Expert perceptions of game-changing innovations towards net zero

Current technological improvements are yet to put the world on track to net-zero, which will require the uptake of transformative low-carbon innovations to supplement mitigation efforts. However, the role of such innovations is not yet fully understood; some of these ‘miracles’ are considered indispensable to Paris Agreement-compliant mitigation, but their limitations, availability, and potential remain a source of debate. We evaluate such potentially game-changing innovations from the experts' perspective, aiming to support the design of realistic decarbonisation scenarios and better-informed net-zero policy strategies. In a worldwide survey, 260 climate and energy experts assessed transformative innovations against their mitigation potential, at-scale availability and/or widescale adoption, and risk of delayed diffusion. Hierarchical clustering and multi-criteria decision-making revealed differences in perceptions of core technological innovations, with next-generation energy storage, alternative building materials, iron-ore electrolysis, and hydrogen in steelmaking emerging as top priorities. Instead, technologies highly represented in well-below-2°C scenarios seemingly feature considerable and impactful delays, hinting at the need to re-evaluate their role in future pathways. Experts' assessments appear to converge more on the potential role of other disruptive innovations, including lifestyle shifts and alternative economic models, indicating the importance of scenarios including non-technological and demand-side innovations. To provide insights for expert elicitation processes, we finally note caveats related to the level of representativeness among the 260 engaged experts, the level of their expertise that may have varied across the examined innovations, and the potential for subjective interpretation to which the employed linguistic scales may be prone to

The UK and German low-carbon industry transitions from a sectoral innovation and system failures perspective

Industrial processes are associated with high amounts of energy consumed and greenhouse gases emitted, stressing the urgent need for low-carbon sectoral transitions. This research reviews the energy-intensive iron and steel, cement and chemicals industries of Germany and the United Kingdom, two major emitting countries with significant activity, yet with different recent orientation. Our socio-technical analysis, based on the Sectoral Innovation Systems and the Systems Failure framework, aims to capture existing and potential drivers of or barriers to diffusion of sustainable industrial technologies and extract implications for policy. Results indicate that actor structures and inconsistent policies have limited low-carbon innovation. A critical factor for the successful decarbonisation of German industry lies in overcoming lobbying and resistance to technological innovation caused by strong networks. By contrast, a key to UK industrial decarbonisation is to drive innovation and investment in the context of an industry in decline and in light of Brexit-related uncertainty

COVID-19 recovery packages can benefit climate targets and clean energy jobs, but scale of impacts and optimal investment portfolios differ among major economies

To meet the Paris temperature targets and recover from the effects of the pandemic, many countries have launched economic recovery plans, including specific elements to promote clean energy technologies and green jobs. However, how to successfully manage investment portfolios of green recovery packages to optimize both climate mitigation and employment benefits remains unclear. Here, we use three energy-economic models, combined with a portfolio analysis approach, to find optimal low-carbon technology subsidy combinations in six major emitting regions: Canada, China, the European Union (EU), India, Japan, and the United States (US). We find that, although numerical estimates differ given different model structures, results consistently show that a >50% investment in solar photovoltaics is more likely to enable CO2 emissions reduction and green jobs, particularly in the EU and China. Our study illustrates the importance of strategically managing investment portfolios in recovery packages to enable optimal outcomes and foster a post-pandemic green economy

Towards a green recovery in the EU: Aligning further emissions reductions with short- and long-term energy-sector employment gains

