Energy and climate change最新文献

A stable mitigation policy requires an adequate legal framework for climate change. The energy sector contributes to about 80 % of total GHGs. The use of renewable energies is a solution to GHG reduction. A carbon tax has been acknowledged as one of the best mitigation policies as it tends to shift the tax burden to polluters and yields revenue, which relieves households.

This study focused on developing Tanzania's national climate change framework by taxing energy sources to enhance the use of renewable energies as the mitigation policy. The study draw extensively on interviews and documentary data sources that reviewed international instruments, regional instruments, legislations, the Constitution of the United Republic of Tanzania, the National Energy Policy of 2015, the National Environmental Policy of 2021, Tax Statutes and the Tanzania Development Vision of 2025.

The study revealed that, first, there are supplies not been carbon taxed irrespective of their qualification. Second, there are chapters within policies and sections within laws that hinder access to renewable energies. Third, there is no guiding framework that coordinates approaches across sectors and levels of government.

The study concludes that from 2023, 9.7 % were using renewable energies and by 2033 getting to 80 % usage, requires investment leading to redressed policies and laws aligning to the introduced national climate change framework towards renewable energy access for carbon reduction.

Canada and the United States (US) have both committed to reaching net zero emissions by 2050 but neither have implemented policy sufficient to reach this target. Knowledge of the technical steps to deep decarbonization is needed alongside an understanding of how each country might be similarly and uniquely impacted by a transition to net zero emissions, contingent on specific technology advancements or policy decisions. We use the computable general equilibrium model, gTech, to simulate sixteen net zero scenarios for Canada and the US varying by technology and policy assumptions as part of the energy modelling forum 37 (EMF37) study. We find that both economies similarly continue to grow in all scenarios out to 2050 with the rate of growth largely determined by assumptions on negative emissions technology. Sectoral impacts differ between countries as a result of current emissions and GDP profiles in combination with assumed net zero scenario policy and technology advancements. In the US, we find that efficient use of electricity is a slightly more important predictor of economic outcomes, while Canada's economy is marginally more responsive to cost and performance improvements in carbon capture technologies.

Based on a large-scale public survey, we identify and quantify the significance of key factors associated with the deployment of electric vehicles and charging infrastructure. Our results indicate that individual characteristics, such as income, age, region, and single vs. multi-family housing type can significantly affect electric vehicle purchase preferences, especially those concerning overnight charging and perceptions of benefits and barriers. Moreover, our results challenge earlier findings in the literature by showing how certain elements, such as expected electric driving range, certain travel behaviors (e.g., driving distance, destination types), the most common perceived benefits (e.g., cleaner air) or barriers (e.g., reliability concerns), and preferred location for public charging seem to not vary much or at all with the socioeconomic, demographic, and geographical variables examined in this study. We conclude with the implications for policies to advance equitable vehicle electrification. Our findings underscore the importance of lower-cost models of electric vehicles, home and public charging access, charging infrastructure planning, more integrated analysis of interlinked housing and transportation needs and solutions, the availability of alternative transportation modes, and the potential role of gas stations for electric vehicles. We encourage others to build on these results and have shared our complete survey instrument as an added contribution.

As industries rally toward achieving net zero emissions, hydrogen and hydrogen-based fuels are emerging as key players in decarbonization efforts. Although the primary technology for producing renewable natural gas has been well implemented in the wastewater industry, the “decarbonization based goal setting” is trailing. This perspective assimilates existing literature presented in other contexts to highlight the need for framing the decarbonization dialog by using green hydrogen as a potential pathway for the wastewater industry. Specifically, we note the importance of (a) developing the decarbonization or net zero focus in the wastewater industry, and (b) colocating the wastewater industry with hydrogen production facilities. We also delve into technological, cost, and operational considerations to understand the readiness level of key stakeholders to identify future research and development opportunities for the wastewater hydrogen nexus.

Europe and North America account for 32 % of current carbon emissions. Due to distinct legacy systems, energy infrastructure, socioeconomic development, and energy resource endowment, both regions have different policy and technological pathways to reach net zero by the mid-century. Against this background, our paper examines the results from the net zero emission scenarios for Europe and North America that emerged from the collaboration of the European and American Energy Modeling Forums. In our analysis, we perform an inter-comparison of various integrated assessments and bottom-up energy system models. A clear qualitative consensus emerges on five main points. First, Europe and the United States reach net zero targets with electrification, demand-side reductions, and carbon capture and sequestration technologies. Second, the use of carbon capture and sequestration is more predominant in the United States due to a steeper decarbonization schedule. Third, the buildings sector is the easiest to electrify in both regions. Fourth, the industrial sector is the hardest to electrify in the United States and transportation in Europe.

Fifth, in both regions, the transition in the energy mix is driven by the substitution of coal and natural gas with solar and wind, but to a different extent.

This paper examines the MARKAL-NETL modeling results for the Energy Modeling Forum study on Deep Decarbonization and High Electrification Scenarios for North America (EMF 37) with a specific focus on carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies and opportunities under different scenario guidelines, policies, and technological advancements.

The results demonstrate that CDR, such as bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), direct air capture (DAC), and afforestation, are key technologies in deep decarbonization scenarios and account for 40–60 % of avoided carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions annually. From 2025 to 2050, cumulative CO₂ abatement by CDR technologies will range from 37 to 47 billion tons (GtCO₂), or more than 2 GtCO₂ annually by 2050. The potential scale of CDR and its impact depends on the advancement and costs of energy supply and demand technologies, end-use sector electrification, and availability and costs of CDR. Results show that the price of carbon is substantially lower when advanced technologies are available, particularly in the EMF 37 carbon management scenarios [1].

