these models highlights large uncertainties in the likely development of fossil resource (coal, oil, and natural gas) consumption, trade, and prices over the course of the twenty-first century and under different climate policy frameworks. We explore and explain some of the differences across scenarios and models and compare the scenario results with fossil resource estimates from the literature. A robust finding across the suite of IAMs is that the cumulative fossil fuel consumption foreseen by the models is well within the bounds of estimated recoverable reserves and resources. Hence, fossil resource constraints are, in and of themselves, unlikely to limit future GHG emissions this century. Our analysis also shows that climate mitigation policies could lead to a major reallocation of financial flows between regions, in terms of expenditures on fossil fuels and carbon, and can help to alleviate near-term energy security concerns via the reductions in oil imports and increases in energy system diversity they will help to motivate. Aggressive efforts to promote energy efficiency are, on their own, not likely to lead to markedly greater energy independence, however, contrary to the stated objectives of certain industrialized countries.

Climate impact of transportation A model comparison

Transportation contributes to a significant and rising share of global energy use and GHG emissions. Therefore modeling future travel demand, its fuel use, and resulting CO2 emission is highly relevant for climate change mitigation. In this study we compare the baseline projections for global service demand (passenger-kilometers, ton-kilometers), fuel use, and CO2 emissions of five different global transport models using harmonized input assumptions on income and population. For four models we also evaluate the impact of a carbon tax. All models project a steep increase in service demand over the century. Technology change is important for limiting energy consumption and CO2 emissions, the study also shows that in order to stabilise or even decrease emissions radical changes would be required. While all models project liquid fossil fuels dominating up to 2050, they differ regarding the use of alternative fuels (natural gas, hydrogen, biofuels, and electricity), because of different fuel price projections. The carbon tax of 200 USD/tCO2 in 2050 stabilizes or reverses global emission growth in all models. Besides common findings many differences in the model assumptions and projections indicate room for further understanding long-term trends and uncertainty in future transport systems.

Residual fossil CO2 emissions in 1.5-2 °c pathways

The Paris Agreement—which is aimed at holding global warming well below 2 °C while pursuing efforts to limit it below 1.5 °C—has initiated a bottom-up process of iteratively updating nationally determined contributions to reach these long-term goals. Achieving these goals implies a tight limit on cumulative net CO2 emissions, of which residual CO2 emissions from fossil fuels are the greatest impediment. Here, using an ensemble of seven integrated assessment models (IAMs), we explore the determinants of these residual emissions, focusing on sector-level contributions. Even when strengthened pre-2030 mitigation action is combined with very stringent long-term policies, cumulative residual CO2 emissions from fossil fuels remain at 850–1,150 GtCO2 during 2016–2100, despite carbon prices of US

Analysis of the Iran Oil Embargo

130–420 per tCO2 by 2030. Thus, 640–950 GtCO2 removal is required for a likely chance of limiting end-of-century warming to 1.5 °C. In the absence of strengthened pre-2030 pledges, long-term CO2 commitments are increased by 160–330 GtCO2, further jeopardizing achievement of the 1.5 °C goal and increasing dependence on CO2 removal.Residual CO2 emissions from fossil fuels limit the likelihood of meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement. A sector-level assessment of residual emissions using an ensemble of IAMs indicates that 640–950 GtCO2 removal will be required to constrain warming to 1.5 °C.

POLES-JRC model documentation

This report analyses the macro-economic, sectoral, and energy effects of an Iranian oil embargo. Five scenarios are analysed reflecting various degrees of oil scarcity on the global market and different sizes of embargo coalitions. The report estimates the macro-economic impacts using the global general equilibrium model GEM-E3. The international oil and energy markets are assessed with the POLES model. This provides the impacts in prices and quantities in the international energy (oil) market. Impacts on trade flows regarding refined oil products are estimated with the OURSE model.

