Global Energy Strategies to Control Future Carbon Dioxide Emissions

The objective of the collaborative IIASA-CRIEPI study was to develop an analytical framework and formulate scenarios for evaluating the effectiveness of policy options in global/regional energy systems directed at delaying or mitigating the global-warming effect over the first half of the 21st century. The study is therefore aimed at the development of analytical tools for evaluating long-term energy/climate countermeasure options, taking into account the influence on energy demand and supply of changes in social needs, economic and population growth, governmental policies, and technological progress. The approach is based on scenario simulations to describe those techno-economic and socio-cultural changes which determine future energy-use patterns and their environmental impacts. For this purpose, two scenarios have been formulated: one with changes in society, economic systems, and the energy sector that follow the dynamics-as-usual pattern, and the other with enhanced energy efficiency improvements and conservation efforts. For each scenario three different cases have been analyzed reflecting the possible situations on the energy supply side. Addressing policy makers and specialists in energy demand and supply, the authors evaluate the consequences of various policy options and explore more efficient and effective measures for reducing environmental impacts, for example, through regional interactions such as technology transfer and technological progress. This report describes the relationship between the directions of policy orientations and the global energy situations in the future. The issues that require further investigation include the process of international cooperation on implementing the measures proposed, the evaluation of the costs associated with the construction of future energy systems as well as the introduction of advanced technologies, and formulation of a global strategy to control not only carbon dioxide as examined in this study but also all the greenhouse gases