Mitigation Action Plan and Scenarios

Towards a developmental modeling framework Development – climate On talking new languages and modeling frameworks

Harald Winkler, 6 Nov 2014, EconLab3

Mitigation Action Plan and Scenarios

Simultaneously address Development and Climate• The challenges of development and climate need to be

addressed simultaneously • Achieving developmental goals (national development

objectives, or global SDGs) are needed to provide basic human needs, especially poor countries and communities

• Climate change threatens to undermine the potential for development, yet is not as high a priority in developing countries

• Address core of economy: fossil fuel base, deforesation – and its emissions

Mitigation Action Plan and Scenarios

Climate first and least-cost • Anti-theses

• Climate-first modeling (IAMs) have stabilisation as objective• Development as

driver, or constraint• Emissions accounted

by production, in-country (not intrinsic)

• National models optimise only on least-cost – currently

• Will it really give us deep decarbonisation? (Hilton, Henri can add …)

• Thesis: we need a developmental modeling framework

Mitigation Action Plan and Scenarios

Action-reflection-action

( adapting from Paolo Freire 1970, Pedagogy of the oppressed, London, Continuum)

Mitigation Action Plan and Scenarios

Two directions

1. Socio-economic implications of mitigation2. Differences in emissions of various development paths

Mitigation

Development

1

2

Mitigation Action Plan and Scenarios

Talking the language of modeling

"There are only 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't.”

Mitigation Action Plan and Scenarios

How might a developmentalmodeling framework differ? • Development as the goal

• Multiple objectives• In the objective function (?) as a composite good• Maximise Dev (income, jobs, housing, water, food ….) • As distinct from MIN cost s.t. constraints • Does it matter?

• Model pathways to reduce poverty … • Model different pathways to reach the (multi-)goal• Model different development paths that deliver long-term development

objectives (reducing poverty, inequality; create jobs)

• Analyse differences in emissions• There is no more “mitigation” as in reductions from a GHG baseline• Only differences in emissions due to different ways of achieving development

• Adrian and other serious muddlers would know more about this than I do

Mitigation Action Plan and Scenarios

Where do we place development in models?

• Objective function: Development as composite good as part of the obj fn? (not ‘just’ a constraint?); or

• Results: development indicators; or• Storylines: Identify long-term

development objectives of the country; or

• ‘All of the above?’; or• Somewhere completely different

Mitigation Action Plan and Scenarios

Time horizons• Many models (esp economic) built around short-term change

(and marginal)• Development and climate require long-term disjunctures• Long-term – link to challenges

• Uncertainty• Out of the box

Mitigation Action Plan and Scenarios

Modelling approaches • Simulation and optimisation• Sectoral and economy-wide models• Scenarios analysis • Decision analysis models• Systems dynamic models• (Tanya looking at more …)

Mitigation Action Plan and Scenarios

Specific modeling frameworks

• IMACLIM – France, Brazil, SA … China? • SATIM and eSAGE in SA • Energy model and DSGE in Chile• Markal and MEG4C in Colombia • AIM in Japan• Stochastic Markal in UK • ….

Mitigation Action Plan and Scenarios

Backcasting and forecasting ?

Forecasting: ΔABCFeasible pathways starting

from A Back-casting: ΔDEFRange of pathways ending in from D

Solution space: ADGHMeets target conditions, and feasible

Source: Ashina et al (2012)

Mitigation Action Plan and Scenarios

Two-stage stochastic energy system model • Beyond uncertainty added to deterministic models (Bruno should add)

• Quantify probabilty of input values• What is contradicxtory sensitivies – which one to choose? • Cost of cunertainty remains unknown

• Conflict between complexity of current generation of data (and time-intensive data collection) vs computational tractability

• compromise is to use a two-stage stochastic version of the UK MARKAL • (i) one near-term strategy is given in the results despite characterising the future as uncertain and• (ii) a value can be placed on different uncertainties. However, probabilities must be specified exogenously.

• Key results• Near-term hedging strategy to 2030 differs from any one deterministic fuel price scenario

• Not just an ‘average’ of many determinist scenarios, structurally different• Expected value of perfect information (EVPI) – useful metric – can compare scnearios with different

constraints (e.g. coal price uncertainty for 80% reduction; cf biomass uncertainty under 90% reduction) • Under uncertain fossil fuel prices, a crucial role for near-term (2025) investment in co- firing CCS emerged, to the

exclusion of coal CCS. However, the optimal hedging investments in co-firing CCS demonstrated significant path dependency and structural adjustments to opti- mal future energy systems that affect all sectors.

Source: Usher & Strachan 2012

Mitigation Action Plan and Scenarios

What language does a developmental modeling framework provide? • Language and numbers to talk about different paths to

achieving development• That increases GDP, or HDI• Information not only about efficiency

– In cost– In technical terms

• Equity – distributional information– Do the rich / middle class / poor win or lose– Which industries win or lose?

• Information for a conversation about a just transition to a low-carbon and climate-resilient economy and society– Pathways of how that might be realised

• Co-creating common purpose (vision)

Mitigation Action Plan and Scenarios

Thank you

For more information visit

www.mapsprogramme.org Follow us on Twitter @MAPSProgramme

How do we reduce poverty and emissions?

Mitigation Action Plan and Scenarios

Ashina et alOverview of the future vision of society in 2050Major socio-economic indicators for the future vision of societies

assumed to exist in 2050Major conditions for energy supplyFeasible energy mix

Major technologies considered in the study.

Mitigation Action Plan and Scenarios

Technology transitions to BAT – driven by consumer choice

Mitigation Action Plan and Scenarios

DEVELOPMENT PATHWAYS

Levers of change

POLICY

Development Goals

Institutionalization

Governance

International relations

POLITICAL ECONOMY

Distribution of national income and

wealth

Natural assets

Investments & Debts

Technology

SOCIETY

Behavior change

Consumption patterns

Development qualityPlanning

Poverty

Mitigation Action Plan and Scenarios

“Places to Intervene in a System” (D Meadows)

9. Numbers (subsidies, taxes, standards) 8. Material stocks and flows

7. Regulating negative feedback loops 6. Driving positive feedback loops

5. Information flows 4. The rules of the system

(incentives, punishment, constraints) 3. The power of self-organization

2. The goals of the system 1. The mindset or paradigm out of which

the goals, rules, feedback structure arise

D Meadows

Mitigation Action Plan and Scenarios

A new social contract?