Roadmap 2050 – A practical guide to a prosperous, low-carbon Europe

Summary

The mission of Roadmap 2050 is to provide a practical, independent and objective analysis of pathways to achieve a low-carbon economy in Europe, in line with the energy security, environmental and economic goals of the European Union. The Roadmap 2050 project is an initiative of the European Climate Foundation (ECF) and has been developed by a consortium of experts funded by the ECF.

The project has been carried out in two different parts. The first part of the project was a technical and economic analysis. In this part, it was analyzed what greenhouse gas reductions are feasible by 2050, taking the technological state-of-art as point of departure. One of the outcomes is that deployment of existing technologies can achieve an 80% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Also, the costs associated with a transition to a low-carbon economy have been analyzed. Among the conclusions is that a low-carbon economy results in lower costs per unit of output and more stable and predictable energy prices.

The second part focused on the policies that are required to induce the envisaged transition. Key areas for the EU include an action to convert the non-binding 2020 efficiency target into a firm requirement, the need to update the EU ETS to meet current 2050 greenhouse gas reduction goals while providing additional incentives to invest in low-carbon technology, and a new ‘climate and resources’ framework to create the policy mix that will efficiently deliver the climate targets and address resource constraints across sectors beyond 2020 and out to 2050.

Role for ECN Policy Studies

ECN has contributed to the second part of the project, policies required to induce the transition. Specifically, ECN has provided a working document as input to the final report of this part of the project.

Partners

Part 1 - Technical and economic analysis
Mc Kinsey & Company
KEMA
The Energy Futures Lab at Imperial College London
Oxford Economics
ECF

Part 2 - Policy report
E3G
The Regulatory Assistance Project
ECF

Status

Closed. The project has been completed April 2010.

More information

For more information please contact Bas van Bree or go to the website. The ECN report can be found here.