Emissions and their drivers: sensitivity to economic growth and fossil fuel availability across world regions

Abstract

This paper investigates the extent to which uncertainty on regional patterns of economic growth and fossil fuel availability impacts regional emission patterns, emission drivers, and regional mitigation potentials and strategies, through an analysis across five key world regions in different stages of their economic development (Africa, India, China, Europe and the USA) using a set of scenarios simulated with the REMIND model. Important differences are identified in emission trajectories of developed, emerging and developing regions, in both the baseline and the climate policy scenarios, due to differences in economic growth rates, energy and carbon intensity developments, and mitigation potentials. In the baseline, energy intensity developments vary strongly with economic growth assumptions, while fossil fuel availability has a particularly strong effect on carbon intensity developments which result in more region-specific sensitivity than do economic growth variations. On the other hand, the core findings associated to climate policy and regional mitigation strategies remain unaffected by this uncertainty. In all baseline scenarios China, the USA and India are the greatest emitters in terms of cumulated 21st century emissions, comprising almost 50 % of the global total. Differences in terms of per capita emissions between developed and developing countries persist under either baseline assumption, but are contracted under climate policy. Long-term per capita emissions remain above world average in China, India and Europe, reflecting their relatively smaller renewable resource potentials. The core regional technological implications of climate change mitigation are insensitive to economic growth and fossil fuel availability assumptions.