Politically Feasible Emissions Targets to Attain 460 ppm CO2 Concentrations

A new climate change treaty must address three current gaps: the absence of emissions targets extending far into the future; the absence of participation by the United States, China, and other developing countries; and the absence of reasons to expect compliance. Moreover, to be politically acceptable, a post-Kyoto treaty must recognize certain constraints regarding country-by-country economic costs. This article presents a framework for assigning quantitative emissions allocations across countries, one budget period at a time, through a two-stage plan: (a) China and other developing countries accept targets at business-as-usual (BAU) levels in the coming budget period, and, during the same period, the United States agrees to cuts below BAU; (b) all countries are asked to make further cuts in the future in accordance with a formula that includes a Progressive Reductions Factor, a Latecomer Catch-up Factor, and a Gradual Equalization Factor. An earlier proposal (Frankel 2009) for specific parameter values in the formulas achieved the environmental goal that carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations plateau at 500 ppm by 2100. It met our political constraints by keeping every country’s economic cost below thresholds of Y = 1 percent of income in Present Discounted Value, and X = 5 percent of income in the worst period. The framework proposed in this article attains a stricter concentration goal of 460 ppm CO2 but only by loosening the political constraints

Politically Feasible Emission Target Formulas to Attain 460 ppm CO2 Concentrations

A new climate change treaty must plug three gaps: the absence of emission targets extending far into the future, the absence of participation by the United States, China, and other developing countries, and the absence of reason to expect compliance. To be politically acceptable, it must obey certain constraints regarding country-by-country economic costs. We offer a framework to assign quantitative emission allocations, across countries, one budget period at a time. The two-part plan: (i) China and other developing countries accept targets at BAU in the coming budget period, the same period in which the US first agrees to cuts below BAU; (ii) all countries are asked in the future to make further cuts in accordance with a formula which sums a Progressive Reductions Factor, Latecomer Catch-up Factor, and Gradual Equalization Factor. An earlier proposal for specific parameter values in the formulas achieved the environmental goal that CO2 concentrations plateau at 500 ppm by 2100. It obeyed our political constraints: keeping the economic cost for every country below thresholds of Y=1% of income in Present Discounted Value, and X=5% of income in the worst period. In this paper we attain a concentration goal of 460 ppm CO2, but only by loosening political constraints

Sustainable Cooperation in Global Climate Policy: Specific Formulas and Emission Targets

We explore a framework that could be used to assign quantitative allocations of emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs), across all countries, one budget period at a time, as envisioned at the December 2011 negotiations in Durban. Under the two-part plan: (i) China, India, and other developing countries accept targets at Business as Usual (BAU) in the coming budget period, the same period in which the US first agrees to cuts below BAU; and (ii) all countries are asked in the future to make further cuts in accordance with a common numerical formula to all. The formula is expressed as the sum of a Progressive Reductions Factor, a Latecomer Catch-up Factor, and a Gradual Equalization Factor. This paper builds on our previous work in many ways. First we update targets to reflect pledges made by governments after the Copenhagen Accord of December 2009 and confirmed at the Cancun meeting of December 2010. Second, the WITCH model, which we use to project economic and environmental effects of any given set of emission targets, has been refined and updated to reflect economic and technological developments. We include the possibility of emissions reduction from bio energy (BE), carbon capture and storage (CCS), and avoided deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) which is an important component of pledges in several developing countries. Third, we use a Nash criterion for evaluating whether a country’s costs are too high to sustain cooperation

Global Climate Policy Architecture and Political Feasibility: Specific Formulas and Emission Targets to Attain 460 ppm CO2 Concentrations

