To limit climate change to 2° Celsius, low-carbon energy options will need additional investments of about US $800 billion a year globally from now to mid-century, according to a new study published in the journal Climate Change Economics. But much of that capital could come from shifting subsidies and investments away from fossil fuels and associated technologies. Worldwide, fossil subsidies currently amount to around $500 billion per year.
“We know that if we want to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, we need to drastically transform our energy system,” says IIASA researcher David McCollum, who led the study. “This is a comprehensive analysis to show how much investment capital is needed to successfully make that transition.”
The study, part of a larger EU research project examining the implications and implementation needs of climate policies consistent with the internationally agreed 2° C target, compared the results from six separate global energy-economic models, each with regional- and country-level detail. The authors examined future scenarios for energy investment based on a variety of factors, including technology progress, efficiency potential, economics, regional socio-economic development, and climate policy.
Investments in clean energy currently total around $200 to 250 billion per year, and reference scenarios show that with climate policies currently on the books, this is likely to grow to around $400 billion. However, the amount needed to limit climate change to the 2° target amounts to around $1200 billion, the study shows.
The energy investments needed to address climate change continue to be an area of large uncertainty. By comparing the results from multiple models, the scientists were able to better define the costs of addressing climate change.
“Many countries say that they’re on board with the a target of 2° Celsius global mean temperature stabilization by 2100; some have even made commitments to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. But until now, it hasn’t been very clear how to get to that point, at least from an investment point of view. It’s high time we think about how much capital is needed for new power plants, biofuel refineries, efficient vehicles, and other technologies—and where those dollars need to flow—so that we get the emissions reductions we want,” says McCollum.
IIASA Energy Program Director Keywan Riahi, another study co-author and project leader, says, “Given that energy-supply technologies and infrastructure are characterized by long lifetimes of 30 to 60 years or more, there’s a considerable amount of technological inertia in the system that could impede a rapid transformation. That’s why the energy investment decisions of the next several years are so important: because they will shape the direction of the energy transition path for many years to come.”
The study shows that the greatest investments will be needed in rapidly developing countries, namely in Asia, Latin America, and Sub-Saharan Africa.
“Energy investment in these countries is poised to increase substantially anyway. But if we’re serious about addressing climate change, we must find ways to direct more investment to these key regions. Clever policy designs, including carbon pricing mechanisms, can help.” says Massimo Tavoni, researcher at the Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei, a climate research center in Italy, and overall coordinator of the LIMITS project, of which the new study is a part.
The researchers note that their analysis of future investment costs does not attempt to quantify the potentially major fuel savings from switching from fossil fuels to renewable sources, such as wind and solar energy. As shown in the IIASA-led Global Energy Assessment, such savings could offset a considerable share of increased investment on a global scale.
This study provided an important input into the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report, Working Group III, Chapter 16 on Cross-cutting Investment and Finance Issues.
About the LIMITS project
This study was conducted as part of the Low Climate Impact Scenarios and the Implications of Required Tight Emissions Control Strategies (LIMITS) project, a European Union Seventh Framework Program (FP-7)-supported collaboration between the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), the Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM) in Italy, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) in Germany, the, the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, Central European University, the National Development and Reform Commission Energy Research Institute in China, the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), the National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES) in Japan, and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in the US.
Reference
McCollum D, Nagai Y, Riahi K, Marangoni G, Calvin K, Pietzcker R, Van Vliet J, van der Zwaaan B. (2014). Energy investments under climate policy: a comparison of global models. Climate Change Economics Vol. 04, No. 04. DOI: 10.1142/S2010007813400101
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All this GIGA is in support of the robbers, parasites, collaborators and centralists bringing about the demolition of our economies, the elimination of the consumer society, the Middle Class and the population reduction envisioned by UN Agenda 21. The time has come to see their practices for what they really are because these people betrayal human kind and our civilization.
Does the name ECO NAZI”S ring a bell?
But when these people present themselves with the statue of King and the voice of a savior promising hope and change and rewarded with a Nobel Peace price before they start their killing spree, what can we do? Tar and Feathers?
They have declared war on us.
Time to wake up.
http://green-agenda.com
Where did they get that 2°C limit when at least two (& probably more) of the last four Inter-glacials were warmer than today by between 2-4°C, & we’re still here!!!! No problemo!!!!
Slightly off topic: I have in recent months when either being verbally accosted by or discussing with a warmist, when being labelled a denier, tended to refer to the UNIPCC’s opinions of Global Guvment, as their “Final Solution” to manmade Global Warming!. This has turned the argument around for me taking into account the deliberate & malicious & insidious efforts to link people who deny AGW with Holocaust denier. So far it has had the desired effect of unsettling my opponents. I don’t like doing it, & I hate to say “they started it”, but it has stood me in fairly good stead.
