Title: Factors affecting the long-term cost of global fossil fuel CO2 emissions reductions

Authors: Jae Edmonds, David W. Barns

Addresses: Global Environmental Change Program, Battelle, Pacific Northwest Laboratory, Washington DC, United States of America. ' Global Environmental Change Program, Battelle, Pacific Northwest Laboratory, Washington DC, United States of America

Abstract: This paper explores the sensitivity of economic measures of the cost of reducing global fossil fuel carbon emissions to a variety of conditions which characterize the evolution of future global energy systems. Two factors, the rate of labour productivity growth and the rate of exogenous end-use energy intensity improvement, create the greatest divergence in the observed tax rate necessary to achieve a given emission level in either 2025 or 2050. When these two factors were coupled, however, cost sensitivity declined appreciably. Other, non-greenhouse, environmental, health, and safety concerns, add to energy production costs, and have a major impact on the cost of emissions reductions. Changes in the composition of economic activities in developing countries, the size of the inexpensive fossil fuel resource base, and the price responsiveness of energy users were also important determinants of cost. Surprisingly absent from the list of important factors influencing the sensitivity of the costs of stabilizing future global carbon emissions is population growth. The cost burden of emissions reductions was generally below five per cent of GNP per year in all sensitivities explored, and significantly less in most cases. Nevertheless, the burden tended to increase with time. Variations in costs of fossil fuel CO2 emissions as great as those found in the literature can be obtained by varying input assumptions.

Keywords: alternative fuels; CO2; carbon dioxide; carbon emissions; emission reduction costs; fossil fuels.

DOI: 10.1504/IJGEI.1992.063612

International Journal of Global Energy Issues, 1992 Vol.4 No.3, pp.140-166

Published online: 17 Jul 2014 *

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