If society wants to limit atmospheric carbon dioxide to less than 40 percent higher than it is today by 2100, the lowest cost option is to use every available means of reducing emissions.
This is the finding of researchers from the Joint Global Change Research Institute through their new computer model, the RCP 4.5 scenario.
The team used the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's Global Change Assessment Model to generate the scenario. The model uses market forces to reach a specified target by allowing global economics to put a price on carbon.
Starting from 2005 to 2100, the team let the model simulate the greenhouse gas emissions and land use changes over the next century. They also ran the model without any explicit greenhouse gas control policy or carbon price to compare how such a future might turn out.
In the scenario, the price of carbon stimulated a rise in nuclear power and renewable energy use. It thus became cheaper to implement technologies that capture and store emissions from fossil and biofuel based electricity than to emit carbon dioxide.
The Joint Global Change Research Institute is a partnership between the Department of Energy's P.N.N.L. and the University of Maryland to study energy conservation and understand the interactions between climate, energy production and use, economic activity and the environment. - K. D. Mariano
source: APEC-VC Korea