Between surface rights leases, oil production royalties and other taxes, Exxon paid $104 billion in taxes to governments around the world in 2012. That’s more than the total tax revenue generated by any government other than the top ten.
By contrast, wind and solar got subsidies of twice that from governments around the world the same year.
Green people do not know how to count.
They put a price tag on being a skeptic …
WASHINGTON (CBS DC) – Physics professor and climate change expert Dr. Christopher Keating is offering a $30,000 reward to anyone who can disprove that man-made climate change is real.
Keating, a professor of two decades at the University of South Dakota and U.S. Naval Academy, has challenged climate change skeptics to prove that man-made global warming is not real. Keating is prepared to offer $30,000 of his own money for the “Global Warming Skeptic Challenge,” which has an application deadline of July 31.
“I have heard global warming skeptics make all sorts of statements about how the science doesn’t support claims of man-made climate change,” Keating announced on his blog. “I have found all of those statements to be empty and without any kind of supporting evidence. I have, in turn, stated that it is not possible for the skeptics to prove their claims. And, I’m willing to put my money where my mouth is.”
Climate-change deniers are considered a minute sect of the science community. A “Global Climate Change” report from NASA finds that 97 percent of climate scientists agree that climate-warming trends over the past century “are very likely due to human activities.” The report also notes that a majority of worldwide scientific organizations have issued public statements endorsing the effects of man-made global warming.
http://washington.cbslocal.com/2014/07/02/physicist-offers-30000-reward-to-anyone-who-can-disprove-climate-change/
This is what happens if you have a revolutionary hack in the White House who’s only job requirement is to down the USA and create Global Chaos and despair.
It’s in the small news: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/brittany-m-hughes/federal-gov-t-sues-wisconsin-company-says-english-language
And it’s in the big news: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-07-02/yet-another-idiot-economist-says-war-good-economy and http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-07-02/bubble-finance-work-how-buyback-mania-gutting-growth-leaving-financial-wrecks-its-wa
Now go, kick out the hacks and get your country back.
Oil and natural gas are not subsidized in the US and in fact large oil companies are excluded from tax breaks that other companies get here. But around the world there are a lot of countries that heavily subsidize oil and natural gas, mostly in OPEC. See this article:
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-03-13/why-fuel-subsidies-in-developing-nations-are-an-economic-addiction
Some claim the US oil and gas industry is subsidized through the tax system with special tax deductions, this simply is not true. The US oil and gas industry pays higher taxes than almost all other industry groups.
http://www.api.org/news-and-media/infographics/the-truth-on-oil-subsidies
Only in a Green world would we maintain the false equivalence of allowing the oil business to keep their legitimate profits through tax breaks as opposed to billionaire crony capitalists stealing tax money from the poor and subsidizing their ‘vanity’ energy projects.
There is no way they could know how much feasible alternative energy will cost. That is, one that doesn’t need subsidies to keep the price affordable or fossil fuel plants as back up.
According to the newest research, all we have to do to limit temperature increases to 2C or less is, nothing.
an extraordinary tale of pricing carbon in Australia:
2 July: SMH: Philip Chubb: Carbon pricing: how Labor failed the nation
(Philip Chubb, a gold Walkley and Logie winner, is Head of Journalism at Monash University. His recent book Power Failure examines the inside story of climate politics under Rudd and Gillard.)
In April 2010 Rudd, whose command and control leadership was precisely the opposite of what was required to solve a complex problem like climate policy, publicly acknowledged defeat. The shock was profound. We had watched the train crash as it came ever-closer, although without recognising the inevitability of tragedy. We had waited in vain for Rudd to explain the meaning of carbon pricing. We had seen him sideline other ministers who might have helped us understand.
We had been transfixed as he squandered the gift of consensus, employing it as a weapon to destroy Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull rather than as an opportunity to be grasped fully and urgently. Tony Abbott, with his infantile anti-science slogans, was thus Rudd’s creation. We had invested more faith as he (Kevin Rudd) flew to Copenhagen, puffed up to save the earth, only to suffer an emotional breakdown that left him empty of the courage needed for a double dissolution election. We had sat bemused as he then strove to blame Julia Gillard for his sad rush to hoist the white flag.
The fact that we got to mid-2010 with a deep black hole where climate policy had been was a result of the erosion of the checks and balances that Australians wrongly believe are embedded in their system of government. We were prey to Rudd’s personality. And what a personality it turned out to be. Australians were victims of his hubris and cowardice. This has become very clear after more than 100 interviews and two years researching the disasters of Australia’s attempt to establish carbon pricing for my book Power Failure…
The lesson for the future of carbon pricing is this: while Gillard was more effective than Rudd, success requires a restoration of our system of checks and balances and a different type of leader. But for this change to occur Australians must firmly demand it. The immediate prospect of this is not good. We will suffer many more bushfires and floods before we see another serious attempt to price carbon.
http://www.theage.com.au/comment/carbon-pricing-how-labor-failed-the-nation-20140702-zssyo.html
***now, what made me wonder if the arrogant Philip Chubb might be related to our beloved Chief Scientist?
18 May 2014: ArtsOnline Monash Uni: MFJ celebrates successful school and book launches
The new School of Media, Film and Journalism (MFJ) was formally launched on May 14 alongside the launch of Associate Professor Phil Chubb’s new book Power Failure.
