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Comparison and interactions between the long-term pursuit of energy independence and climate policies

Nature Energy volume 1, Article number: 16073 (2016) Cite this article

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Abstract

Ensuring energy security and mitigating climate change are key energy policy priorities. The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group III report emphasized that climate policies can deliver energy security as a co-benefit, in large part through reducing energy imports. Using five state-of-the-art global energy-economy models and eight long-term scenarios, we show that although deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions would reduce energy imports, the reverse is not true: ambitious policies constraining energy imports would have an insignificant impact on climate change. Restricting imports of all fuels would lower twenty-first-century emissions by only 2–15% against the Baseline scenario as compared with a 70% reduction in a 450 stabilization scenario. Restricting only oil imports would have virtually no impact on emissions. The modelled energy independence targets could be achieved at policy costs comparable to those of existing climate pledges but a fraction of the cost of limiting global warming to 2 ∘C.

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Figure 1: Primary energy development under energy independence and climate policy scenarios.
Figure 2: Main energy system changes from energy independence compared with climate policies scenarios.
Figure 3: Emission and energy trade impacts of energy independence and climate policy scenarios.
Figure 4: Global policy costs for energy independence and climate policy scenarios to 2050.
Figure 5: Regional policy costs for energy independence compared with climate policy scenarios to 2050.

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Acknowledgements

The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme FP7/2007–2013 under grant agreement no. 282846 (LIMITS). A.C. and V.V. also received support from CEU’s Intellectual Themes Initiative. We would also like to thank P. Kolp for technical support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Energy Program, 2361 Laxenburg, Austria

    Jessica Jewell, David McCollum, Keywan Riahi, Oliver Fricko & Volker Krey

  2. Department of Environmental Science and Policy, Central European University, 1051 Budapest, Hungary

    Vadim Vinichenko & Aleh Cherp

  3. Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Research Domain Sustainable Solutions, 14473 Potsdam, Germany

    Nico Bauer & Tino Aboumahboub

  4. Graz University of Technology, 8010 Graz, Austria

    Keywan Riahi

  5. University of Utrecht, Faculty of Geosciences, 3584 CS Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Mathijs Harmsen & Detlef P. van Vuuren

  6. Department of Climate, PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, Air and Energy, 3720 AH Bilthoven, The Netherlands

    Mathijs Harmsen & Detlef P. van Vuuren

  7. Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands, Policy Studies, 1043 NT Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Tom Kober & Bob van der Zwaan

  8. Paul Scherrer Institut, Energy Economics Group, 5232 Villigen, Switzerland

    Tom Kober

  9. Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei, Climate Change and Sustainable Development Programme, 20123 Milan, Italy

    Giacomo Marangoni & Massimo Tavoni

  10. Centro Euromediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici, 73100 Lecce, Italy

    Giacomo Marangoni & Massimo Tavoni

  11. Department of Management, Politecnico di Milano, Economics and Industrial Engineering, 20156 Milan, Italy

    Giacomo Marangoni & Massimo Tavoni

  12. University of Amsterdam, Faculty of Science, 1098 Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Bob van der Zwaan

  13. Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies, 40126 Bologna, Italy

    Bob van der Zwaan

  14. International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics, Lund University, 22100 Lund, Sweden

    Aleh Cherp

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  1. Jessica Jewell
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Contributions

J.J., A.C., K.R., D.M. and V.K. designed the experiments. J.J. and V.V. analysed the data. V.V., D.M., N.B., T.A., O.F., M.H., T.K., V.K., G.M., M.T., D.P.v.V. and B.v.d.Z. performed the experiments and contributed tools and analysis methods. J.J. and A.C. wrote the paper with input from all authors.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jessica Jewell.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Supplementary Figures 1–13, Supplementary Tables 1–16, Supplementary Notes 1–5, Supplementary References. (PDF 2393 kb)

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Jewell, J., Vinichenko, V., McCollum, D. et al. Comparison and interactions between the long-term pursuit of energy independence and climate policies. Nat Energy 1, 16073 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nenergy.2016.73

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