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- Babiker, Mustafa, et al.
(author)
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What the latest science on climate change mitigation means for cities and urban areas
- 2022
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Reports (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The Summary for Urban Policymakers (SUP) initiative provides a distillation of the IPCC reports into accessible and targeted summaries that can help inform action at city and regional scales. Volume I in the series, What the Latest Physical Science of Climate Change Means for Cities, identified the ways in which human-induced climate change is affecting every region of the world, and the cities and urban areas therein. Volume II, Climate Change in Cities and Urban Areas: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, assessed the feasibility and effectiveness of different adaptation options. To achieve climate resilient development, synergies between policies and actions for climate change adaptation, mitigation and other development goals are needed.This third volume in the series, What the Latest Science on Climate Change Mitigation Means for Cities and Urban Areas offers a concise and accessible distillation of the IPCC Working Group III Report for urban policymakers. The 21st century is characterized by a rapidly growing urban population, urban land expansion and associated rise in demand for resources, infrastructure and services. These trends are expected to drive the growth in emissions from urban consumption and production through 2100, although the rate of urban emissions growth will depend on the type of urbanisation and the speed and scale of mitigation action implemented. Aggressive and ambitious policies for transition towards net zero greenhouse gas emissions can be implemented in cities and urban areas, while contributing to sustainable development. Ultimately, mitigation action and adaptation are interdependent processes, and pursuing these actions together can promote sustainable development.
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| 2. |
- Heuer, Rolf-Dieter, et al.
(author)
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Ex post evaluation of the activities of the joint research centre under Horizon 2020 and Euratom 2014-2020
- 2022
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Reports (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The report is the result of the external Panel ex post evaluation of the JRC activities under H2020 and Euratom 2014-2020. It provides the independent assessment requested in the Council Decisions concerning the specific programmes to be carried out by means of direct actions by the Joint Research Centre implementing the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme (2014-2020) of the European Commission and of the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom). The evaluation has been conducted by a panel of independent external experts under the chairmanship of Dr Rolf-Dieter Heuer. In this report the Panel concludes positively on the effectiveness of the JRC as the Commission’s science service in support of Euratom and EU policies. Besides a number of recommendations for incremental improvement of the JRC, the Panel has flagged that the JRC is in a unique position as a provider of independent scientific evidence inside the European Commission, but, because of this, the JRC and its research work are less visible to the outside world than they merit. The Panel also flags that the JRC and its stakeholders, internal and external to the Commission, would also benefit from more communication and interactions. The Panel has particularly appreciated the meetings with the stakeholders that gave much insight into the cooperation between the JRC and the other parts of the Commission, supporting our positive assessment and our suggestions for improvement.
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| 3. |
- Lovins, Amory, et al.
(author)
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Recalibrating Climate Prospects
- 2019
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In: Environmental Research Letters. - : IOP Publishing. - 1748-9326. ; 14:12
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- IPCC's 2018 Special Report is a stark and bracing reminder of climate threats. Yet literature, reportage, and public discourse reflect imbalanced risk and opportunity. Climate science often understates changes' speed and nonlinearity, but Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) and similar studies often understate realistic mitigation options. Since ~2010, global mitigation of fossil CO2—including by often-uncounted modern renewable heat comparable to solar-plus-wind electricity—has accelerated to about the pace (if sustained) needed for a 2 °C trajectory. Mitigation has uncertainties, emergent properties, feasibility thresholds, and nonlinearities at least comparable to climate's, creating opportunities for aggressive action. Renewable electricity's swift uptake can now be echoed as proven integrative design can make end-use efficiency severalfold larger and cheaper, often with increasing returns (lower cost with rising quantity). Saved energy—the world's largest decarbonizer and energy 'source' (bigger than oil)—can then potentiate renewables and cut supply investments, as a few recent efficiency-centric IAMs confirm. Optimizing choices, combinations, timing, and sequencing of technologies, urban form, behavioral shifts, etc could save still more energy, money, and time. Some rigorous engineering-based national studies outside standard climate literature even imply potential 1.5 °C global trajectories cheaper than business-as-usual. A complementary opportunity—rapidly and durably abating hydrocarbon industries' deliberate upstream CH4 releases from flares and engineered vents, by any large operator's profitably abating its own and others' emissions—could stabilize (or more) the global methane cycle and buy time to abate more CO2. Together, these findings justify sober recalibration of the prospects for a fairer, healthier, cooler, and safer world. Supported by other disciplines, improved IAMs can illuminate this potential and support its refinement. Ambitious policies and aggressive marketplace and societal adoption of profitable new abatement opportunities need not wait for better models, but better models would help them to attract merited attention, scale faster, and turn numbing despair into collectively powerful applied hope.
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| 4. |
- Mundaca, Luis, et al.
(author)
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Demand-side approaches for limiting global warming to 1.5 °C
- 2019
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In: Energy Efficiency. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1570-6478 .- 1570-646X. ; 12:2, s. 343-343
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The Paris Climate Agreement defined an ambition of limiting global warming to 1.5 °C above preindustrial levels. This has triggered research on stringent emission reduction targets and corresponding mitigation pathways across energy economy and societal systems. Driven by methodological considerations, supply side and carbon dioxide removal options feature prominently in the emerging pathway literature, while much less attention has been given to the role of demand-side approaches. This special issue addresses this gap, and aims to broaden and strengthen the knowledge base in this key research and policy area. This editorial paper synthesizes the special issue’s contributions horizontally through three shared themes we identify: policy interventions, demand-side measures, and methodological approaches. The review of articles is supplemented by insights from other relevant literature. Overall, our paper underlines that stringent demand-side policy portfolios are required to drive the pace and direction of deep decarbonization pathways and keep the 1.5 °C target within reach. It confirms that insufficient attention has been paid to demand-side measures, which are found to be inextricably linked to supply-side decarbonization and able to complement supply-side measures. The paper also shows that there is an abundance of demand-side measures to limit warming to 1.5 °C, but it warns that not all of these options are “seen” or captured by current quantitative tools or progress indicators, and some remain insufficiently represented in the current policy discourse. Based on the set of papers presented in the special issue, we conclude that demand-side mitigation in line with the 1.5 °C goal is possible; however, it remains enormously challenging and dependent on both innovative technologies and policies, and behavioral change. Limiting warming to 1.5 °C requires, more than ever, a plurality of methods and integrated behavioral and technology approaches to better support policymaking and resulting policy interventions.
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