Impacts and adaptation to climate change in European economies

This paper evaluates the impacts of climate change to European economies under an increase in global mean temperature at +2 °C and +4 °C. It is based on a summary of conclusions from available studies of how climate change may affect various sectors of the economies in different countries. We apply a macroeconomic general equilibrium model, which integrates impacts of climate change on different activities of the economies. Agents adapt by responding to the changes in market conditions following the climatic changes, thus bringing consistency between economic behaviour and adaptation to climate change. Europe is divided into 85 sub-regions in order to capture climate variability and variations in vulnerabilities within countries. We find that the impacts in the +2 °C are moderate throughout Europe, with positive impacts on GDP in some sub-regions and negative impacts down to 0.1 per cent per year in others. At +4 °C, GDP is negatively affected throughout Europe, and most substantially in the southern parts, where it falls by up to 0.7 per cent per year in some sub-regions. We also find that climate change causes differentiations in wages across Europe, which may cause migration from southern parts of Europe to northern parts, especially to the Nordic countries.     

Adaptation in integrated assessment modeling: where do we stand?

Adaptation is an important element on the climate change policy agenda. Integrated assessment models, which are key tools to assess climate change policies, have begun to address adaptation, either by including it implicitly in damage cost estimates, or by making it an explicit control variable. We analyze how modelers have chosen to describe adaptation within an integrated framework, and suggest many ways they could improve the treatment of adaptation by considering more of its bottom-up characteristics. Until this happens, we suggest, models may be too optimistic about the net benefits adaptation can provide, and therefore may underestimate the amount of mitigation they judge to be socially optimal. Under some conditions, better modeling of adaptation costs and benefits could have important implications for defining mitigation targets.     

Configuring floating production networks: A case study of a new offshore wind technology across two oil and gas economies

ABSTRACT

The authors employ the global production network (GPN) approach to analyse the development of the renewable energy sector. Through a case study of the development of a Hywind floating offshore wind project (Hywind) across two oil and gas economies, namely Norway and Scotland, the paper sheds light on the key drivers and role of core GPN actors. Methodologically, the authors investigate the process from both ‘inside-out’ and ‘outside-in’ perspectives, referring to the efforts of firms expanding into overseas markets and the efforts of host countries to attract investment from outside their territories. The analysis shows how the configuration of extractive production networks is shaped by the interactions between the network development practices of firms and the market development strategies of host states. The authors conclude that the distinct materiality of floating wind power technology shapes the territorial configuration of the production network by enabling its spatial extension across a range of locations. By contrast, existing research on other extractive sectors has emphasized the spatially constraining effects of materiality (Bridge 2008).     

Governance of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS): accounting,rewarding, and the Paris agreement

Studies show that the ‘well below 2°C’ target from the Paris Agreement will be hard to meet without large negative emissions from mid-century onwards, which means removing CO₂ from the atmosphere and storing the carbon dioxide in biomass, soil, suitable geological formations, deep ocean sediments, or chemically bound to certain minerals. Biomass energy combined with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) is the negative emission technology (NET) given most attention in a number of integrated assessment model studies and in the latest IPCC reports. However, less attention has been given to governance aspects of NETs. This study aims to identify pragmatic ways forward for BECCS, through synthesizing the literature relevant to accounting and rewarding BECCS, and its relation to the Paris Agreement. BECCS is divided into its two elements: biomass and CCS. Calculating net negative emissions requires accounting for sustainability and resource use related to biomass energy production, processing and use, and interactions with the global carbon cycle. Accounting for the CCS element of BECCS foremost relates to the carbon dioxide capture rate and safe underground storage. Rewarding BECCS as a NET depends on the efficiency of biomass production, transport and processing for energy use, global carbon cycle feedbacks, and safe storage of carbon dioxide, which together determine net carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere. Sustainable biomass production is essential, especially with regard to trade-offs with competing land use. Negative emissions have an added value compared to avoided emissions, which should be reflected in the price of negative emission ‘credits’, but must be discounted due to global carbon cycle feedbacks. BECCS development will depend on linkages to carbon trading mechanisms and biomass trading.

