Funded by : Stiftung Mercator, Germany

Duration: 36 months – from: 01/01/2010  to: 31/12/2012

CMCC scientific leader:
Carlo Carraro – [email protected]
Martina Marian (project manager) – [email protected]

General Objectives:

Climate Change represents an unprecedented challenge to global society. Unmitigated climate change will introduce large-scale risks to ecosystems and human societies. The science clearly points out the need for deep emission reductions in order to avoid the most dangerous outcomes of climate change. This will require managing the transition from carbon intensive to low carbon economies within this century. For the transition to be sustainable, it must not only focus on mitigating climate change, but also on avoiding environmental and societal side effects from large-scale implementation of mitigation options. In this context, research on pathways to a low carbon society is indispensable for informing policy makers. Integrated assessment models of the coupled energy-economy-climate system have been used extensively to explore different scenarios for achieving climate protection targets.

The RoSE project bring together leading energy-economy researchers from Europe and the US to perform a coordinated, model-based analysis in order to reach robust conclusions about the economics of climate policy. For shaping the global debate on climate policy over the coming years, it is essential to achieve a common and scientifically based understanding of the feasibility and cost of ambitious low stabilization targets.

CMCC role :

The CMCC research team provided one of the models (WITCH developed by FEEM) used to investigate the economic adjustment effects of stabilization policies. WITCH is a regional model in which the non-cooperative nature of international relationships is explicitly accounted for. The regional and intertemporal dimensions of the model make it possible to differentiate climate policies across regions and over time. In this way, several policy scenarios can be considered.

Activities :

The project is structured in five workpackages:

1) Identifying the set-up and preparing the multi-model ensemble experiment for a systematic exploration of the scenario space of roadmaps to a sustainable energy future

2) First round of simulations of roadmaps to a sustainable energy future, review of results and revisions of protocols

3) Comparative analysis and external sustainability check of energy roadmaps, review of results and revisions of protocols

4) Second round of simulations of roadmaps to a sustainable energy future, final adjustments to results and protocols, and synthesis of results

5) Dissemination of project results.

Expected results:

The major expected result from the modelling work is a set of roadmaps to sustainable energy futures and their costs. Because models abstract from real situations by various simplifications, the project combines modelling work with assessments of experts from the energy engineering, life cycle analysis and societal and environmental risk analysis communities.

The idea is to develop roadmaps to sustainable energy futures and their costs that have been reviewed by experts in the field, so as to identify resource and supply chain bottlenecks as well as environmental, economic and societal limitations that might constrain or qualify the proposed roadmaps.

The project will deliver a set of internal documents, for working purposes, public reports and articles that will contribute to the dissemination of project results. Public documents will include:

• A 1st synthesis report on model experiments
• A 10-20 page expertise on 1st synthesis report
• Articles for special issue on project results
• Final report.

 A final conference will also be organized.

Web Site : n.a.

Partners :

• Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research (PIK), Potsdam, Germany – Co-ordinator
• Joint Global Change Research Institute (JGCRI) of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the University of Maryland at College Park, MD, USA
• CMCC – Centro Euro-Mediterraneo per i Cambiamenti Climatici, Italy
• Energy Research Institute (ERI) of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), Beijing, China
• Energy, Environment and Economy (3E) Research Institute, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China