The effectiveness of policy on consumer choices for private road passenger transport emissions reductions in six major economies

This is the final version. Available from IOP Publishing via the DOI in this record. The effectiveness of fiscal policy to influence vehicle purchases for emissions reductions in private passenger road transport depends on its ability to incentivise consumers to make choices oriented towards lower emissions vehicles. However, car purchase choices are known to be strongly socially determined, and this sector is highly diverse due to significant socio-economic differences between consumer groups. Here, we present a comprehensive dataset and analysis of the structure of the 2012 private passenger vehicle fleet-years in six major economies across the World (UK, USA, China, India, Japan and Brazil) in terms of price, engine size and emissions distributions. We argue that choices and aggregate elasticities of substitution can be predicted using this data, enabling us to evaluate the effectiveness of potential fiscal and technological change policies on fleet-year emissions reductions. We provide tools to do so based on the distributive structure of prices and emissions in segments of a diverse market, both for conventional as well as unconventional engine technologies. We find that markets differ significantly between nations, and that correlations between engine sizes, emissions and prices exist strongly in some markets and not strongly in others. We furthermore find that markets for unconventional engine technologies have patchy coverages of varying levels. These findings are interpreted in terms of policy strategy.UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC

The effectiveness of policy on consumer choices for private road passenger transport emissions reductions in six major economies

This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from IOP via http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/10/6/064008The effectiveness of fiscal policy to in uence vehicle purchases for emissions reductions in private passenger road transport depends on its ability to incentivise consumers to make choices oriented towards lower emissions vehicles. However, car purchase choices are known to be strongly socially determined, and this sector is highly diverse due to significant socio-economic differences between consumer groups. Here, we present a comprehensive dataset and analysis of the structure of the 2012 private passenger vehicle eet-years in six major economies across the World (UK, USA, China, India, Japan and Brazil) in terms of price, engine size and emissions distributions. We argue that choices and aggregate elasticities of substitution can be predicted using this data, enabling to evaluate the effectiveness of potential fiscal and technological change policies on eet-year emissions reductions. We provide tools to do so based on the distributive structure of prices and emissions in segments of a diverse market, both for conventional as well as unconventional engine technologies. We find that markets differ significantly between nations, and that correlations between engine sizes, emissions and prices exist strongly in some markets and not strongly in others. We furthermore find that markets for unconventional engine technologies have patchy coverages of varying levels. These findings are interpreted in terms of policy strategy.We acknowledge our respective funders, the Three Guineas Trust (A. Lam) and the UK Engi- neering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), fellowship no EP/K007254/1 (J.-F. Mercure)

Integrated assessment modelling as a positive science: private passenger road transport policies to meet a climate target well below 2 0C

This is the final version. Available from Springer Verlag via the DOI in this record.Transport generates a large and growing component of global greenhouse gas emissions contributing to climate change. Effective transport emissions reduction policies are needed in order to reach a climate target well below 2 ∘C. Representations of technology evolution in current integrated assessment models (IAM) make use of systems optimisations that may not always provide sufficient insight on consumer response to realistic policy packages for extensive use in policy-making. Here, we introduce FTT: transport, an evolutionary technology diffusion simulation model for road transport technology, as an IAM sub-component, which features sufficiently realistic features of consumers and of existing technological trajectories that enables to simulate the impact of detailed climate policies in private passenger road transport. Integrated to the simulation-based macroeconometric IAM E3ME-FTT, a plausible scenario of transport decarbonisation is given, defined by a detailed transport policy package, that reaches sufficient emissions reductions to achieve the 2 ∘C target of the Paris Agreement.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC

Macroeconomic impact of stranded fossil-fuel assets

Several major economies rely heavily on fossil-fuel production and exports, yet current low-carbon technology diffusion, energy efficiency and climate policy may be substantially reducing global demand for fossil fuels.1-4 This trend is inconsistent with observed investment in new fossil-fuel ventures1,2, which could become stranded as a result. Here we use an integrated global economy environment simulation model to study the macroeconomic impact of stranded fossil-fuel assets (SFFA). Our analysis suggests that part of the SFFA would occur as a result of an already ongoing technological trajectory, irrespective of whether new climate policies are adopted or not; the loss would be amplified if new climate policies to reach the 2°C target are adopted and/or if low-cost producers (some OPEC countries) maintain their level of production (‘sell-out’) despite declining demand; the magnitude of the loss from SFFA may amount to a discounted global wealth loss of $1-4tn; and there are clear distributional impacts, with winners (e.g. net importers such as China or the EU) and losers (e.g. Russia, the US or Canada, which could see their fossil-fuel industries nearly shut down), although the two effects would largely offset each other at the level of aggregate global GDP.The authors acknowledge C-EERNG and Cambridge Econometrics for support, and funding from EPSRC (JFM, fellowship no. EP/ K007254/1); the Newton Fund (JFM, PS, JV, EPSRC grant no EP/N002504/1 and ESRC grant no ES/N013174/1), NERC (NRE, PH, HP, grant no NE/P015093/1), CONICYT (PS), the Philomathia Foundation (JV), the Cambridge Humanities Research Grants Scheme (JV), and Horizon 2020 (HP, JFM; Sim4Nexus project)

