Assessing stakeholder preferences on low-carbon energy transitions

ABSTRACT

Low carbon transition pathways entail diverse uncertainties and risks in the underlying environmental, social, political, economic and technological factors. Inadequate information about such risks could affect the achievement of climate change mitigation targets negatively. This paper provides a novel experiment in which quantitative tools and stakeholder engagement are combined in order to identify the barriers between stakeholders and scientists concerning climate change mitigation aspects. Technological risks are captured by simulating different low carbon scenarios with limited technology options. Stakeholders are asked about their preferences on technology options regarding a low carbon future. After providing them with the simulation results, they are asked again in order to see whether those initial preferences had changed. Results prove the necessity for better communication between modelers and stakeholders. Closing the gaps between both communities is essential to remove barriers for more ambitious action against climate change.

KEYWORDS:

• Climate policy
• GCAM model
• risk analysis
• stakeholder engagement
• transition pathways

Acknowledgments

This research is supported by the Basque Government through the BERC 2018-2021 program and by Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness MINECO through BC3 María de Maeztu excellence accreditation MDM-2017-0714. This research was conducted within the framework of the TRANSrisk project which has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 642260. BC3 authors also acknowledge financial support from the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities of Spain (RTI2018-093352-B-I00). Cristina Pizarro-Irizar thanks the Ministry of Science and Innovation (PID2019-108718GB-I00) and the Basque Government (IT1336-19) for financial support. We also wish to thank Krisztina Szendrei for her valuable help during the survey launch process. Finally, we are grateful to the editor and three anonymous referees for their valuable comments.

Notes

¹ See Lieu et al. (2020) for additional contribution on this research line.

² For instance, temperature target policies are climate policies, whereas shared socioeconomic pathways are non-climate policies.

³ One of the main limitations of this study, which is further described in Sections 3, 5 and 6, is the selected database, which mainly consists of climate experts, potentially including representatives interested or engaged in climate science and policy except for citizens.

⁴ The carbon budget available for limiting temperature increases to less than 1.5°C (with a likelihood of 66%) is estimated to be 109 GtC from 2011 onwards. Emissions from 2011 to 2015 totaled 48 GtC and, therefore, the carbon budget currently available is 61 GtC for the goal of 1.5°C.

⁵ Other ways to achieve negative emissions include afforestation, Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) technologies or other geo-engineering options.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the European Commission [642260]; Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea [PES14/63]; Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness [ECO2015-64467-R,ECO2015-68023,MDM-2017-0714]; Basque Government [IT-783-13].