| 1. |
- Bolin, Bert, 1925-, et al.
(författare)
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Climate Risk Management: Are we ignoring the obvious?
- 2004
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The climate problem can be characterized by a curious concurrence of phenomena: universal agreement that something bad or even catastrophic might be happening, and universal inability to manage risks ex ante. This dilemma can, in a nutshell, be attributed to the fact that substantial costs of reducing human forcing of climate change would start biting now, but evidence of benefits from early action will remain cloudy for decades and worst effects might not be felt for centuries. We argue that due to ignorance about Abrupt Climate Change (ACC) and Negative Emission Technologies (NET) in the assessment of climate risk management strategies, the scientific and political discussion has so far been socially constructed.We show that the only GHG concentration policy in conformity to the UNFCCC is to bring concentrations back to its stable bounds within which it oscillated for the past 420 thousand years. A low GHG concentration target will not only minimize the risk of irreversible extreme weather and abrupt climate events, but also reduce the associated uncertainties. We will illustrate this point by simulations of ecosystem collapse and economic underdevelopment induced by events of ACC.Despite enormous efforts in building emission scenarios, the attainability of such an obvious concentration target has never been assessed. We are able to show that NET, that have been so far ignored in GHG control assessments, are an additional option that could enable reduction of atmospheric CO2 concentrations to levels lower than what could otherwise have been achieved within certain time frames. In addition, NET can substantially reduce the cost of low-emission scenarios. NET can, thus, as a preventive mitigation technology help to control risk exposure and improve mankind’s ability to manage climate risks ex ante.
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| 2. |
- Möllersten, Kenneth, 1966-, et al.
(författare)
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Negative emission biomass technologies in an uncertain climate future
- 2006
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Ingår i: Progress in Biomass and Bioenergy Research. - New York : Nova Science Publishers, Inc.. - 1600213286 ; , s. 217-
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Mitigation of and adaptation to climate change belong to the most pressing global challenges for the 21st century. Major mitigation options include improved energy efficiency, shifting towards less carbon-intensive fossil fuels, increased use of energy sources with near-zero emissions, such as renewables and nuclear, CO2 capture and permanent storage (CCS), and carbon sequestration by protection and enhancement of biological absorption capacity in forests and soils.Bioenergy is one of several energy sources which could provide society with energy services with near-zero emissions. Bioenergy has a unique feature, however, which distinguishes it from other low-emitting energy supply options, such as solar, wind, nuclear, and clean fossil energy technologies. Bioenergy conversion could be integrated with a process which separates carbon. If the biomass feedstock is sustainably produced and the separated carbon is subsequently isolated from the atmosphere for a very long time the entire process becomes a continuous carbon sink – in other words such technologies yield negative CO2 emissions. Negative emission biomass technologies can be centralised or distributed; Centralised negative emission biomass technologies, biomass energy with CO2 capture and storage (BECS), build on the conversion of biomass into energy carriers in centralised conversion plants integrated with CO2 capture. The captured CO2 is subsequently transported and stored in geological formations. Distributed negative emission biomass technologies are based on the production of long-term carbon-sequestering charcoal soil amendment, with or without co-production of biofuels.In this chapter a BECS implementation scenario study is presented. The study analyses investments in BECS in a pulp and paper mill environment. The investment analysis is carried out within a real options framework taking into account the potential revenue from trading generated emission allowances on a carbon market. Uncertainty is considered in the economic modelling through the use of stochastically correlated price processes of one input price (biomass) and two output prices (electricity and CO2 emission permits) that are consistent with shadow price trajectories of a large-scale global energy model. The results suggest that BECS can be economically feasible within approximately 40 years.The chapter also discusses Research and Development needs for better understanding of the future overall potential of negative emission biomass technology implementation.
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| 3. |
- Obersteiner, Michael, 1967-, et al.