Many analysts have identified three important gaps in the Kyoto Protocol: the absence of emission targets extending far into the future, the absence of participation by the United States, China, and other developing countries, and the absence of reason to think that members will abide by commitments. It appears that political constraints on the country-by-country distribution of economic costs are a key stumbling block to filling these gaps. This paper investigates formulas that assign quantitative allocations of emissions, across countries, one budget period at a time, to see if it is possible to satisfy the constraints. The two-part plan: (i) China and other developing countries accept targets at BAU in the coming budget period, the same period in which the US first agrees to cuts below BAU; and (ii) all countries are asked in the future to make further cuts in accordance with a formula which sums up a Progressive Reductions Factor, a Latecomer Catch-up Factor, and a Gradual Equalization Factor. An earlier plan for specific parameter values in the formulas – Frankel (2009), as analyzed by Bosetti, et al (2009) – achieved the environmental goal that concentrations of CO2 plateau at 500 ppm by 2100. It succeeded in obeying our political constraints, such as keeping the economic cost for every country below the thresholds of Y=1% of income in Present Discounted Value, and X=5% of income in the worst period. In pursuit of more aggressive environmental goals, we now advance the dates at which some countries are asked to begin cutting below BAU, within our framework. We also tinker with the values for the parameters in the formulas. The resulting target paths for emissions are run through the WITCH model to find their economic and environmental effects. We find that it is not possible to attain a 380 ppm CO2 goal (roughly in line with the 2°C target) without violating our political constraints. We were however, able to attain a concentration goal of 460 ppm CO2 with looser political constraints. The most important result is that we had to raise the threshold of costs above which a country drops out, to as high as Y =3.4% of income in PDV terms, or X =12 % in the worst budget period. Whether one concludes from these results that the more aggressive environmental goals are, or are not, attainable at reasonable economic costs, the approach developed here provides a framework for exploring maximization of the tradeoff between the benefits of cutting global emissions and the political feasibility of getting individual countries to share the burden.

Sustainable Hydrogen Production via Sorption Enhanced Reforming of Complex Biorefinery Side Streams in a Fixed Bed Adiabatic Reactor

In this work, sorption enhanced steam reforming is explored as a potential solution for the valorization of gaseous streams recovered from biorefinery hydrogenation processes. The hydrogen content of such streams limits the hydrocarbon conversion in conventional steam reforming due to thermodynamic and kinetic constraints. A previously developed 1D dynamic heterogeneous model of an adiabatic reactor was thus applied to evaluate the effect of H-2 dilution on the performance indicators of the sorption enhanced reforming process. The mathematical model analysis highlights that despite of CO2 capture by the sorbent favorably modifies the thermodynamics of syngas production, H-2 dilution worsens the performance of the sorption enhanced reforming of model H-2/CH4 streams with respect to pure CH4. Results show a drop of 17% for CH4 conversion and a reduction of 15.4% of the captured CO2 on passing from pure methane to a H-2/CH4 feed with a 40/60 molar ratio. However, on increasing the heat capacity of the bed, by replacing part of the sorbent with an inert heat carrier, better performances are calculated for the H-2/CH4 feed matching the pure CH4 case. The presence of C2+ hydrocarbons is assessed as well and the results show a significant improvement in the reformer's performance; in the case of a stream composed of H-2/CH4/C3H8 with a molar ratio 40/45/15, the total hydrocarbon conversion grows to 92.8%, CO2 capture ratio to 82.6%, and H-2 purity to 95.6%. The positive effect is associated with thermal factors that promote the reaction kinetics. Thus, the suitability of the sorption enhanced reforming technology to H-2-rich and C-poor streams is strictly composition dependent; by cofeeding of C2+ hydrocarbons, the process turns into a remarkable solution for converting gaseous streams in pure H-2

Simulations from a new neutrino event generator

We construct a new Monte Carlo generator of events for neutrino interactions. The dynamical models for quasi-elastic reactions, $\Delta$ excitation and more inelastic events described by the DIS formalism with the PDFs modified according to recent JLab data are used. We describe in detail single pion production channels, which combine the $\Delta$ excitation and DIS contribution. Many comparisons of the outcome of simulations with experimental data are presented.Comment: To appear in the proceedings of 4th International Workshop on Neutrino Nucleus Interactions in the Few GeV Region (NuInt05), Okayama, Japan, 26-29 September, 200