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On the path to climate neutrality, global production and trade of basic materials might change due to the heterogeneous availability of renewable electricity. Here we estimate the “renewables pull”, i.e. the energy-cost savings associated with such relocation, for varying depths of relocation for three key tradable energy-intensive industrial commodities: steel, urea, and ethylene. Assuming an electricity-price difference of 40 EUR/MWh, we find respective relocation savings of 19%, 33%, and 38%, which might, despite soft factors in the private sector, lead to green relocation. Conserving today's production patterns by importing hydrogen is substantially costlier, whereas imports of intermediate products could be almost as cost-efficienct, while keeping substantial value creation in importing regions. A societal debate on macroeconomic, industrial, and geopolitical implications is needed, potentially resulting in selective policies of green-relocation protection.

This climate change impact data (future scenarios on temperature-induced GDP losses) and climate change mitigation cost data (REMIND model scenarios) is published under doi: 10.5281/zenodo.3541809 and used in this paper: Ueckerdt F, Frieler K, Lange S, Wenz L, Luderer G, Levermann A (2018) The economically optimal warming limit of the planet. Earth System Dynamics. https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-10-741-2019 Below the individual file contents are explained. For further questions feel free to write to Falko Ueckerdt (ueckerdt@pik-potsdam.de). Climate change impact data File 1: Data_rel-GDPpercapita-changes_withCC_per-country_all-RCP_all-SSP_4GCM.csv Content: Data of relative change in absolute GDP/CAP levels (compared to the baseline path of the respective SSP in the SSP database) for each country, RCP (and a zero-emissions scenario), SSP and 4 GCMs (spanning a broad range of climate sensitivity). Negative (positive) values indicate losses (gains) due to climate change. For figure 1a of the paper, this data was aggregated for all countries. File 2: Data_rel-GDPpercapita-changes_withCC_per-country_all-SSP_4GCM_interpolated-for-REMIND-scenarios.csv Content: Data of relative change in absolute GDP/CAP levels (compared to the baseline path of the respective SSP in the SSP database) for each country, SSP and 4 GCMs (spanning a broad range of climate sensitivity). The RCP (and a zero-emissions scenario) are interpolated to the temperature pathways of the ten REMIND model scenarios used for climate change mitigation costs. Hereby the set of scenarios for climate impacts and climate change mitigation are consistent and can be combined to total costs of climate change (for a broad range of mitigation action). File 3: Data_rel-GDPpercapita-changes_withCC_per-country_SSP2_12GCM_interpolated-for-REMIND-scenarios.csv Content: Same as file 2, but only for the SSP2 (chosen default scenario for the study) and for all 12 GCMs. Data of relative change in absolute GDP/CAP levels (compared to the baseline path of the respective SSP in the SSP database) for each country, SSP-2 and 12 GCMs (spanning a broad range of climate sensitivity). The RCP (and a zero-emissions scenario) are interpolated to the temperature pathways of the ten REMIND model scenarios used for climate change mitigation costs. Hereby the set of scenarios for climate impacts and climate change mitigation are consistent and can be combined to total costs of climate change (for a broad range of mitigation action). In addition, reference GDP and population data (without climate change) for each country until 2100 was downloaded from the SSP database, release Version 1.0 (March 2013, https://tntcat.iiasa.ac.at/SspDb/, last accessed 15Nov 2019). Climate change mitigation cost data The scenario design and runs used in this paper have first been conducted in [1] and later also used in [2]. File 4: REMIND_scenario_results_economic_data.csv File 5: REMIND_scenarios_climate_data.csv Content: A broad range of climate change mitigation scenarios of the REMIND model. File 4 contains the economic data of e.g. GDP and macro-economic consumption for each of the countries and world regions, as well as GHG emissions from various economic sectors. File 5 contains the global climate-related data, e.g. forcing, concentration, temperature. In the scenario description “FFrunxxx” (column 2), the code “xxx” specifies the scenario as follows. See [1] for a detailed discussion of the scenarios. The first dimension specifies the climate policy regime (delayed action, baseline scenarios): 1xx: climate action from 2010 5xx: climate action from 2015 2xx climate action from 2020 (used in this study) 3xx climate action from 2030 4x1 weak policy baseline (before Paris agreement) The second dimension specifies the technology portfolio and assumptions: x1x Full technology portfolio (used in this study) x2x noCCS: unavailability of CCS x3x lowEI: lower energy intensity, with final energy demand per economic output decreasing faster than historically observed x4x NucPO: phase out of investments into nuclear energy x5x Limited SW: penetration of solar and wind power limited x6x Limited Bio: reduced bioenergy potential p.a. (100 EJ compared to 300 EJ in all other cases) x6x noBECCS: unavailability of CCS in combination with bioenergy The third dimension specifies the climate change mitigation ambition level, i.e. the height of a global CO2 tax in 2020 (which increases with 5% p.a.). xx1 0$/tCO2 (baseline) xx2 10$/tCO2 xx3 30$/tCO2 xx4 50$/tCO2 xx5 100$/tCO2 xx6 200$/tCO2 xx7 500$/tCO2 xx8 40$/tCO2 xx9 20$/tCO2 xx0 5$/tCO2 For figure 1b of the paper, this data was aggregated for all countries and regions. Relative changes of GDP are calculated relative to the baseline (4x1 with zero carbon price). [1] Luderer, G., Pietzcker, R. C., Bertram, C., Kriegler, E., Meinshausen, M. and Edenhofer, O.: Economic mitigation challenges: how further delay closes the door for achieving climate targets, Environmental Research Letters, 8(3), 034033, doi:10.1088/1748-9326/8/3/034033, 2013a. [2] Rogelj, J., Luderer, G., Pietzcker, R. C., Kriegler, E., Schaeffer, M., Krey, V. and Riahi, K.: Energy system transformations for limiting end-of-century warming to below 1.5 °C, Nature Climate Change, 5(6), 519–527, doi:10.1038/nclimate2572, 2015.

Material compiled for analysis in this paper: Ueckerdt F, Bauer C, Dirnaichner A, Everall J, Sacchi R, Luderer R (2021) Potential and risks of hydrogen-based e-fuels in climate change mitigation. Nature Climate Change. The material includes: 1) a spreadsheet file with technoeconomic data 2) an R Markdown script which is the source code for an interactive dashboard used to visualise (1) 3) a README file to assist with navigation of the data in (1) 1) The spreadsheet data contains CAPEX, efficiency and other supplementary data for small to large scale electrolysers for current, and future years. Data was collected based on a Literature Review of a variety of academic and industry sources conducted during the course of the title paper development. The data are differentiated by several categories including electrolysis method, source publication year and literature type. Care was taken to avoid recycled cost values, and to focus on the currency of the data, with values included to indicate the oldest reference year of any cited literature. 2) The R Markdown script in combination with the spreadsheet data is used as a basis for an interactive dashboard which can be run with an R installation and the supporting packages, or viewed online at https://h2.pik-potsdam.de/H2Dash/

Research data supporting the peer-reviewed article "Impact of global heterogeneity of renewable-energy supply on heavy industrial production and green value chains" by the same authors.