***More than 100 people including Monash’s Chancellor, Alan Finkel, and Dr Elizabeth Finkel, along with Australia’s Chief Scientist, Professor Ian Chubb, who is Phil’s brother, and staff and students attended the joint celebration…
Distinguished Professor Ross Garnaut launched Power Failure with the words: “This is an interesting and important book…
http://artsonline.monash.edu.au/journalism/mfj-celebrates-successful-school-and-book-launches/
UNBELIEVABLE!
The problem of the future may not be how we keep the world climate from rising 2 degrees but how to survive a winter climate regionally that drops as much as 16 degrees F or – 4.4F /DECADE like we saw in the US UPPER MIDWEST between 1998 and 2014 and similar drops in Canada between 2010 and 2014 . Why are winter temperature drops significant? Because cold winters spill into cold spring weather like we saw this year . This also can lead to cooler summers and early cooling of fall resulting in annual temperature drops. This has been the pattern in North America since 1998 or 16 years now . Winters have been cooling globally and for the Northern Hemisphere. for 17 years .The alarmists have the wrong priorities again
To most liberals, any tax that is less than 100%, is a subsidy.
Only a government study could conclude that 300 billion more dollars is pretty much the same as 300 billion less.
Neo says:
July 3, 2014 at 4:32 am
I challenge Keating to disprove that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is real.
oops, the Philip Chubb article i posted “Carbon pricing: how Labor failed the nation” was from the The Age newspaper, tho it also appeared in The Age’s sister Fairfax newspaper, Sydney Morning Herald (SMH).
The cruel wasteful folly of a leadership class that believes they can manage the weather is something not seen since virgins were sacrificed by royal priests to appease gods to end a drought.
“The study compared the results from six separate global energy-economic models, each with regional- and country-level detail. The authors examined future scenarios for energy investment based on a variety of factors, including technology progress, efficiency potential, economics, regional socio-economic development, and climate policy.”
The climate models based on presumably hard objective science have failed spectacularly. How can these idiots lend any credence to models based on such subjective fields such as economics and sociology?
Almost every ‘report’ of this nature is based on delivering a pre-determined conclusion to justify recommending implementation of certain desired actions. (See the Climategate enquiries if you can without weeping.) We can safely deduce the motives present here from the claim (in reality a straightforward misdirection) that “Worldwide, fossil subsidies currently amount to around $500 billion per year.”
It’s just another Stern Review lite.
I think that subsidies, as they are paid, for example, in Germany for decades, have been included in calculation of the study. The subsidies were intended to preserve the German coal from foreign coal competitive because the funding in Germany is actually too expensive.
Some numbers from Germany:
The “RAG Deutsche Steinkohle AG” received about 2.0 billion euros subsidies from the federal government to the coal industry in Germany in 2008. This corresponds to approximately 9.3% of the total subsidies of the Federal Republic.
According to the 20th Report of the Federal Government subsidy were between 1997 and 2006 aid totaling € 29.9 billion from the federal government (3 billion per year) and a further 4.9 billion euros by the State of North Rhine-Westphalia (0.5 billion per year) paid.
In February 2007, the federal government, North Rhine-Westphalia and Saarland agreed to end the subsidies for the coal industry in 2018. This would in effect in Germany after 2018 no more coal promoted.
On 28 December 2007 the “Law on financing the completion of the subsidized coal industry in 2018 (Coal Financing Act)” came into force. Therein 2009-2018 additional subsidies of 13.9 billion euros are planned for the years. In addition, the state of North Rhine-Westphalia pays a total of 3.9 billion euros.
On 20 July 2010 the European Commission presented a proposal which provided for the phasing out of coal subsidies until 1 October 2014. After criticism from Germany, the Council of the European Union agreed on 10 December 2010 on coal subsidies under 2018 continues to allow a decommissioning plan. However, a greater reduction in subsidies is prescribed, as was previously provided in Germany. Compared to the year 2011 have the amount of funding by the end of 2013 by 25%, to be reduced by the end of 2015 by 40% until the end of 2016 by 60% and finally to the end of 2017 by 75%.
Price of limiting “carbon”, to avoid a hypothetical 2C warming?
29 $trillion.
Price of limiting standards of living, limiting life expectancies, and thereby killing millions of poor worldwide, especially children?
