Topic Climate Policy

Energy Transition Partnerships

Meeting Climate Targets Can Only Spur on Economic Growth with the Right Combination of Measures

Reducing carbon emissions is essential to meeting climate targets. What is unclear, however, is which measures are required to do so and what impact they would have on economic growth. In this Weekly Report, a macroeconomic model is used to observe four scenarios in comparison to a baseline scenario without emissions reduction. It is analyzed which effects different measures, such as technological ...

A Collective Blueprint, Not a Crystal Ball: Overcoming Political Stalemates: The German Stakeholder Commission on Phasing out Coal

The future of coal remains contested in many countries, hindering necessary energy transitions. Collaborative governance approaches, such as stakeholder commissions, have been proposed as potential solution to resolve such societal conflicts. In Germany, a stakeholder commission process managed to overcome the existing stalemate situation, leading to the adoption of a coal phase-out by 2038. Celebrated ...

New Coal Mines in the Australian Galilee Basin Are Not Economically Viable and Are Prone to Become Stranded Assets

To limit the effects of climate change, we must significantly curtail the trading and use of coal as an energy source. Although the rise of renewable energy sources has already led to a reduction in the demand for and use of coal, new export-oriented coal mine projects are still being approved, and they often receive strong political support. However, whether these projects are economically viable ...

Atomwende? Ja, bitte! Warum die Abkehr von der Atomenergie und eine gute Entsorgungspolitik die Energiewende in Deutschland befördern werden

Die Atomenergie bleibt gesellschaftlich umkämpft. Zum einen wird sie wieder als Zukunftstechnologie gehandelt, mit der vermeintlich klimafreundlich und ressourcenschonend Strom erzeugt werden kann. Zum anderen ist die Endlagerung von Atomabfällen noch nicht geregelt. Das Konzept der ,,atompolitischen Wende“ bringt ‐ analog zur Energiewende ‐ dieses Ringen auf den Punkt. Die ...

Bidirectional Coupling of the Long-term Integrated Assessment Model REgional Model of INvestments and Development (REMIND) v3.0.0 with the Hourly Power Sector Model Dispatch and Investment Evaluation Tool with Endogenous Renewables (DIETER) v1.0.2

Integrated assessment models (IAMs) are a central tool for the quantitative analysis of climate change mitigation strategies. However, due to their global, cross-sectoral and centennial scope, IAMs cannot explicitly represent the temporal and spatial details required to properly analyze the key role of variable renewable energy (VRE) in decarbonizing the power sector and enabling emission reductions ...

Investments in Energy-Efficient Building Renovation Are on a Downward Slide

According to the latest review report of the Council of Experts on Climate Change, the German building sector failed to meet its greenhouse gas emission reduction targets in 2022. This is in part because investments in energy-efficient building refurbishment—supported by all kinds of policy measures— has neither been low nor shown a consistently positive trend over the past ten years. Furthermore, ...

De-Fueling Externalities: Causal Effects of Fuel Taxation and Mediating Mechanisms for Reducing Climate and Pollution Costs

This paper provides the most comprehensive assessment of how fuel taxation reduces climate and pollution externalities with a quasi-experimental evaluation of the world’s largest environmental tax reform. Leveraging multiple causal inference methods, we compare carbon and air pollutant emissions of the actual and counterfactual German transport sector following the 1999 eco-tax reform and demonstrate ...

Climate Transition Plans: State of Play in EU Legislation and Policy Recommendations

National Hydrogen Strategy: Clear Focus and Consistent Implementation Necessary

Replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy sources is one cornerstone of the energy transition. In certain sectors, green hydrogen will play an important role in the future, as is envisioned in the revised National Hydrogen Strategy recently presented by the German Federal Government. This Weekly Report discusses important changes in this strategy compared to the first National Hydrogen Strategy ...