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Economy-wide emissions drop 43 to 48% below 2005 levels by 2035 with accelerated clean energy deployment.

The Energy Modeling Forum 24 study included a set of policy scenarios designed to compare economy wide market-based and sectoral regulatory approaches of potential U.S. climate policy. Models from seven teams participated in this part of the study assessing economy-wide cap-and-trade climate policy and sectoral policies in the transportation and electric sector in terms of potential greenhouse gas emissions reductions, economic cost, and energy systems implications. This paper presents an overview of the results from the U.S. policy scenarios, and provides insights into the comparison of results from the participating models. In particular, various metrics were used to compare the model results including allowance price, the efficient frontier, consumption loss, GDP loss, and equivalent variation. We find that the choice of economic metric is an important factor in the comparison of model results. Among the insights, we note that the carbon price should cautiously be considered when other non-cap sectoral policies affecting emissions are assumed in tandem. We also find that a transportation sector policy is consistently shown to be inefficient compared to an economy-wide cap-and-trade policy with a comparable level of emissions reductions. Keywords: Climate policy, Energy-economy modeling, Sectoral climate policies, Policy interaction, 1. INTRODUCTION In the absence of comprehensive legislation to curb greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the United States, policymakers have been pursuing climate change mitigation through sector or technology-specific regulatory [...]

This paper presents an overview of the study design and the results of the EMF 24 U.S. Technology Scenarios. The EMF 24 U.S. Technology Scenarios engaged nine top energy-environment-economy models to examine the implications of technological improvements and technological availability for reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 50% and 80% by 2050. The study confirms that mitigation at the 50% or 80% level will require a dramatic transformation of the energy system over the next 40 years. The study also corroborates the result of previous studies that there is a large variation among models in terms of which energy strategy is considered most cost-effective. Technology assumptions are found to have a large influence on carbon prices and economic costs of mitigation. Keywords: Technology, scenarios, climate change, 1. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND It is now well understood that technology cost, performance, and availability can have a substantial impact on the macroeconomic costs, and the challenge more generally, of [...]

This special issue of the Energy Journal documents the main findings of Energy Modeling Forum Model Inter-comparison Project (MIP) number 24 (EMF 24) entitled 'The EMF24 Study on U.S. Technology [...]

1. INTRODUCTION This Special Issue of The Energy Journal presents the results of the most recently completed international collaboration under Stanford University's Energy Modeling Forum (EMF) (1). The EMF was [...]

This Special Issue of The Energy Journal represents the first comprehensive report on a comparative set of analyses of the economic and energy sector impacts of the Kyoto Protocol on [...]

The production of carbon dioxide by industry must be reduced before emissions of greenhouse gases can be controlled, and estimates of the costs of various levels of control are needed. The Energy Modeling Forum's EMF 12 working group used technoeconomic models to study various levels of carbon-dioxide emissions control, including no control, a 50% reduction in emissions and stabilization to 1990 levels. Research indicates that the control of carbon-dioxide emissions may have little effect on global climate change and that market intervention is needed to control emissions.

In this article, the author offers critical analysis of the "Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change ," with particular focus on the climate change mitigation cost and integrated estimation features adopted in the review. The author argues that the framework adopted in Stern review to formulate policy recommendations is hard to understand and mismatches with the problem being discussed. The article also offers a quick review of literature on green house gas mitigation costs.

This survey provides an exposition of seven technoeconomic models that are representative of recent work on energy policy. The paper begins with several microeconomic concepts related to energy conservation and to energy-economy interactions. We then examine three representative medium-term models which deal with pricing, import policy and investment decisions in today's conventional supply technologies. Next, we analyze four studies dealing with longer-range issues--alternative research and development strategies for a transition away from depletable energy resources. The paper concludes with a summary of unresolved issues, and with suggestions on the future role of modeling in the public policy process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]