Priceless.
I suspect part of the “subsidy” is related to the uncompensated costs that the addition of CO2 to the atmosphere is presumed to impose on economies. This is captured in the logic of “carbon” taxes. The other element is the “six economic models” used. What are their discount rates? Further, are the solutions focused on PC “green” solutions (wind, solar, tides, etc.) that are technically suspect; or, would they allow nuclear and incorporating geothermal heat exchange into construction of new buildings?
Worldwide, fossil subsidies currently amount to around $500 billion per year.
============
This is false accounting because it does not take into account fossil fuel revenues. How much money do governments make in return for the $500 billion per year they pay to encourage production?
A quick calculation shows that tax revenues on oil alone at 10 cents per liter works out to more than $500 billion per year. So, clearly governments are making a profit on the $500 billion they invest to encourage fossil fuel production. A HUGE PROFIT.
Where is the money going to come from to replace the TAX REVENUE from fossil fuel? Forget the subsidies. How are you going to replace the lost revenue, which are much larger than the subsidies?
Are you going to place a tax on solar, wind, and bio-fuels? Is this tax on renewables going to be how you finance renewables? How exactly will this work? Isn’t a tax supposed to discourage use?
Jenli says:
July 3, 2014 at 5:36 am
“The “RAG Deutsche Steinkohle AG” received about 2.0 billion euros subsidies from the federal government to the coal industry in Germany in 2008. This corresponds to approximately 9.3% of the total subsidies of the Federal Republic.”
Of course, the 24 bn EUR subsidies that Germans pay to the owners of solar panels and wind turbines (who, in turn, need that money to buy and maintain the contraptions) are not even counted as subsidies; as that is elegantly formulated as a price-fixing law (which violates the EU principle of free trade, but this violation has been rubberstamped by the Eurocleptocratic court because it is necessary to save the planet.)
Back to main topic:
800 bn USD a year; that’s slightly less than the yearly amount of USD’s printed under Bernanke; so the warmists say, let’s go on with QE4EVER; and when we print 800 bn USD a year, this of course mean that 800 bn new debt come into existence a year.
The perfect Keynesian scheme: Find a non-existing problem and “fix” it with moneyprinting / debt issuance; continuing the worldwide Keynesian Ponzi scheme for a little while longer, while the warmist scientists can sponge off the money for their make-work schemes. (without actually working)
When globe fails to warm: Declare success. (Oh, we’ll have hyperinflation instead, but the warmist scientists will have exchanged their Federeal Reserve Notes for tangible assets before that happens.)
We should all design non-working geo-engineering contraptions now to partake in the money rain.
Mr Watts:
I. There are frequent comments in the media and blogosphere about the subsidies received by fossil fuels on a world wide basis. I´m very familiar with the topic as far as subsidies in OPEC nations as well as Russia and other oil exporting nations. Most of them use a subsidy via price controls or tax exemptions. For example, in Venezuela the price of gasoline, diesel, and natural gas are controlled, and the first two are nearly free. I used to live in Venezuela, and when we filled up the tank in my Mazda 6 the tip was about triple the fuel cost.
Other nations, for example Russia, have subsidized oil prices via pipeline tariffs used to drive local prices down. And we could say the USA in some cases has subsidized the price of some hydrocarbons by limiting exports permits (I think this may be applying to natural gas and gas condensates at this time).
Those who write these articles about hydrocarbon subsidies tend to be quite deceitful, because they don´t explain how they will convince Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Venezuela to stop subsiding fuels (this item was already covered by nkr in an earlier post).
II. Regarding the degree C limit and the urgency to reduce emissions, there seems to be a very intensive campaign to force changes using the figure, which seems quite arbitrary. Maybe it´s less, maybe it´s more, but it sure seems arrogant to expect we can set the planet´s thermostat.
I read “False Hope” by Michael Mann in Sciam, and I also noted your comments about the graphs he used, and a response at a blog site called “Open Mind”. It seems to me the debates about the article may have missed the point that, if the article and its figures are bad enough to confuse educated readers, then the article fails. I pointed this out to the blogger at Open Mind, but unfortunately half of my comment was edited out, My intention wasn´t to get into a climate debate, the 2 degree C limit, or whether the world is warming or not. But I do like to discuss whether information is distorted or presented in the wrong way, so I decided to write a little bit about this particular subject, and called it “False Hope by Michael Mann”.
Every time somebody claims that oil and gas get great subsidies, or I see an article on it, at least as far as the US is concerned what they claim to be subsidies are almost entirely tax deductions or credits available to all industries. The amount of true “subsidies” for oil and gas operations is miniscule. Any time someone claims oil and gas is getting huge subsidies – force them to identify those subsidies exactly and then ask them if those are available to all industries and/or represent a balancing of taxes (e.g. the foreign tax credits).