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Nowadays, fighting to stop climate change is not only possibility, it is indisputably an imperative for our future life on the Earth. The concept of climate neutrality was established at the beginning of the twenty-first century b...
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Nowadays, fighting to stop climate change is not only possibility, it is indisputably an imperative for our future life on the Earth. The concept of climate neutrality was established at the beginning of the twenty-first century but has gained importance in the last decade. Climate neutrality can be achieved if CO2 emissions are reduced to a minimum and all remaining CO2 emissions are offset with climate protection measures. In order to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees C - a threshold the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change ( IPCC) suggested is safe - climate neutrality is essential by 2050. The main aim of this article is to identify activities aimed at neutralizing the impact of mining and energy companies in Poland on climate and to assess the approach of commercial banks in Poland towards financing their activities towards climate neutrality. The article verifies the research hypothesis stating that commercial banks in Poland support the financing of activities conducive to achieving climate neutrality by companies from mining and energy industries. The empirical research was carried out in three stages. It included data analysis, case study and questionnaire survey. The study shows that the mining and energy industry in Poland is aware of the need to implement quick actions to reduce their negative impact on the environment and to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. Moreover, it has been proven that the banking sector in Poland is open to financing socially responsible investments (SRI) supporting activities for climate neutrality.
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The replacement of fossil-fuelled heating systems with systems using renewable energy sources is a central energy and climate policy concern and one of the prerequisites for reducing CO<sub>2</sub> emissions to a climate-friendly ...
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The replacement of fossil-fuelled heating systems with systems using renewable energy sources is a central energy and climate policy concern and one of the prerequisites for reducing CO<sub>2</sub> emissions to a climate-friendly level. The Swiss decarbonization strategy considers the use of electric air-to-water heat pumps (HP) operated with electricity generated from renewable sources or from a power mix with low CO<sub>2</sub> content. However, the installation of HPs, which is essential for decarbonizing heat supply in buildings, is proceeding very slowly, and fossil fuel heating replacement is still the rule rather than the exception. This study investigates how a strong climate protection law (Energy Act of Basel-Stadt) has managed to overcome resistance to the installation of HPs, which is observed in many other Swiss cantons. The research question to be answered is whether the experience made with HP implementation in one location (with Basel-Stadt as forerunner canton) would be similarly viable in another location (Canton of Geneva). The results indicate that although the two cantons have different characteristics in terms of building stock, the potential of buildings where HP installation is considered ‘easy’ is high in both cases (50% in Basel-Stadt and 40% in Geneva). This is equivalent to 40% (in both cities) of the energy used for thermal use that is currently produced by fossil energy and that could be instead generated with HPs. Although there are many factors to take into account in order to design effective policies that are truly effective for the extensive installation of HP, it is worth remembering that there are many cases where it is already possible to easily install a HP today, and these should be the starting point.
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The 2015 Paris Agreement is falling short of its aspirations, as signatory countries are struggling to implement the policies required to meet the targets. The global scenario framework formed by the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways ...
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The 2015 Paris Agreement is falling short of its aspirations, as signatory countries are struggling to implement the policies required to meet the targets. The global scenario framework formed by the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) and the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) places little emphasis on the dynamics of climate policy implementation. Social science approaches to understanding these dynamics are not well-integrated into climate scenario research. We apply an implementation research approach to analyse the transition to clean energy in the US and China, as well as two examples from Europe - Germany and Spain - which have shown markedly diverging implementation trajectories. We propose four implementation scenarios (ISs) for clean energy worldwide which relate to different configurations of actors in the policy system. These are: (1) Civil Society Takes Control (IS1) - where ideologically opposed governments are marginalised by citizens and forward-thinking investors; (2) Strong-arm Transition (IS2) - where a single party state drives the transition without the involvement of civil society; (3) Systemic Limits (IS3) - which highlights the need to focus on the whole energy system, not just renewables; and (4) Renewable Austerity (IS4) - where an economic downturn offers powerful anti-transition actors the opportunity to advocate removal of support for climate mitigation, as they did after the 2007-2008 financial crisis. This scenario could be repeated as countries seek to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic. Our study offers a framework for structured analysis of real-world constraints faced by implementing actors, which we argue is urgently needed to help national and international policy makers achieve climate goals.Key policy insightsThe world is struggling to implement the Paris Agreement, partly because the complex dynamics of climate policy implementation are poorly understood.Social science approaches to understanding these dynamics are not well-integrated into climate scenario research.Implementation research focussing on the actors and context provides a useful framework for analysis of implementation efforts from major global carbon emitters.The approach offers new and distinctive scenario narratives that go beyond Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) and Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs).These new scenarios can help policy makers evaluate likely outcomes of climate policy implementation based on information about actors and context.
