A Framework for Modelling Consumption-Based Energy Demand and Emission Pathways

Mastrucci, A. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5611-7780, Min, J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0020-1174, Usubiaga-Liaño, A., & Rao, N. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1888-5292 (2020). A Framework for Modelling Consumption-Based Energy Demand and Emission Pathways. Environmental Science & Technology 54 (3) 1799-1807. 10.1021/acs.est.9b05968.

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Abstract

Energy demand in global climate scenarios is typically derived for sectors – such as buildings, transportation, and industry – rather than from underlying services that could drive energy use in all sectors. This limits the potential to model household consumption and lifestyles as mitigation options through their impact on economy-wide energy demand. We present a framework to estimate the economy-wide energy requirements and carbon emissions associated with future household consumption, by linking Industrial Ecology tools and Integrated Assessment Models (IAM). We apply the framework to assess final energy and emission pathways for meeting three essential and energy-intensive dimensions of basic well-being in India: food, housing and mobility. We show, for example, that nutrition-enhancing dietary changes can reduce emissions by a similar amount as meeting future basic mobility in Indian cities with public transportation. The relative impact of energy demand reduction measures compared to decarbonization differs across these services, with housing having the lowest and food the highest. This framework provides complementary insights to those obtained from IAM by considering a broader set of consumption and well-being-related interventions, and illustrating trade-offs between demand and supply-side options in climate stabilization scenarios.

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