Demand-side CO2 mitigation potential in the UK heating and transport sectors

Contact person:
Bence Kiss-Dobronyi [bkd@camecon.com]

Authors:
Bence Kiss-Dobronyi [bkd@camecon.com] (Cambridge Econometrics),
Áron Hartvig [adh@camecon.com] (Cambridge Econometrics),
Márton Simó [ms@camecon.com] (Cambridge Econometrics)

Lifestyle change and demand-side measures will likely to be inevitable in the fight against climate change, nevertheless modelling their effects so far have been limited. We intend to contribute to this discussion, with modelling the socio-economic impacts of sufficient consumption pathways, employing a demand-led IAM with endogenous economic growth, the E3ME economy-energy-environment model. Our scenario setups build on existing low energy demand scenarios and systematic reviews of demand-side climate mitigation measures to achieve mitigation targets. We provide a quantitative definition of sufficient consumption and input the sufficient values as scenario inputs for macroeconomic modelling. The results clearly show the potential CO2 mitigation potential of the demand-side solutions. Furthermore, we see different pathways about how technology take-up is affected by the decreased demand and also sectoral changes in consumption and employment arise. The novel contribution of the exercise is the endogenous modelling of economic growth, within a scenario with decreasing energy demand.

Keywords: demand-driven mitigation, scenario, analysis, E3ME, impact assessment model