Brazil beyond 2020: from deforestation to the energy challenge

The main assumptions and findings are presented on a comparative analysis of three GHG long-term emissions scenarios for Brazil. Since 1990, land-use change has been the most important source of GHG emissions in the country. The voluntary goals to limit Brazilian GHG emissions pledged a reduction in between 36.1% and 38.9% of GHG emissions projected to 2020, to be 6–10% lower than in 2005. Brazil is in a good position to meet the voluntary mitigation goals pledged to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) up to 2020: recent efforts to reduce deforestation have been successful and avoided deforestation will form the bulk of the emissions reduction commitment. In 2020, if governmental mitigation goals are met, then GHG emissions from the energy system would become the largest in the country. After 2020, if no additional mitigation actions are implemented, GHG emissions will increase again in the period 2020–2030, due to population and economic growth driving energy demand, supply and GHG emissions. However, Brazil is in a strong position to take a lead in low-carbon economic and social development due to its huge endowment of renewable energy resources allowing for additional mitigation actions to be adopted after 2020.

Policy relevance

The period beyond 2020 is now relevant in climate policy due to the Durban Platform agreeing a ‘protocol, legal instrument or agreed outcome with legal force’ that will have effect from 2020. After 2020, Brazil will be in a situation more similar to other industrialized countries, faced with a new challenge of economic development with low GHG energy-related emissions, requiring the adoption of mitigation policies and measures targeted at the energy system. Unlike the mitigation actions in the land-use change sector, where most of the funding will come from the national budgets due to sovereignty concerns, the huge financial resources needed to develop low-carbon transport and energy infrastructure could benefit from soft loans channelled to the country through nationally appropriate mitigation actions (NAMAs).     

中国“胡焕庸线”东西两侧能源消耗空间格局的系统动力学模拟

“胡焕庸线”是中国人口、经济和社会发展格局特征的真实写照,科学地刻画了中国能源生产与消费的基本特征。定量模拟该线东西两侧能源消耗的空间格局可以为国家实现能源与区域协调发展提供参考。论文根据中国能源统计年鉴(2005—2014年),结合系统动力学模型(System Dynamic, SD)与灰色模型构建了胡焕庸线能源消耗空间格局预测模型(HLECSM-SD);再以省域为基本研究单元,构建50 km×50 km空间格网,模拟2020年并预测2021—2025年“胡焕庸线”东西两侧能源消耗的空间格局,设置3种情景方案分析中国能源消耗情况。结果表明：① HLECSM-SD模型具有较好的拟合效果。② 全国能源消耗总量呈现“东多西少”的空间格局。③ 该线两侧的能源消耗量增长率曲线变化趋势一致,且东侧的增长率低于西侧。④ 在胡焕庸线东侧,煤炭消耗量具有“北部多、南部少”的空间特征,这与中国煤炭资源蕴涵量的空间格局一致;石油、天然气和电力消耗量具有“东部多、中部少”的空间特征,这是由各省区资源禀赋、经济水平、人口规模及产业结构等因素共同决定的。⑤ 在情景设置中,不同影响因子对能源消耗量影响程度不同。     

不同非空间模拟方法下CLUE-S模型土地利用预测——以秦淮河流域为例

基于快速城镇化背景下秦淮河流域土地利用历史状况,选择CLUE-S模型对其2020年土地利用情况进行模拟预测。分别使用线性回归、Markov模型、灰色GM（1,1）模型预测CLUE-S模型非空间模块的土地利用需求量,再嵌入CLUE-S中得到3种预测结果,对预测结果进行比较。另外设定“自然发展”情景与考虑规划政策影响的“优化格局”情景,模拟2020年不同情景下秦淮河流域土地利用格局情况,并进行景观格局分析。结果表明：线性回归模型、Markov模型、灰色GM（1,1）模型的Kappa指数分别为0.866、0.849、0.867,3种方法均满足模型精度要求;自然发展情景中2020年水域、水田、林地、城镇用地、旱地面积相对于2010年分别变化21.5%、-15.3%、-9.0%、51.5%、-28.9%,而优化格局情景下水域、水田、林地、城镇用地、旱地面积分别变化3.1%、-1.6%、10.8%、6.3%、-10.6%,相比于自然发展情景,优化情景土地利用状况更符合保护基本农田、增加生态用地连通性、提高雨水下渗能力以及缓解城市热岛效应的要求,为后期土地利用规划提供了依据。     

Market penetration metrics: tools for additionality assessment?

