Post-Kyoto CO2 emission reduction: The soft landing scenario analysed with POLES and other world models

Long-term outlooks are key tools for policy design in the energy sector. These outlooks should also include scenarios considering active policies that address the challenge of climate change. Consequently such a CO2 emission reduction scenario was analysed as a case study within the ACROPOLIS project. This paper presents a method to derive regional emission targets that correspond to an emission trajectory that stabilises CO2 emissions by 2030, within a concentration target set at 550 ppmv. In a next step, the impact of emission reduction on the structure of the future energy system is briefly analysed using the Prospective Outlook for the Long-term Energy System (POLES) world energy model. Finally, some key indicators are compared with the results from other world energy models used in the ACROPOLIS project to analyse the same emission reduction scenario. While the emission reduction compared to the baseline is significant, the resulting necessary adaptations in terms of energy and carbon efficiencies lie within the ranges observed in the past. It is demonstrated that the defined “soft landing” emission reduction scenario would under the assumption of emission trading produce permit prices that are not extremely high. Though forecasted effect of CO2 emission reduction on the energy system is quite different across models, the marginal reduction costs broadly coincide across the participating models. This especially is true when taking into account the different reduction efforts caused by different levels of emissions in the baseline.