While BECCS deployment is likely to be constrained for environmental and/or political reasons, the results display relatively large-scale BECCS deployment. The study found that BECCS could make a substantial contribution to emissions reductions after 2035, and, in the medium term, CO₂ sequestration by BECCS will depend on CO₂ price; BECCS deployment starts at a carbon price of around $70/tCO₂. Long-term CO₂ sequestration by BECCS increases in all scenarios, reaching the same annual level of ∼890 MtCO₂ by 2050 in net-zero CO₂ scenarios. According to the modeling results, DAC acts as a true backstop technology at carbon prices of around $600/tCO₂.

The coal industry is enjoying long-term investments in new coal-fired power generation even as coal mining and production have been declining. Recent conflict in Europe has disrupted energy supplies and reinvigorated coal use. The duration of the retrenchment to coal may be short lived, but the end point of “short lived” remains uncertain. The present state of the coal industry and the investment community that underpins its growth obviates any meaningful acceleration in coal's phaseout as a core fuel resource. However, coal can be recast as a catalyst for achieving clean energy and economy futures. This can be done by seeing coal hydrocarbon deposits and byproducts of coal processing as long-term multi-asset resource platforms (MARPS), which integrate multiple new revenue streams on coal lands other than just mining coal as a fuel. New value comes from repurposing and leveraging mining lands, harvesting minor and trace elements from coal, and creating new revenue from harvesting hydrogen and carbon materials from coal bed methane, raw coal, coal tailings, and fly ash residues. We make the case that Coal Mining Enterprise (CME) value can be enhanced by ending the use of coal-as-fuel and creating new value streams serving existing and emerging markets by fully assessing, evaluating, and utilizing the portfolio of natural resources that are collocated within a typical coalfield. Coal sector investors tend not to see undervaluation in coal assets because CMEs focus predominantly on mining, processing, and shipping coal-as-fuel for electricity production and industrial processes. Formulating and asking the correct questions about how much value is being left on the table may bring innovation into a new frontier of coal as multi-asset resource platforms. Co-benefits of the approach include job creation across many viable emerging markets where “refining” coal is a competitive source of factor inputs. Moreover, it aids governments in aggressive support of coal industry transformations, through which lasting coal transition justice can be achieved. Ironically, despite all the technological and market uncertainties, coal in the 21st century can be, and should be, a critical success factor in achieving clean energy and economy futures.

The climate crisis requires the shift towards the decarbonization of economic activities, challenging regions reliant on fossil resource extraction. While the just transition framework typically focuses on long-term measures to transition coal-dependent regions to new industries, it often overlooks the potential for revitalizing the coal industry itself. This perspective introduces new opportunities to just transitions in which the coal industry actively collaborates to decarbonization efforts. To demonstrate this potential, we propose two innovative conceptual arrangements that highlight the potential contribution of the coal sector to provide essential services in the decarbonization pathways, namely carbon dioxide removal and the decarbonization of hard-to-abate sectors. These proposals suggest that just transition can have synergies to climate action (SDG 13), rather than only trade-offs. We urge further research to embrace this paradigm shift in the coal's industry just transition debate.

The study investigates the impact of fossil fuel prices on the regime-switching dynamics of economic policy uncertainty for the global economy. The period of investigation spans 25 years; comprising monthly data for the period of 1998:01 to 2023:03 and, due to its propensity to accommodate shocks, swings and shifts in the data, the technique of analysis employed is the Markov Switching Dynamic Regression. The principal component analysis (PCA) method was used in obtaining a composite index for the fossil fuel prices. The results obtained show evidence of regime-switching behaviour with five (5) times persistence of low to high global economic policy uncertainty. In addition, the study finds significant counter-cyclical and pro-cyclical effects of fossil fuel prices on global economic policy uncertainty; especially under the regime of high uncertainty. These results are consistent with the results for the composite index of fossil fuel prices but with alternate persistence effects. These suggest that policymakers should be concerned in stabilizing fluctuating fossil fuel prices in order to contain its spiralling and uncertain effects on the global economic policy. More so, governments should devise series of low carbon-emission means for home and industrial uses to ultimately reduce the excessive demand for fossil fuel so as to crash its prices in the international market.

One of the most critical issue facing humanity today is climate change, as the rising incidence of extreme weather events has surpassed the adaptive capacity of human societies. A fundamental transformation of the energy system is urgently needed to address this issue. To gain a better understanding of how exposure to extreme weather events and perceptions of climate change influence support for expanding renewable energies, a nationally representative survey was conducted in 2021, incorporating contextual data on the cost of billion-dollar disasters and carbon dependency. The study's findings suggest that extreme weather events influence the public's perception of climate change, especially among Republicans. Age also plays a role, with younger people more likely to prioritize climate change. Public support for renewable energies is influenced by the perception of climate change as a priority issue, and carbon dependency decreases support for renewable energies. Policymakers should focus on highlighting the link between extreme weather events and climate change, target younger generations with messages about climate change, and consider alternative approaches to supporting carbon-dependent regions. The study has some limitations, including that it is based on cross-sectional data which may not account for potential endogeneity. Additionally, there are no contextual variables at a geographic level finer than the state, and future research should consider adopting measures at finer scales such as county and zip code. The study's theoretical framework could be further validated by integrating observational climate extreme data into understanding individuals’ perception of local weather and climate, and future studies should adopt path analysis or structural equation modelling to validate the proposed path when all relevant variables are included.