Key policy insights

• A standardized framework for sustainable biomass should be adopted.

• Countries should agree on a standardized framework for accounting and rewarding BECCS and other negative emission technologies.

• Early government support is indispensable to enable BECCS development, scale-up and business engagement.

• BECCS projects should be designed to maximize learning across various applications and across other NETs.

• BECCS development should be aligned with modalities of the Paris Agreement and market mechanisms.

     

Natural hazards in Nordic Countries

Compared to many areas of the world, the human losses caused by natural hazards are smaller in Nordic countries. This is mainly due to the low population density in the exposed areas. However, the economic losses are significant and the geohazards picture varies among the countries. The predominant natural hazards in Nordic countries are floods, landslides, and, with the exception of Denmark, snow avalanche. Volcanoes and earthquakes are major geohazards in Iceland, and parts of Norway are susceptible to seismic activity. Slidetriggered tsunamis also represent a threat to parts of the coastal areas of Nordic countries and Greenland.     

Quality of geological CO2 storage to avoid jeopardizing climate targets

We explore allowable leakage for carbon capture and geological storage to be consistent with maximum global warming targets of 2.5 and 3 °C by 2100. Given plausible fossil fuel use and carbon capture and storage scenarios, and based on modeling of time-dependent leakage of CO₂, we employ a climate model to calculate the long-term temperature response of CO₂ emissions. We assume that half of the stored CO₂ is permanently trapped by fast mechanisms. If 40?% of global CO₂ emissions are stored in the second half of this century, the temperature effect of escaped CO₂ is too small to compromise a 2.5 °C target. If 80?% of CO₂ is captured, escaped CO₂ must peak 300?years or later for consistency with this climate target. Due to much more CO₂ stored for the 3 than the 2.5 °C target, quality of storage becomes more important. Thus for the 3 °C target escaped CO₂ must peak 400?years or later in the 40?% scenario, and 3000?years or later in the 80?% scenario. Consequently CO₂ escaped from geological storage can compromise the less stringent 3 °C target in the long-run if most of global CO₂ emissions have been stored. If less CO₂ is stored only a very high escape scenario can compromise the more stringent 2.5 °C target. For the two remaining combinations of storage scenarios and climate targets, leakage must be high to compromise these climate targets.     

To what extent can a long-term temperature target guide near-term climate change commitments?

The question of appropriate timing and stringency of future greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions remains an issue in the discussion of mitigation responses to the climate change problem. It has been argued that our near-term action should be guided by a long-term vision for the climate, possibly a long-term temperature target. In this paper, we review proposals for long-term climate targets to avoid ‘dangerous’ climate change. Using probability estimates of climate sensitivity from the literature, we then generate probabilistic emissions scenarios that satisfy temperature targets of 2.0, 2.5, and 3.0°C above pre-industrial levels with no overshoot. Our interest is in the implications of these targets on abatement requirements over the next 50 years. If we allow global industrial GHG emissions to peak in 2025 at 14 GtCeq, and wish to achieve a 2.0°C target with at least 50% certainty, we find that the low sensitivity estimate in the literature suggests our industrial emissions must fall to 9 GtCeq by 2050: equal to the level in 2000. However, the average literature sensitivity estimate suggests the level must be less than 2 GtCeq; and in the high sensitivity case, the target is simply unreachable unless we allow for overshoot. Our results suggest that in light of the uncertainty in our knowledge of the climate sensitivity, a long-term temperature target (such as the 2.0°C target proposed by the European Commission) can provide limited guidance to near-term mitigation requirements.     