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ABSTRACT The German Federal Climate Change Act includes binding annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emission targets for the economic sectors energy, industry, buildings, transport, agriculture and waste. For sectors that fail to meet the...
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ABSTRACT The German Federal Climate Change Act includes binding annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emission targets for the economic sectors energy, industry, buildings, transport, agriculture and waste. For sectors that fail to meet their targets, climate policy measures have to be implemented immediately. However, some sectors may only have achieved their targets thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, while others may have missed their targets because of COVID-19. For policy making, it is therefore important to disentangle the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic from the effects of policy and other drivers on emissions. In this paper, the effects of the pandemic on GHG emissions in Germany in 2020 are estimated at the national level and at the levels of the economic sectors. Counterfactual emissions are estimated here based on autoregressive econometric models, thereby distinguishing between different factors of emissions based on decomposition analysis. The findings at the national level suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic lowered GHG emissions in 2020 in Germany by about 41 Mt CO2-eq (5.15%) compared to counterfactual emissions. Accordingly, about 58% of the reduction in emissions between 2019 and 2020 in Germany may be attributed to the pandemic. The findings at the sectoral level imply that without the COVID-19 pandemic, all sectors with the exception of the transport sector, would have met their emissions target in 2020 as set in the Federal Climate Change Act. The transport sector would have missed its emission target in 2020 without COVID-19, suggesting that existing policies were not strong enough to bend the curve of emissions trends sufficiently down. In contrast, the buildings sector failed to meet its target in 2020 because of COVID-19, prompting immediate climate policy measures in this sector.Key policy insights The COVID-19 pandemic lowered greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Germany in 2020 by 5.5% compared to counterfactual emissions and accounted for about 58% of total estimated reductions between 2019 and 2020.Without COVID-19, all sectors but the transport sector would have met their emissions targets.Climate policy response should take into account the effects of extraordinary events like COVID-19 suppressing GHG emissions based on counterfactual emissions because failure to implement measures early on may turn out to be costly in the medium term once the transitory emissions reductions no longer occur.Counterfactual emissions should be considered prior to crediting emissions surplus or deficit to subsequent years.
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Abstract The 1.5°C target is now widely considered as the maximum acceptable limit for global warming. However, it is at once recent and, as it appears increasingly unreachable, already almost obsolete. Adopted as an aspirational...
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Abstract The 1.5°C target is now widely considered as the maximum acceptable limit for global warming. However, it is at once recent and, as it appears increasingly unreachable, already almost obsolete. Adopted as an aspirational target in the Paris Agreement in 2015, the 1.5°C objective originated with a political impetus within UNFCCC negotiations. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) endorsed this policy‐driven target when it produced the Special Report on 1.5°C. This article highlights the continuity of the history of the 1.5°C target with that of the 2°C target, but also the differences between the two. Because the 1.5°C target considerably raises the bar on mitigation efforts, it exacerbates political tensions and ambiguities that were already latent in the 2°C target. This article retraces the emergence of the 1.5°C in diplomatic negotiations, the preparation of the IPCC Special report on 1.5°C, and the new kinds of debates they provoked among climate scientists and experts. To explain how an unreachable target became the reference for climate action, we analyze the “political calibration” of climate science and politics, which can also be described as a codependency between climate science and politics. This article is categorized under: Integrated Assessment of Climate Change > Integrated Assessment Modeling Climate, History, Society, Culture > World Historical Perspectives Assessing Impacts of Climate Change > Evaluating Future Impacts of Climate Change
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We study how European climate and energy policy targets affect different member states and households of different income quintiles within the member states. We find that renewable energy targets in power generation, by reducing E...
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We study how European climate and energy policy targets affect different member states and households of different income quintiles within the member states. We find that renewable energy targets in power generation, by reducing EU ETS permit prices, may make net permit exporters worse off and net permit importers better off. This effect appears to dominate the efficiency cost of increasing the share of energy provided by renewable energy sources in the countries that adopt such targets. While an increase in prices for energy commodities, which is entailed by the policies in question, affects households in low income quintiles the most, recycling revenues from climate policy allows governments to compensate them for the losses. If renewable targets reduce the revenues from ETS permit auctions, member states with large allocations of auctionable permits will lose some of the ability to do so.