Abstract

Project-based emission reduction or ‘offset’ programs are being implemented widely, from the CDM (Clean Development Mechanism) to corporate voluntary efforts and municipal and state-level activities. Additionality assessment remains a central and persistent challenge in all programs. Concerns have been raised with methods currently used, such as investment analysis, barrier analysis, and performance thresholds. They have been variously critiqued for high costs, resistance to standardization, weak environmental integrity, and susceptibility to gaming. Technology penetration rates provide another means to infer additionality, and could be a potentially useful complement to other methods. The notion is that emerging technologies with low but increasing penetration rates typically require some type of support, as might be provided through offsets markets, to compete effectively in the marketplace. For penetration rate analysis to provide a useful tool for additionality assessment, several fundamental questions need to be addressed. What do penetration rates represent and how can they be measured? How can additionality evaluation utilize penetration rates? For which sectors and project types are the use of penetration rates most promising? This article shows that penetration tests have a mixture of pluses and minuses, with greater relevance in certain market niches and regions. Reasonable ranges for penetration thresholds are discussed, along with partial crediting approaches to reduce ‘knife-edge’ effects.     

Good practice policies to bridge the emissions gap in key countries

One key aspect of the Paris Agreement is the goal to limit the global average temperature increase to well below 2 °C by the end of the century. To achieve the Paris Agreement goals, countries need to submit, and periodically update, their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Recent studies show that NDCs and currently implemented national policies are not sufficient to cover the ambition level of the temperature limit agreed upon in the Paris Agreement, meaning that we need to collectively increase climate action to stabilize global warming at levels considered safe. This paper explores the generalization of previously adopted good practice policies (GPPs) to bridge the emissions gap between current policies, NDCs ambitions and a well below 2 °C world, facilitating the creation of a bridge trajectory in key major-emitting countries. These GPPs are implemented in eleven well-established national Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) for Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, European Union (EU), India, Indonesia, Japan, Russia, South Korea, and the United States, that provide least-cost, low-carbon scenarios up to 2050. Results show that GPPs can play an important role in each region, with energy supply policies appearing as one of the biggest contributors to the reduction of carbon emissions. However, GPPs by themselves are not enough to close the emission gap, and as such more will be needed in these economies to collectively increase climate action to stabilize global warming at levels considered safe.     

Variation in riverine phosphorus between 1994 and 2003 as affected by land-use and loading reductions in six medium-sized to large German rivers

Land use and in-stream transformation exert great influence on concentrations and loads of phosphorus (P) in rivers. We aimed to display differences in the courses of total P (TP) and soluble reactive P (SRP) concentrations and loads in six medium-sized to large rivers in the central region of Germany, and to identify the reasons for different long-term trends. Therefore, we applied multivariate statistics to 10-year-time series (1994–2003) of TP, SRP, discharge (Q), water temperature (T), pH, dissolved organic carbon (DOC), total organic carbon (TOC), dissolved oxygen (DO), total iron (Fe), and total manganese (Mn). Statistical results were related to land use in the catchments of the rivers. TP concentrations ranged between 0.02 and 0.78 mg l⁻¹, and SRP concentrations ranged between 0.01 and 0.44 mg l⁻¹. Q correlated negatively with TP and SRP concentrations over the entire year. Furthermore, Fe correlated significantly and positively to TP and SRP and therefore, ferric hydroxides likely were the major P sorption sites. DOC showed significant positive correlation to SRP particularly in spring, indicating manure exposure in early spring as a major source of both, DOC and SRP. Significant negative correlations between DO and SRP in summer hint at internal P loading in rivers or in flushed lakes. Different forms of land use were the reasons of enhanced or retarded recovering from previous increases in P concentrations. High portions of arable land within some of the catchments impeded the process of decreases since 1996 because of remaining high-diffuse emissions from fertilized soils. Agricultural practices, exposing fertilizer to soils within the river catchments and high Q in early spring caused high TP and SRP loads to downstream systems, and evoked risks for downstream river reaches.     