To tackle the negative socioeconomic implications of the COVID-19 pandemic, the European Union (EU) introduced the Recovery and Resilience Facility, a financial instrument to help Member States recover, on the basis that minimum 37% of the recovery funds flow towards the green transition. This study contributes to the emerging modelling literature on assessing COVID-19 vis-à-vis decarbonisation efforts, with a particular focus on employment, by optimally allocating the green part of the EU recovery stimulus in selected low-carbon technologies and quantifying the trade-offs between resulting emissions reductions and employment gains in the energy sector. We couple an integrated assessment model with a multi-objective linear-programming model and an uncertainty analysis framework aiming to identify robust portfolio mixes. We find that it is possible to allocate recovery packages to align mitigation goals with both short- and long-term energy-sector employment, although over-emphasising the longer-term sustainability of new energy-sector jobs may be costlier and more vulnerable to uncertainties compared to prioritising environmental and near-term employment gains. Robust portfolios with balanced performance across objectives consistently feature small shares of offshore wind and nuclear investments, while the largest chunks are dominated by onshore wind and biofuels, two technologies with opposite impacts on near- and long-term employment gains

Climate and sustainability co-governance in Kenya: A multi-criteria analysis of stakeholders' perceptions and consensus

The Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development embody highly intertwined targets to act for climate in conjunction with sustainable development. This, however, entails different meanings and challenges across the world. Kenya, in particular, needs to address serious sustainability threats, like poverty and lack of modern and affordable energy access. This study uses a multi-criteria group decision aid and consensus measuring framework, to integrate both agendas, and engages with Kenyan stakeholders to help inform future mitigation research and policy in the country. Results showed that stakeholders highlight topics largely underrepresented in model-based mitigation analysis, such as biodiversity preservation and demand-side transformations, while pointing to gaps in cross-sectoral policies in relation to access to modern energy, agriculture, life on land, and climate change mitigation. With numerous past and recent policies aiming at these issues, persistent stakeholder concerns over these topics hint at limited success. Sectoral and technological priorities only recently emphasised in Kenyan policy efforts are also correlated with stakeholders' concerns, highlighting that progress is not only a matter of legislation, but also of coordination, consistency of targets, and comprehensibility. Higher bias is found among the preferences of stakeholders coming from the country's private sector. Results from this exercise can inform national policymakers on effectively reshaping the future direction of the country, as well as modelling efforts aimed at underpinning Kenya's energy, climate and sustainable development policy

Coupling circularity performance and climate action: from disciplinary silos to transdisciplinary modelling science

Technological breakthroughs and policy measures targeting energy efficiency and clean energy alone will not suffice to deliver Paris Agreement-compliant greenhouse gas emissions trajectories in the next decades. Strong cases have recently been made for acknowledging the decarbonisation potential lying in transforming linear economic models into closed-loop industrial ecosystems and in shifting lifestyle patterns towards this direction. This perspective highlights the research capacity needed to inform on the role and potential of the circular economy for climate change mitigation and to enhance the scientific capabilities to quantitatively explore their synergies and trade-offs. This begins with establishing conceptual and methodological bridges amongst the relevant and currently fragmented research communities, thereby allowing an interdisciplinary integration and assessment of circularity, decarbonisation, and sustainable development. Following similar calls for science in support of climate action, a transdisciplinary scientific agenda is needed to co-create the goals and scientific processes underpinning the transition pathways towards a circular, net-zero economy with representatives from policy, industry, and civil society. Here, it is argued that such integration of disciplines, methods, and communities can then lead to new and/or structurally enhanced quantitative systems models that better represent critical industrial value chains, consumption patterns, and mitigation technologies. This will be a crucial advancement towards assessing the material implications of, and the contribution of enhanced circularity performance to, mitigation pathways that are compatible with the temperature goals of the Paris Agreement and the transition to a circular economy

Where is the EU headed given its current climate policy? A stakeholder-driven model inter-comparison.

Recent calls to do climate policy research with, rather than for, stakeholders have been answered in non-modelling science. Notwithstanding progress in modelling literature, however, very little of the scenario space traces back to what stakeholders are ultimately concerned about. With a suite of eleven integrated assessment, energy system and sectoral models, we carry out a model inter-comparison for the EU, the scenario logic and research questions of which have been formulated based on stakeholders' concerns. The output of this process is a scenario framework exploring where the region is headed rather than how to achieve its goals, extrapolating its current policy efforts into the future. We find that Europe is currently on track to overperforming its pre-2020 40% target yet far from its newest ambition of 55% emissions cuts by 2030, as well as looking at a 1.0-2.35 GtCO2 emissions range in 2050. Aside from the importance of transport electrification, deployment levels of carbon capture and storage are found intertwined with deeper emissions cuts and with hydrogen diffusion, with most hydrogen produced post-2040 being blue. Finally, the multi-model exercise has highlighted benefits from deeper decarbonisation in terms of energy security and jobs, and moderate to high renewables-dominated investment needs