(författare)
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Biomass Energy, Carbon Removaland Permanent Sequestration : A ‘Real Option’ for Managing Climate Risk
- 2001
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) calls forstabilization of greenhouse gases (GHGs) at a safe level, and it also prescribesprecautionary measures to anticipate, prevent, or minimize the causes of climate changeand mitigate their adverse effects. In order to achieve this goal, such measures should becost-effective and scientific uncertainty on threats of serious or irreversible damageshould not be used as a reason for postponing them. In this sense, the UNFCCC can beunderstood as a responsive climate management scheme that calls for precautionary andanticipatory risk management, where in a continuous sense-response mode, expectedclimate-related losses are in an uncertainty augmented analysis balanced againstadaptation and mitigation costs.In this paper we investigate a component of a wider technological portfolio of climaterisk management. In particular, we will investigate the properties of biomass-basedsequestration technologies with respect to their potential role in climate riskmanagement. We use the theory of modern asset pricing, commonly known as realoption valuation, in order to assess this technology on global and long-term scales.Biomass energy can be used to produce both carbon neutral energy carriers, e.g.,electricity and hydrogen, and at the same time offer a permanent CO2 sink by capturingcarbon from the biomass at the conversion facility and permanently storing it ingeological formations. To illustrate the long-term potential of energy-related biomassuse in combination with carbon capture and sequestration, we performed an ex postanalysis based on a representative subset of the Intergovernmental Panel on ClimateChange (IPCC) reference scenarios developed with the MESSAGE-MACRO modelingframework. The cumulative carbon emissions reduction in the 21st century may exceed450 gigatons of carbon, which represents more than 35% of the total emissions of thereference scenarios, and could lead, in cases of low shares of fossil fuel consumption, tonet removal of carbon from the atmosphere (negative emissions) before the end of thiscentury. The long-run technological potential of such a permanent sink technology islarge enough to neutralize historical fossil fuel emissions and cover a significant part ofglobal energy and raw material demand. The economic potential might turn out to besmaller, if the signposts of climate change do not require that negative emissions, as areal option, need to be exercised.The main policy conclusion is that investments in both expanding the absorptivecapacity for carbon (expanding carbon stocks) and research and development (R&D)investments for developing negative emission technologies as a viable technologycluster should not only be (socially) priced against all other mitigation technologies bysimple Net Present Value calculation (working only with the average expected loss), butaccording to a real option valuation given the full uncertainty spectrum of expected(economic) losses due to human induced climate change. The questions of how muchand when sinks have to be committed as real options for robust climate managementdepend on the properties of the climate signal and the nations’ degree of risk aversion― both are yet to be fully quantified.
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| 4. |
- Obersteiner, Michael, 1967-, et al.
(författare)
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Managing Climate Risk
- 2001
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- At the heart of the traditional approach to strategy in the climate change dilemma liesthe assumption that the global community, by applying a set of powerful analyticaltools, can predict the future of climate change accurately enough to choose a clearstrategic direction for it. We claim that this approach might involve underestimatinguncertainty in order to lay out a vision of future events sufficiently precise to becaptured in a discounted cost flow analysis in integrated assessment models. However,since the future of climate change is truly uncertain, this approach might at best bemarginally helpful and at worst downright dangerous: underestimating uncertainty canlead to strategies that do not defend the world against unexpected and sometimes evencatastrophic threats. Another danger lies on the other extreme: if the global communitycan not find a strategy that works under traditional analysis or if uncertainties are toolarge that clear messages are absent, they may abandon the analytical rigor of theirplanning process altogether and base their decisions on good instinct and consensus ofsome future process that is easy to agree upon.In this paper, we try to outline a system to derive strategic decisions under uncertaintyfor the climate change dilemma. What follows is a framework for determining the levelof uncertainty surrounding strategic decisions and for tailoring strategy to thatuncertainty.Our core argument is that a robust strategy towards climate change involves thebuilding of a technological portfolio of mitigation and adaptation measures that includessufficient opposite technological positions to the underlying baseline emission scenariosgiven the uncertainties of the entire physical and socioeconomic system in place. In thecase of mitigation, opposite technological positions with the highest leverage areparticular types of sinks. A robust climate risk management portfolio can only workwhen the opposite technological positions are readily available when needed andtherefore they have to be prepared in advance. It is precisely the flexibility of thesetechnological options which has to be quantified under the perspective of the uncertainnature of the underlying system and compared to the cost of creating these options,rather than comparing their cost with expected losses in a net present value typeanalysis. We conclude that climate policy ― especially under the consideration of theprecautionary principle ― would look much different if uncertainties would be takenexplicitly into account.
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| 5. |
- Yan, Jinyue, 1959-, et al.
(författare)
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Negative Emission Technologies - NETs
- 2019
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Ingår i: Applied Energy. - : Elsevier BV. - 0306-2619 .- 1872-9118. ; 255, s. 1-3
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
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