Creating global scenarios of environmental impacts with structural economic models

To limit the effects of climate change, global average temperature since pre-industrial measurements are to be kept well below 2 °C preferably even at 1.5 °C. The 2 °C limit and certainly the 1.5 °C target means that substantial GHG emission reductions should be realized already by 2050. How these emission reductions should be achieved is unclear. At least it is clear that the use of fossil fuels should be reduced. It is important to know if indeed the introduction of the renewable energy technologies can achieve the deep GHG emission reduction that are required in 30 years’ time against a backdrop of population growth and economic growth. Therefore we investigated the effects of the introduction of renewable technologies on GHG emissions and resource use until 2050. The principal global economy-environment model used in this investigation is based on a global multi-regional environmentally extended input-output framework which might be called a structural economic model. Because long-term socio-economic and technological developments cannot be predicted several scenarios with different penetration rates of low carbon and renewable energy technologies and resulting GHG emissions and resource use have been implemented in the structural economic model.