Navigating through an energy crisis: Challenges and progress towards electricity decarbonisation, reliability, and affordability in Italy

Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine and amidst COVID-19 recovery efforts, the energy crisis has put enormous pressure to policymakers to balance climate action, sustainable development, and management of the impacts of fuel supply disruptions and price shocks. Policy and market responses, such as liquefied natural gas infrastructure investments and use of every available fossil-fuel lever to make up for Russian gas supply cuts, are feared to trigger new lock-ins, jeopardising decarbonisation. This is also the case in Italy, which is highly dependent on Russia-imported gas. Energy models typically used to support such decisions take time to produce meaningful scenarios and, in times of crisis, are largely driven by highly uncertain parameters. This study uses fuzzy cognitive maps to engage with experts in a workshop and elicit their knowledge and perceptions with the aid of a questionnaire, towards simulating the impact of selected strategies and important uncertainties on the three pillars of Italy's progress to electricity-sector sustainability: decarbonisation, affordability, and reliability. In a framework of deliberation and simulation, experts displayed strong preference for renewable energy, compared to new gas infrastructure. Renewables were notably deemed to have positive impacts across all three sustainabiltiy dimensions and were found more robust against uncertainties, such as regulatory and political instability, which was highlighted as the biggest risk. Critically, despite their expectedly positive impact, demand-side transformations including demand reductions and broader behavioural shifts—a core component of the EU's current approach—may prove inadequate, should large system pressures from negative socio- and techno-economic developments persist

Perspective of comprehensive and comprehensible multi-model energy and climate science in Europe

Europe's capacity to explore the envisaged pathways that achieve its near- and long-term energy and climate objectives needs to be significantly enhanced. In this perspective, we discuss how this capacity is supported by energy and climate-economy models, and how international modelling teams are organised within structured communication channels and consortia as well as coordinate multi-model analyses to provide robust scientific evidence. Noting the lack of such a dedicated channel for the highly active yet currently fragmented European modelling landscape, we highlight the importance of transparency of modelling capabilities and processes, harmonisation of modelling parameters, disclosure of input and output datasets, interlinkages among models of different geographic granularity, and employment of models that transcend the highly harmonised core of tools used in model inter-comparisons. Finally, drawing from the COVID-19 pandemic, we discuss the need to expand the modelling comfort zone, by exploring extreme scenarios, disruptive innovations, and questions that transcend the energy and climate goals across the sustainability spectrum. A comprehensive and comprehensible multi-model framework offers a real example of “collective” science diplomacy, as an instrument to further support the ambitious goals of the EU Green Deal, in compliance with the EU claim to responsible research

A multimodel analysis of post-Glasgow climate targets and feasibility challenges

The COP26 Glasgow process resulted in many countries strengthening their 2030 emissions reduction targets and announcing net-zero pledges for 2050–2070 but it is not clear how this would impact future warming. Here, we use four diverse integrated assessment models (IAMs) to assess CO2 emission trajectories in the near- and long-term on the basis of national policies and pledges, combined with a non-CO2 infilling model and a simple climate model to assess the temperature implications. We also consider the feasibility of national long-term pledges towards net-zero. While near-term pledges alone lead to warming above 2 °C, the addition of long-term pledges leads to emissions trajectories compatible with a future well below 2 °C, across all four IAMs. However, while IAM heterogeneity translates to diverse decarbonization pathways towards long-term targets, all modelled pathways indicate several feasibility concerns, relating to the cost of mitigation and the rates and scales of deployed technologies and measures