International Energy and Climate Policy - International Climate Policy

ECN Policy Studies maintains a number of publicly available quantitative models and tools that can assist decision-makers on energy and climate policy both nationally and internationally. The tools include:

a non-Annex I mitigation action cost curve,
a climate change toolkit that visualises data relevant for the climate negotiations,
a CO2 price model for the EU ETS,
a 'ClimateTechWiki', with low-carbon technology descriptions
and the Long-range Energy Alternatives Planning tool (LEAP).

Non-Annex I Mitigation Action Cost Curve

Since 1999 ECN has been developing a marginal abatement cost (MAC) curve for developing countries. The MAC curve describes the incremental cost of reducing greenhouse gas emissions across a wide range of nationally appropriate mitigation options in the year 2020. It covers the greenhouse gas abatement potential for all gases and sectors in the non-Annex I region, and is based on bottom-up country studies and regional sectoral analyses. It includes over 1000 country-technology combinations and is updated whenever new relevant studies are conducted.

Policy questions the MAC can answer include, for example, the strategic replacement of fossil fuels for vehicles by bio-fuels, the impact of limiting the room temperature in buildings in winter and summer, the impact of investments in infrastructure required for electricity transmission and the decrease of other country-specific electricity losses.

The Non-Annex I Mitigation Action Cost Curve will soon be launched as an interactive online tool that will allow users to refine and study the MAC curve according to their own selections of countries, sectors and technologies.

More information and an eventual link to the online version of the tool can be found here.

Contact: Rodrigo Rivera

Climate Change Toolkit

On behalf of the Dutch ministry of the Environment (VROM), Brinkman Climate Change Consultancy and ECN developed an Information Toolkit to support the UNFCCC negotiations and updated this toolkit for COP14 in Poznan and COP15 in Copenhagen.

The toolkit provides factual underpinnings by graphically and numerically representing the results of various publicly available energy and climate historic datasets, scenarios and studies with user-friendly flexibility for selection and comparison of information and data. The tool can be used, amongst other applications, to easily illustrate and compare the possible outcomes of different post-2012 policy proposals.

More information and link to where the toolkit can be downloaded can be found here.

Contact : Koen Smekens

European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) CO2 Price Tool

The ECN CO2 price tool is a market simulation model that predicts, explains and analyses the price of a CO2 emission allowance within the EU ETS in the period up to 2020. In particular, the model analyses the impact of both market fundamentals (e.g. economic growth, fuel prices) and policy variables (e.g. targets for energy efficiency and renewables) on the EU ETS carbon price.

The key variables fall within two categories: i) demand side variables (market fundamentals and policy variables) and ii) supply side variables (related to CO2 abatement technologies). The tool calculates the emissions growth of the ETS sectors due to economic growth and fuel price changes and subsequently subtracts the emissions reductions due to policy variables (renewable energy and energy efficiency targets). Offset credits from JI and CDM and the demand from the aviation sector are also considered.

Questions the model may answer include:

What are the implications of changes in economic growth and/or fuel prices on the CO2 price of the EU ETS?
What is the impact of EU Member States’ efforts/failures to meet their renewable energy targets on the price of a CO2 allowance?
What is the effect of (changes in) CDM/JI offset credits on the EU allowance price?

Contact: Jos Sijm

ClimateTechWiki

ClimateTechWiki will be an on-line database with descriptions of clean technologies in different sectors and categories. The aim of the ClimateTechWiki is to provide easily accessible, understandable, up-to-date and “up-datable” descriptions of mitigation and adaptation technologies. The main target group are decision makers in developing countries.

ClimateTechWiki has been initiated as a supporting tool for the UNDP Handbook for Conducting Technology Needs Assessment for Climate Change. The website is being jointly developed by the Joint Implementation Network (JIN) and ECN. It is supported by UNDP, REEEP, Agentschap NL and UNEP Risoe. ClimateTechWiki is planned to be launched in August 2010. It will then be available here.

Contact: Laura Würtenberger

LEAP

ECN Policy Studies applies the LEAP modelling tool in capacity building projects in/for developing countries concerning energy planning and energy policy analysis. Local teams are trained to develop their own energy system database and structure, as well as scenarios. Over the course of previous and current supported activities in Indonesia the scope of the models has ranged from national to regional (provincial) level.