Modelling energy transitions to a low carbon economy

Datos Bibliográficos

ID7439660
AutoresJaime Nieto Vega (Universidad de Valladolid, autor de correspondencia)
Año2020
Fecha de publicación2020-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoTHESIS
EditorialUniversidad de Valladolid (PUBLISHER • ES)
DOI10.35376/10324/42727
OpenAlexW3126953863
IdiomaEN
Referencias citadas20

The escalation of the global temperature, as well as the increasing perception of the climate change impacts, have led the international community to the signature of the Paris Agreement.The bold dependency on non-renewable energy resources by the economy is, simultaneously, a problem both from its availability side and from its use as main greenhouse gases emitter.Therefore, the main challenges of the transition to sustainability would lie on the fact that it would be the first transition towards a more sustainable regime and to make this transformation compatible with the maintenance of social welfare.With this objective, the Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) are a powerful analysis tool in order to evaluate the complex energy-economy-environment (3E) relationships.After a revision of the IAM's state of the art, it is verified that optimisation models are dominant, with a stylised representation of the economy, and poorly integrated with the biophysical systems.Conventional models tend to present an unidirectional relationships with the environment due to the lack of feedbacks and the disregard or underestimation of resources' availability.This thesis is developed with the purpose of filling this gap in the literature and discussing the usual results of conventional models.Therefore, its objectives would be the revision of the national transition plans, on a global scale, to determine their policy targets, emissions objectives and means of implementation, in order to comprehend their underlying principles.With this framework, an Ecological Macroeconomics model is developed and integrated in a well disaggregated and highly-integrated IAM: MEDEAS.With the objective, in turn, of analysing the macroeconomic impacts of energy transitions, including the effects of a potential energy supply scarcity, the main novelty of this model is its energy-economy feedback.With this inspiration, two economic models are constructed, one at the global and the other European level.These models are based on the combination of two methodologies: energy-extended Input-Output Analysis (IOA) and System Dynamics (SD).The IOA framework enables the accountability not only of direct (both monetary and energy) but also indirect carriers of the final demand of goods and services.Moreover, SD allows modelling complex systems rich in non-linear relationships, feedbacks, tipping points, time delays and stock-flow structures.This thesis' results show, firstly, an insufficient preparation of the national commitments (INDCs) to meet the Paris Agreement's targets.This way, the underlying general philosophy of these plans relies on a Green Growth background understood as a combination of a so-called inclusive economic growth with energy efficiency gains and substitution of fossil fuel for renewable-based technologies.However, the emissions variation commitments, once estimated in absolute terms, result in an overall increase between 19.3% (if external North-South funds are Source: Haberl et al. (2011).* Typical values for an advanced European agrarian socio-metabolic regime (18th century).In agrarian societies based on labour-intensive horticultural production with low significance of livestock, population density may be significantly higher, while the per-capita use of materials and energy would be lower.** Typical values for current fully industrialized economies.In countries with high population densities, per capita values of energy/materials use tend to be in the lower range, while values are high when measured per unit area.The reverse is true for countries with low population densities; in this case values per unit area can be very low

Circular economy · Energy transition · Low-carbon economy · Climate Change Policy and Economics · Environmental Impact and Sustainability · Global Energy and Sustainability Research