Greenhouse gas emissions from global cities under SSP/RCP scenarios, 1990 to 2100

Projections of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are critical to enable a better understanding and anticipation of future climate change under different socio-economic conditions and mitigation strategies. The climate projections and scenarios assessed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, following the Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP)-Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) framework, have provided a rich understanding of the constraints and opportunities for policy action. However, the current emissions scenarios lack an explicit treatment of urban emissions within the global context. Given the pace and scale of urbanization, with global urban populations expected to increase from about 4.4 billion today to about 7 billion by 2050, there is an urgent need to fill this knowledge gap. Here, we estimate the share of global GHG emissions driven by urban areas from 1990 to 2100 based on the SSP-RCP framework. The urban consumption-based GHG emissions are presented in five regional aggregates and based on a combination of the urban population share, 2015 urban per capita CO₂eq carbon footprint, SSP-based national CO₂eq emissions, and recent analysis of urban per capita CO₂eq trends. We find that urban areas account for the majority of global GHG emissions in 2015 (61.8%). Moreover, the urban share of global GHG emissions progressively increases into the future, exceeding 80% in some scenarios by the end of the century. The combined urban areas in Asia and Developing Pacific, and Developed Countries account for 65.0% to 73.3% of cumulative urban consumption-based emissions between 2020 and 2100 across the scenarios. Given these dominant roles, we describe the implications for potential urban mitigation in each of the scenario narratives in order to meet the goal of climate neutrality within this century.     

Net groundwater inflow in an enclosed lake: from synoptic variations to climatic projections

Using lake Stechlin in northeastern Germany as an example of a small groundwater‐feed lake without surface inflows and outflows, we estimated the temporal scales and the variability ranges of the net groundwater contribution to the lake water budget. High‐resolution water level measurements by a bottom‐mounted pressure logger provided the background for the estimation of the total lake water budget. This method has demonstrated reliability for estimation of lake level variations during periods ranging from subdiurnal to perennial. The typical amplitudes of the synoptic‐to‐perennial variability characterizing the groundwater climate of lake Stechlin are estimated by comparing the two subsequent years 2006 and 2007; one of these years shows an extremely high, and the other an extremely low, annual precipitation–evaporation balance. The net groundwater flow, estimated as the difference between the total water budget and the precipitation–evaporation balance at the surface, revealed synoptic effects of lake water exfiltration into the groundwater aquifer following strong precipitation events. Perennial variations between wet and dry years superimposed seasonal oscillations. The probable origin of the latter is seasonality in the groundwater level on the watershed, although the exact amplitudes are subject to further quantification on account of seasonality in the evaporation estimation error. The results emphasize the non‐stationary behaviour of groundwater flow on timescales shorter than climatic ones. The analysis yielded a net quantitative relationship between groundwater flow and water balance at the lake surface: The water level changes in the lake due to evaporation and precipitation are damped to 60% because of the lake–groundwater exchange by means of intermittent infiltration and exfiltration events. Assuming the remaining 40% of the surface water budget may potentially result in perennial water level variability, we estimated an effect of the precipitation decrease on the lake water budget as predicted by the regional climate scenarios for the next century. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Projection of PM2.5 and Ozone Concentration Changes over the Jing-Jin-Ji Region in China

Based on GISS-E2-R model simulations, the changes in PM2.5 and ozone concentrations during 2016– 35 are analyzed over the Jing-Jin-Ji region under different future emissions scenarios: 2.6, 4.5, 6.0, 8.5 Representative Concentration Pathways scenarios(RCP2.6, RCP4.5, RCP6.0, and RCP8.5), compared to the baseline periods of 1851–70(pre-industrial) and 1986–2005(present day). The results show that PM2.5 increases under all emissions scenarios, with the maximum value occurring in the southeastern part of the region under most scenarios. As for ozone, its concentration is projected to increase during 2016–35 under all emissions scenarios, compared to the baseline periods. The temporal evolutions of PM2.5 and ozone show PM2.5 reaching a peak during 2020–40, while ozone will likely increase steadily in the future.     

PRECIS模式对宁夏气候变化情景的模拟分析*

使用英国Hadley气候中心区域气候模式PRECIS,分析了B2温室气体排放情景下,相对于气候基准时段1961~1990年宁夏2071~2100年(2080s)地面气温、降水量等的变化。结果表明:PRECIS模式能够很好地模拟宁夏气温的分布特征,对夏季最高气温的模拟效果好于冬季最低气温;较好地模拟出了宁夏降水南多北少的空间差异特征,且对夏季降水的模拟能力明显强于年均降水和冬季降水。相对于气候基准时段, 在B2情景下,2080s宁夏年平均、冬季和夏季平均气温均明显上升,宁夏北部和南部的部分地区气温上升幅度最大,夏季平均气温和最高气温上升幅度大于冬季平均气温和最低气温;未来宁夏年、冬季和夏季平均降水较基准时段均有所增加,但降水随年代际却呈减少趋势,由于气温和降水的气候变率加大,2080s宁夏出现高温、干旱、洪涝等异常天气事件的可能性增大。