• Energy Research

Sufficiency measures are potentially decisive for the decarbonisation of energy systems but rarely considered in energy policy and modelling. Just as efficiency and renewable energies, the diffusion of demand-side solutions to climate change also relies on policy-making. Our extensive literature review of European and national sufficiency policies fills a gap in existing databases. We present almost 300 policy instruments clustered into relevant categories and publish them as "Energy Sufficiency Policy Database". This paper provides a description of the data clustering, the set-up of the database and an analysis of the policy instruments. A key insight is that sufficiency policy includes much more than bans of products or information tools leaving the responsibility to individuals. It is a comprehensive instrument mix of all policy types, not only enabling sufficiency action, but also reducing currently existing barriers. A policy database can serve as a good starting point for policy recommendations and modelling, further research is needed on barriers and demand-reduction potentials of sufficiency policy instruments.

Abstract By September 2021, 120 countries had submitted new or updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to the UNFCCC in the context of the Paris Agreement. This study analyses the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and macroeconomic impacts of the new NDCs. The total impact of the updated NDCs of these countries on global emission levels by 2030 is an additional reduction of about 3.7 GtCO2e, compared to the previously submitted NDCs. This increases to about 4.1 GtCO2e, if also the lower projected emissions of the other countries are included. However, this total reduction needs to be four times greater to be consistent with keeping global temperature increase to well below 2 °C, and even eight times greater for 1.5 °C. Seven G20 economies have pledged stronger emission reduction targets for 2030 in their updated NDCs, leading to additional aggregated GHG emission reductions of about 3.1 GtCO2e, compared to those in the previous NDCs. The socio-economic impacts of the updated NDCs are limited in major economies, while structural shifts occur away from fossil fuel supply sectors and towards renewable electricity. However, two G20 economies have submitted new targets that will lead to an increase in emissions of about 0.3 GtCO2e, compared to their previous NDCs. The updated NDCs of non-G20 economies contain further net reductions. We conclude that countries should strongly increase the ambition levels of their updated NDC submissions to keep the climate goals of the Paris Agreement within reach.

Local energy initiatives (LEIs) are communities of households who self-organize to meet their energy demand with locally produced green energy. They facilitate citizen participation by developing context-specific solutions, which calls for leadership and complex social dynamics. We present an agent-based simulation model to explore the formation of community energy initiatives from the bottom-up, accounting for social networks and evolution of opinions facilitating or hindering LEIs. Our novel model relies on well-established social theories and uses empirical data on community energy systems in the Netherlands and individual citizens’ preferences. Specifically, our computational model captures behavioural drivers and social value orientations, and relates individuals behavioural traits to aggregated stylized facts about energy initiatives at the community level. The results indicate that when communities lack participants with cooperative orientation, altruistic citizens with prosocial social value orientations become essential for the creation of LEIs, revealing different pathways to achieve public good benefits. Our analysis systematically demonstrate that leaders can be a bottleneck in the LEIs’ formation and that an increase in initiators is conducive to the creation of LEIs. Therefore, policies aiming at increasing the number of community initiatives should target small groups and individuals with the leadership potential, who could lead projects, and explore synergies with wider community benefits.

AbstractGlobally, more than 100 countries have adopted net‐zero targets. Most studies agree on how this increases the chance of keeping end‐of‐century global warming below 2°C. However, they typically make assumptions about net‐zero targets that do not capture uncertainties related to gas coverage, sector coverage, sinks, and removals. This study aims to analyze the impact of many uncertainty factors on the projected greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050 for major emitting countries following their net‐zero pathways, and their aggregate impact on global GHG emissions. Global emission projections range from 23 to 40 gigatons of CO2 equivalent (GtCO2eq), with a median of 31 GtCO2eq. Our full range corresponds to about 40–75% of 2015 emission levels, which is much wider than the range of 30–45% reported by various integrated assessment models. The main factors contributing to this divergence are the uncertainty in the gas coverage of net‐zero targets and uncertainty in the socioeconomic baseline. Countries with net‐zero GHG targets by 2050 have a small range of 2050 emissions, while countries with net‐zero targets beyond 2050 and unclear coverage, such as China, India, and Indonesia, have a large range of emissions by 2050.