Which policy mixes are best for decarbonising passenger cars? Simulating interactions among taxes, subsidies and regulations for the United Kingdom, the United States, Japan, China, and India

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via the DOI in this record Reducing transport emissions, in particular CO2 emissions from passenger vehicles, is a key element in mitigating the risk of climate change. Conventional welfare economics recommends the use of comprehensive pricing of carbon emissions, which may not necessarily be the most effective approach in transport systems. This paper uses an evolutionary technology diffusion model to simulate the impact of climate policies on passenger car emissions in the US, UK, Japan, China and India up to 2050, seeking to understand policy interaction. We analyse six commonly seen policy instruments and explore systematically the impact of combining each of these policies by developing 63 scenarios for the US, UK, China, Japan, and India. We assess both the policies’ effectiveness in achieving emissions reductions and their cost-effectiveness in doing so. We show how the diffusion dynamics of the system can lead to interaction of policy levers, generating synergies in some cases (combined effectiveness more than the sum of its parts), and mutual impediment effects in others (combined effectiveness less than the sum of its parts). The paper identifies particular combinations of regulatory, procurement and fiscal policies that are particularly effective at generating rapid change without needing the use of very high fuel taxes or carbon pricing. Notably, combining electric vehicle mandates with taxes and regulations on combustion vehicles is highly effective, as it simultaneously improves the availability of low-carbon options while penalising high carbon options. Simple principles for policymaking can be inferred

Evidence for a global electric vehicle tipping point

This is the final version. Available from the Global Systems Institute, University of Exeter via the link in this recordGSI scientific working paper series number 2022/01Electric vehicles (EVs) can reduce road transport emissions and have recently seen rapid innovation, decline in cost and a rise in popularity. Achieving a transition to EVs hinges upon their accessibility to current users of internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEV). Here we show with historical evidence that globally, an irreversible private passenger EV diffusion tipping point may have been crossed, where sales of ICEVs decline in leading markets, as preferences fo r and access to EVs rise, in a selfreinforcing manner. We analyse the structure and dynamics between 2016 and 2021 of four leading car markets comprehensively. The pandemic has drastically affected ICEV sales: many models are now planned to be discontinue d, while EVs see unaffected rapid growth and achieve cost parity within a few years. We suggest that coordinated policy incorporating EV mandates in the leading car markets could induce an EV transition in the rest of the world

Changes in plant communities over three decades on two disturbed bogs in southeastern Quebec.

Abstract Questions: Have the natural plant communities of two mined bogs experienced changes in composition and richness over a three-decade period, and are these changes associated with anthropogenic disturbances? Location: Bas-Saint-Laurent region, southeastern Que´bec, Canada. Methods: We monitored three decades of floristic changes in two disturbed bogs by revisiting 57 plots in 1998, which were previously sampled in 1965 and 1966. Changes in species richness and composition were evaluated using Wilcoxon signed rank tests, principal component analysis and partial redundancy analyses (pRDA). We also used pRDA and an indicator species analysis to determine which species had undergone the greatest changes over time. Variation partitioning was used to evaluate the relative influence of human disturbance in compositional change. Results: The main changes in the vegetation of the two bogs were 1) a decrease of overall species diversity, 2) an increase in the percent cover of trees and of species tolerant of shade or drought, and 3) a decrease in the cover of heliophilous species. Picea mariana, Sphagnum fuscum and Pleurozium schreberi increased in percent cover while Chamaedaphne calyculata and Sphagnum rubellum decreased in percent cover. Variation partitioning suggested that human activities had a significant impact on vegetation composition. Conclusion: The results indicated that substantial changes occurred in the vegetation of the natural fragments of these severely disturbed bogs. Although human activities were partially responsible for the changes, our study suggested that the drying of the peat surface due to drought during the 1960s and 1980s may have contributed to the vegetation changes

Climate model emulation in an integrated assessment framework: a case study for mitigation policies in the electricity sector

We present a carbon-cycle–climate modelling framework using model emulation, designed for integrated assessment modelling, which introduces a new emulator of the carbon cycle (GENIEem). We demonstrate that GENIEem successfully reproduces the CO2 concentrations of the Representative Concentration Pathways when forced with the corresponding CO2 emissions and non-CO2 forcing. To demonstrate its application as part of the integrated assessment framework, we use GENIEem along with an emulator of the climate (PLASIM- ENTSem) to evaluate global CO2 concentration levels and spatial temperature and precipitation response pat- terns resulting from CO2 emission scenarios. These scenarios are modelled using a macroeconometric model (E3MG) coupled to a model of technology substitution dynamics (FTT), and represent different emissions reduction policies applied solely in the electricity sector, without mitigation in the rest of the economy. The effect of cascading uncertainty is apparent, but despite uncertainties, it is clear that in all scenarios, global mean tem- peratures in excess of 2 °C above pre-industrial levels are projected by the end of the century. Our approach also highlights the regional temperature and precipitation patterns associated with the global mean temperature change occurring in these scenarios, enabling more robust impacts modelling and emphasizing the necessity of focusing on spatial patterns in addition to global mean temperature change