Abstract
This paper reviews the many criticisms that Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs)the bedrock of mitigation analysishave received in recent years. Critics have asserted that there is a lack of transparency around model structures and input assumptions, a lack of credibility in those input assumptions that are made visible, an over-reliance on particular technologies and an inadequate representation of real-world policies and processes such as innovation and behaviour change. The paper then reviews the proposals and actions that follow from these criticisms, which fall into three broad categories: scrap the models and use other techniques to set out low-carbon futures; transform them by improving their representation of real-world processes and their transparency; and supplement them with other models and approaches. The article considers the implications of each proposal, through the particular lens of how it would explore the role of a key low-carbon technologybioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), to produce net negative emissions. The paper concludes that IAMs remain critically important in mitigation pathways analysis, because they can encompass a large number of technologies and policies in a consistent framework, but that they should increasingly be supplemented with other models and analytical approaches.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 1747 |
Number of pages | 21 |
Journal | Energies |
Volume | 12 |
Issue number | 9 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 8 May 2019 |
Keywords
- integrated assessment models
- IAMs
- climate change mitigation
- BECCS
- staged accession scenarios
- breaking climate targets
- land-use
- energy-systems
- tell us
- policy
- technologies
- mitigation
- economics
- ampere
- Climate change mitigation
- Integrated assessment models