Comparable assessment of national GHG abatement costs

This paper discusses the UNEP Greenhouse Gas Abatement Costing Project with particular emphasis on the national assessments of CO2 abatement cost for developing countries. A methodological framework was developed and country studies were conducted for 10 countries. National marginal abatement cost curves for the short-term (25% reduction from baseline by 2005 to 2010) and long-term (50% reduction from baseline by 2020 to 2030) targets are presented and discussed. The cost curves for the selected countries exhibit a number of similarities. The paper examines critically how the main scenario assumptions about energy/GDP intensity and energy-efficiency improvement influence the assessed abatement potential and costs. The treatment of ‘no regrets’ options in the baseline and abatement cases is discussed in relation to a developing country planning context. The issue of comparability between assessments from different countries is addressed. Even with uniform assumptions (discount rates, oil prices etc) for the group of countries as a whole, comparability within the UNEP project is shown to be a complex concept which involves national differences in the projection of economic and energy system development and the use of different modelling approaches.