The european energy system in the context of long term climate policies

Abstract

The future of the European energy system will strongly depend on a future world energy context that will be dominated by two key challenges. The first challenge corresponds to the necessity of meeting the energy needs of a growing population in Asia, South America and Africa, while some key energy resources – oil and natural gas – enter in a process of increasing scarcity. The second challenge results from the need to rapidly adjust the structure of the world energy system in order to meet the tightening constraints induced by the will to limit anthropogenic climate change. Both issues are clearly strategic for Europe as on the one hand the Union will have to master a growing import dependency from the international markets and neighbouring regions, and as on the other hand it intends to take the lead on the international scene for climate change mitigation policies.Analyses of world long term energy scenario show that the growing scarcity on hydrocarbon supply will not solve the climate change problem as it will rather result in increased coal consumption. Conversely seriously addressing the climate change challenge will imply lower fossil fuel consumption, allow an extension of oil and gas reserves and lead to a real double dividend in terms of sustainability: by climate change mitigation and by reduced tensions and risks of crises on the oil and gas markets. Similarly, ambitious GHG abatement scenarios for Europe will allow limiting the Union's import dependency, which is of course one key element of overall security. Thus, addressing the fossil fuel emissions abatement issue clearly appears as a top priority on the agenda. In this paper we focus on what GHG emissions mitigation policies mean for the European energy system within a global frameworkPROSPECTIVE ; LONG TERM ; CLIMATE POLICY ; EUROPE ; ENERGY SYSTEM