Moving from principles to action on energy supply and climate change mitigation requires a long-term perspective. Energy infrastructure takes time to build up; new energy technologies take time to develop. Policy shifts often also need many years to have an effect. Any analysis that seeks to tackle energy and environmental issues therefore needs to look ahead at least half a century.
Scenarios are important in describing possible development paths, to give decision-makers an overview of future perspectives and to indicate how far they can shape the future energy system.Two different scenarios are used here to characterise the wide range of possible paths for the future energy supply system: a reference scenario, reflecting a continuation of current trends and policies, and the energy [r]evolution scenario, which is designed to achieve a set of dedicated environmental policy targets.
the reference scenario is based on the reference scenario published by the International Energy Agency in World Energy Outlook 2004 (WEO 2004) 6 . This only takes existing policies into account. The assumptions include, for example, continuing progress in electricity and gas market reforms, the liberalisation of cross border energy trade and recent policies designed to combat environmental pollution. The reference scenario does not include additional policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As the IEA’s scenario only covers a time horizon up to 2030, it has been extended by extrapolating its key macroeconomic indicators. This provides a baseline for comparison with the energy [r]evolution scenario.
the energy [r ]evolution scenario has a key target for the reduction of worldwide carbon dioxide emissions down to a level of around 11 Gigatonnes per year by 2050 in order for the increase in global temperature to remain under +2°C. A second objective is to show that this is even possible with the global phasing out of nuclear energy. To achieve these targets, the scenario is characterised by significant efforts to fully exploit the large potential for energy efficiency. At the same time, cost-effective renewable energy sources are accessed for both heat and electricity generation as well as the production of biofuels. The general framework parameters for population and GDP growth remain unchanged from the reference scenario.
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