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The development of an energy outlook, on international efforts to control the emission levels of carbon dioxide after the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol, is described. The comparative analysis of various energy models for this purpose is presented.

Copyright of Futuribles is the property of Futuribles SARL and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Byline: Patrick Criqui, Nikolaos Kouvaritakis This paper provides a description of the international energy projections elaborated with the POLES energy model for the purpose of analysing, in other papers of this issue, the impacts of technological change at world level and to 2030. Section 2 describes the key exogenous hypotheses on population and economic growth used for this projection, as well as the main resulting changes for the world energy system and in terms of CO2 emissions. In Section 3, the dynamics of the energy systems are further analysed for four main world regions, while Section 4 is dedicated to the identification of the key uncertainties and of their possible impacts on future energy development. Finally, the last section presents the key messages of this outlook, which shows a rapidly growing world economy and energy consumption with increasing oil and gas prices, although this last feature remains subject to uncertainties on resource endowment estimates.

Byline: Nikolaos Kouvaritakis, Patrick Criqui, Claude Thonet This paper addresses the issue of the potential benefits from technological change in post Kyoto CO2 emission reduction scenarios. In order to assess these benefits, it is necessary in Section 2 to define CO2 emission entitlements by world region, in a way that allows both for a significant global reduction from the reference in 2030 and for an acceptable burden sharing among world regions. The economic consequences of this entitlement scenario are explored in detail in Section 3, under the hypotheses of on-going trends for technology dynamics and of full world trading for emission permits. Section 4 then introduces the 'Technology Stories', corresponding to hypotheses of breakthroughs in the performances and costs of six distinct power generation technology clusters. The Technology Stories and their impacts on CO2 marginal and total abatement costs are then studied in detail, both at world level and in a regional perspective. One key result of this paper is a quantitative assessment of the significant reductions in the compliance costs that may be expected from improvements in low-carbon generation technologies.

Byline: Patrick Criqui, Laurent Viguier This paper is dedicated to the analysis of the consequences of CO2 emission reduction policies, as deriving, in a world perspective, from the Kyoto Protocol for the 2010 horizon. The basic methodological principles for the assessment of the Marginal Abatement Costs and for the quantification of the economic 'gains from trade' in flexibility mechanisms are first presented in Section 2. Section 3 provides a thorough assessment, based on the POLES model results, of the marginal and total costs of compliance to the Kyoto Protocol for a 'non trading' case and for two cases of emission trading, respectively at Annex B level and at world level. Section 4 identifies some possible consequences and policy implications of decisions on 'flexibility mechanisms', particularly in the perspective of induced technical change. It shows that, in principle, low flexibility schemes may induce strong price signals in a limited number of constrained countries, while high flexibility schemes may induce lower price signals but on a much broader geographical basis.

Copyright of Futuribles is the property of Futuribles SARL and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

A new study analysed the reference scenarios and marginal abatement costs of France's Institut d'Economie et de Politique de l'Energie's POLES world sectoral energy model and compares them with a similar model developed by MIT.

Copyright of Futuribles is the property of Futuribles SARL and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Futuribles is the property of Futuribles SARL and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article discusses the objectives and modalities of the policies related to climatic changes. There is a need for the formulation of effective policies by international agencies for environmental protection. In this respect the United Nations has come up with the Kyoto Protocol on climatic changes which assigns mandatory targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to signatory nations.