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In the debate on post-Kyoto global climate policy, intensity targets, which set a maximum amount of emissions per GDP, figure as prominent alternative to Kyoto-style absolute emission targets, especially for developing countries. ...
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In the debate on post-Kyoto global climate policy, intensity targets, which set a maximum amount of emissions per GDP, figure as prominent alternative to Kyoto-style absolute emission targets, especially for developing countries. This paper re-examines the case for intensity targets by critically assessing several of its properties, namely (ⅰ) reduction of cost-uncertainty, (ⅱ) reduction of 'hot air', (ⅲ) compatibility with international emissions trading, (ⅳ) incentive to decouple carbon emissions and economic output (decarbonization), and, (ⅴ) use as a substitute for banking/borrowing. Relying on simple analytical models, it is shown that the effect on cost-uncertainty is ambiguous and depends on parameter values, and that the same holds for the risk of 'hot air'; that the intensity target distorts international emissions trading; that despite potential asymmetries in the choice of abatement technology between absolute and intensity target, the incentive for a lasting transformation of the energy system is not necessarily stronger under the latter; and, finally, that only a well-working intensity target could substitute banking/borrowing to some extent-but also vice versa. Overall, the results suggest that due to the increased complexity and the potentially only modest benefits of an intensity target, absolute targets remain a robust choice for a cautious policy maker.
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This paper provides a novel and comprehensive model-based assessment of possible outcomes of the Durban Platform negotiations with a focus on emissions reduction requirements, the consistency with the 2℃ target and global economi...
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This paper provides a novel and comprehensive model-based assessment of possible outcomes of the Durban Platform negotiations with a focus on emissions reduction requirements, the consistency with the 2℃ target and global economic impacts. The Durban Platform scenarios investigated in the LIMITS study - all assuming the implementation of comprehensive global emission reductions after 2020, but assuming different 2020 emission reduction levels as well as different long-term concentration targets - exhibit a probability of exceeding the 2℃ limit of 22-41% when reaching 450 (450-480)ppm CO_2e, and 35-59% when reaching 500 (480-520) ppm CO_2e in 2100. Forcing and temperature show a peak and decline pattern for both targets. Consistency of the resulting temperature trajectory with the 2℃ target is a societal choice, and may be based on the maximum exceedance probability at the time of the peak and the long run exceedance probability, e.g., in the year 2100. The challenges of implementing a long-term target after a period of fragmented near-term climate policy can be significant as reflected in steep reductions of emissions intensity and transitional and long-term economic impacts. In particular, the challenges of adopting the target are significantly higher in 2030 than in 2020, both in terms of required emissions intensity decline rates and economic impacts. We conclude that an agreement on comprehensive emissions reductions to be implemented from 2020 onwards has particular significance for meeting long-term climate policy objectives.
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We highlight that uncertainty about climate damages and the fact that damages will be distributed heterogeneously across the global population can jointly be an argument for substantially stricter climate policy even if uncertaint...
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We highlight that uncertainty about climate damages and the fact that damages will be distributed heterogeneously across the global population can jointly be an argument for substantially stricter climate policy even if uncertainty and heterogeneity in isolation are not. The reason is that a given climate risk borne by fewer people implies greater welfare losses. However, these losses turn out to be significant only if society is both risk and inequality averse and if climate damages are highly heterogeneous. We discuss how insurance and self-insurance of climate risk could theoretically mitigate this joint effect of uncertainty and heterogeneity and thus admit weaker climate policy. Insurance provides more efficient risk sharing and self-insurance allows strongly impacted individuals to compensate damages by increasing savings. We first use a simple analytical model to introduce the different concepts and then provide more realistic results from the integrated assessment model DICE.
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We highlight that uncertainty about climate damages and the fact that damages will be distributed heterogeneously across the global population can jointly be an argument for substantially stricter climate policy even if uncertaint...
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We highlight that uncertainty about climate damages and the fact that damages will be distributed heterogeneously across the global population can jointly be an argument for substantially stricter climate policy even if uncertainty and heterogeneity in isolation are not. The reason is that a given climate risk borne by fewer people implies greater welfare losses. However, these losses turn out to be significant only if society is both risk and inequality averse and if climate damages are highly heterogeneous. We discuss how insurance and self-insurance of climate risk could theoretically mitigate this joint effect of uncertainty and heterogeneity and thus admit weaker climate policy. Insurance provides more efficient risk sharing and self-insurance allows strongly impacted individuals to compensate damages by increasing savings. We first use a simple analytical model to introduce the different concepts and then provide more realistic results from the integrated assessment model DICE.
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