Geochemistry of Caledonian metabasalts from some Norwegian ophiolite fragments

Major and trace element analyses of metabasalts from five of the Lower Palaeozoic Caledonian ophiolite fragments along a strike distance of some 800 km of the west Norwegian coast are presented. Characteristically the REE patterns show depletion of both LREE and HREE relative to intermediate REE, giving an upward convex shape, but nearly flat, LREE depleted or enriched patterns occur. The REE patterns of the metabasalts from three of these sequences, i.e. the Lykling, Solund and Stavfjorden ophiolite fragments show little within-sequence but large between-sequence variation. The REE patterns of the metabasalts from the Gullfjellet (Major Bergen Arc) and Skålvær ophiolite fragments, however, show significant within-sequence variations, indicative of local source heterogeneties.When incompatible trace elements such as Ta, Nb, Ce, P, Zr, Hf, Sm, Ti, Y and Yb are normalized against average MORB, the metabasalts can be subdivided into two major groups. One group, geographically comprising the ophiolite fragments north of Bergen (i.e. Solund, Stavfjorden og Skålvær) show trace element ratios similar to average MORB, whereas the other group, defined by the Gullfjellet and Lykling ophiolite fragments (from Bergen southwards) differ significantly with respect to Yb/Y, Ti/Y and Nb/Ce ratios. These features are discussed in terms of trace element patterns in basalts from oceanic islands, island arcs and back-arc basins, and it is tentatively concluded that they reflect partial melts from a mid-oceanic mantle, or probably a back-arc basin mantle, which differed chemically from that of the northwestern Norwegian ophiolite fragments.     

The last glaciation of the Arctic volcanic island Jan Mayen

The volcanic island of Jan Mayen, remotely located in the Norwegian-Greenland Sea, was covered by a contiguous ice cap during the Late Weichselian. Until now, it has been disputed whether parts of the island south of the presently glaciated Mount Beerenberg area were ever glaciated. Based on extensive field mapping we demonstrate that an ice cap covered all land areas and likely also extended onto the shallow shelf areas southeast and east of the island. Chronological interpretations are based on K-Ar and ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar dating of volcanic rocks, cosmogenic nuclide (³⁶Cl) surface exposure dating of bedrock and glacial erratics, and radiocarbon dating. We argue that ice growth started after 34 ka and that an initial deglaciation started some 21.5–19.5 ka in the southern and middle parts of the island. In the northern parts, closer to the present glaciers, the deglaciation might have started later, as evidenced by the establishment of vegetation 17–16 cal. ka BP. During full glaciation, the ice cap was likely thickest over the southern part of the island. This may explain a seemingly delayed deglaciation compared with the northern parts despite earlier initial deglaciation. In a broader context, the new knowledge of the Late Weichselian of the island contributes to the understanding of glaciations surrounding the North Atlantic and its climate history.     

A two-track CDM: improved incentives for sustainable development and offset production

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) has been criticized in the literature for encouraging a focus on offset production (OP) at the expense of achieving or encouraging sustainable development (SD). It is argued that one explanation for this is that there is no commonly agreed definition of SD and, moreover, the priority of CDM project developers is often to produce cost-effective OP. Many of the proposals to address these drawbacks are not politically feasible. It is argued that the CDM should be split into a two-track mechanism, with one track for offset production and the other for offset production with an emphasis on sustainable development benefits. This would enable the political deadlock to be broken, allow the inclusion of SD benefits in the price mechanism itself, and allow both SD and OP objectives to be simultaneously achieved.

Policy relevance

The CDM has been criticized for failing to achieve its sustainable development objective, for verification problems regarding the mitigation effects of projects’ emissions, for being complex and bureaucratic, and for the very limited participation by the least developed countries. Given the adoption of a second period of the Kyoto Protocol and the discussion of new market mechanisms in the context of negotiating a new global climate agreement to be adopted in 2015, it is time to explore the ways in which the CDM might be reformed. A two-track version of the CDM is proposed, with one track focused on credit (offset) production and the other track focused on sustainable development. This system could improve the incentive for achieving sustainable development, reduce the uncertainty regarding whether real emissions reductions have been achieved, and be attractive to both developing and industrialized countries.