Copyright of Futuribles is the property of Futuribles SARL and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Carbon pricing is considered by most economists as a central dimension to any climate policy. It is assumed to bring simple, transparent, and cost-effective means to change investment and consumption behaviors. The most straightforward method is carbon taxation, but its implementation is more complex. This study provides a comparative analysis of carbon taxation in three countries—Sweden, Canada, and France—aimed at drawing lessons for the future of carbon taxation. Comparing the experience of the three countries reveals that carbon taxes, once in place, do have the intended effect. In this sense, they work well. However, the analysis also reveals very different situations in terms of advances, difficulties, and results, which highlights the need to carefully consider the social and political conditions for the acceptance and effective implementation of such economic instruments. Against this background, the comparative analysis yields four main insights that deserve further research from economics and social scientists: the ability to combine pure economic instruments and other regulation or policies and measures; the management of lobbies and vested interests; the identification of a clear strategy for the recycling of the carbon revenues, whether earmarked or not; and finally, the importance of these three dimensions of carbon taxes in the new settings of zero net emission policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contrary to ‘static’ pathways that are defined once for all, this article deals with the need for policy makers to adopt a dynamic adaptive policy pathway for managing decarbonization over the period of implementation. When choosing a pathway as the most desirable option, it is important to keep in mind that each decarbonization option relies on the implementation of specific policies and instruments. Given structural, effectiveness, and timing uncertainties specific to each policy option, they may fail in delivering the expected outcomes in time. The possibility of diverging from an initial decarbonization trajectory to another one without incurring excessive costs should therefore be a strategic element in the design of an appropriate decarbonization strategy. The article relies on initial experiences in France and Germany on decarbonization planning and implementation to define elements for managing dynamic adjustment issues. Such an adaptive pathway strategy should combine long-lived incentives, like a pre-announced escalating carbon price, to form consistent expectations, as well as adaptive policies to improve overall robustness and resilience. We sketch key elements of a monitoring process based on anex antedefinition of leading indicators that should be assessed regularly and combined with signposts and trigger values at the subsector level. Policy relevance These research questions are of special interest and urgency following the Paris Agreement in 2015. It calls on all countries to monitor the implementation of their national contributions and review their ambition regularly. The regular revision of decarbonization pathways constitute a great research opportunity to gather experiences on decarbonization pathway implementation and on dynamic management issues to progress towards an operational dynamic adaptive policy pathway mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The exploration of future energy system trajectories needs to be based on long-term scenarios, which in turn requires using long-term modelling tools. Introducing a strong decarbonisation constraint, for instance, profoundly modifies the power sector, which is impacted by increasing shares of variable renewable energy sources. Long-term modelling tools working on different assumptions increasingly factor in these impacts, the assessment of which requires a clear description and categorization of the technical and economic choices for representing the tools in question. A new typology based on a literature review is presented for both power sector models and long-term models of the energy system. New comparing criteria focussing on the power sector's components are put forward, such as electricity storage and grid. An analysis carried out by means of this categorization on five chosen models shows that, up until now, energy modelling tools and power system tools have been designed to meet separate objectives and have not combined their advantages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A global assessment approach for the European power system development up to 2050. • European long-term energy system outlook combine with grid investment and dispatch. • Grids evolution under a 2 °C climate change policy relevant for policy makers. • Assessing impacts on the CO 2 emissions and the development of the grid infrastructure. • Local flexibility solutions influence the evolution of the European power system. Previous works proposed a tool coupling models of a prospective outlook on long-term energy systems and a transmission grid investment and dispatch, focusing on the representation of the European transmission grid and its development on the horizon 2050–2100. In this paper, this prospective tool is further improved with the capacity to compute voltage as well as active and reactive power flows at the level of the distribution grid. This added capacity allows analyzing various issues related to the integration of variable energy resources in three representative real medium voltage distribution grids (urban, rural and semi-urban). Technical flexibility solutions such as on-load tap changers, variable energy resources curtailment and storage technologies are modeled and compared to reinforcement. A cost comparison between these flexibility solutions is also carried out. Finally, the new version of the tool is used to evaluate the CO 2−eq emissions linked to the development of the European power system infrastructure, with flexibility solutions, up to the year 2050 (both high voltage alternative and direct current lines reinforcement being considered) under a 2 °C climate energy policy scenario. Results show that it exists various options for the development of the European grid infrastructure, which are clearly sensitive to the level of accuracy in the representation of the physical infrastructures and their technical limitations. Being able to represent the distribution grid, in addition to the transmission one, has a noticeable impact on the prospective outlook of the European power systems both in terms of infrastructure reinforcement and estimation of the needs of flexibility solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]