Global Energy and Climate Outlook 2017: How climate policies improve air quality

This report is a public manual for the POLES-JRC model, the in-house tool of the European Commission for global and long-term analysis of greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation policies and evolution of energy markets. The model includes a comprehensive description of the energy system and related GHG emissions for a large set of significant economies and residual regions, covering the world and including international bunkers. Through linkage with specialised tools it also provides a full coverage of GHG emissions, including from land use and agriculture, as well as of air pollutant emissions. The POLES-JRC model builds on years of development of the POLES model while adding specific features developed internally within the JRC. The model version presented in this report is used in particular to produce the JRC Global Energy and Climate Outlook (GECO) series. Complementary information can be found on the JRC Science Hub website: http://ec.europa.eu/jrc/poles ttp://ec.europa.eu/jrc/geco

Global Energy and Climate Outlook 2017: Greenhouse gas emissions and energy balances: Supplementary material to "Global Energy and Climate Outlook 2017: How climate policies improve air quality"

This study shows that achieving the climate change mitigation target of staying below 2°C temperature rise is possible technically – thanks to an acceleration of decarbonisation trends, an increased electrification of final demand and large changes in the primary energy mix that include a phase out of coal and a reduction of oil and gas – and is consistent with economic growth. It yields co-benefits via improved air quality – including avoided deaths, reduction of respiratory diseases and agricultural productivity improvement – that largely offset the cost of climate change mitigation. These co-benefits arise without extra investment costs and are additional to the benefits of avoiding global warming and its impact on the economy.

Impact of low oil prices on oil exporting countries

This document complements the Global Energy and Climate Outlook 2017 Report. It provides the detailed GHG and energy balances for the Reference, INDC and B2C scenarios described in the main report. The results displayed in this report have been produced with the global energy & GHG model POLES-JRC.

Global energy sector emission reductions and bioenergy use: overview of the bioenergy demand phase of the EMF-33 model comparison

The report describes the importance of oil for oil exporting countries and analyses the potential economic effects that current low oil prices may have in their economy and political stability. Firstly, the report describes the main drivers that have led to the present low oil prices. Secondly, descriptive statistics are employed to show the exposure of the main oil exporting countries to the oil price, where GDP and government revenue is found to be closely correlated to the oil price. In general, several Sub-Saharan African and North African countries show high risk due to the high exposure of their economy and of their government revenue combined with limited reserves per capita. Secondly, the macro-economic effects of a 60% fall in the price of oil is analysed with the GEM-E3 model, which is an stylized representation of the oil market change over the last two years. The results show that such an oil price drop has different effects across oil exporting countries, unsurprisingly strongly correlated with export dependence to oil. For instance, a 60% fall in the price of oil could lead to a reduction of the GDP of Sub-Saharan Africa by around 8.5%. The final section discusses the migration patterns from the studied countries, as a proxy of what might happen be they destabilised because of a lasting low oil price.

Impact of low oil prices on the EU economy

We present an overview of results from 11 integrated assessment models (IAMs) that participated in the 33rd study of the Stanford Energy Modeling Forum (EMF-33) on the viability of large-scale deployment of bioenergy for achieving long-run climate goals. The study explores future bioenergy use across models under harmonized scenarios for future climate policies, availability of bioenergy technologies, and constraints on biomass supply. This paper provides a more transparent description of IAMs that span a broad range of assumptions regarding model structures, energy sectors, and bioenergy conversion chains. Without emission constraints, we find vastly different CO2 emission and bioenergy deployment patterns across models due to differences in competition with fossil fuels, the possibility to produce large-scale bio-liquids, and the flexibility of energy systems. Imposing increasingly stringent carbon budgets mostly increases bioenergy use. A diverse set of available bioenergy technology portfolios provides flexibility to allocate bioenergy to supply different final energy as well as remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by combining bioenergy with carbon capture and sequestration (BECCS). Sector and regional bioenergy allocation varies dramatically across models mainly due to bioenergy technology availability and costs, final energy patterns, and availability of alternative decarbonization options. Although much bioenergy is used in combination with CCS, BECCS is not necessarily the driver of bioenergy use. We find that the flexibility to use biomass feedstocks in different energy sub-sectors makes large-scale bioenergy deployment a robust strategy in mitigation scenarios that is surprisingly insensitive with respect to reduced technology availability. However, the achievability of stringent carbon budgets and associated carbon prices is sensitive. Constraints on biomass feedstock supply increase the carbon price less significantly than excluding BECCS because carbon removals are still realized and valued. Incremental sensitivity tests find that delayed readiness of bioenergy technologies until 2050 is more important than potentially higher investment costs.