Coal phase-out pledges follow peak coal: evidence from 60 years of growth and decline in coal power capacity worldwide

O. M. Lægreid, A. Cherp, J. Jewell. (2023). Coal phase-out pledges follow peak coal: evidence from 60 years of growth and decline in coal power capacity worldwide. Oxford Open Energy 2. Open Access. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/ooenergy/oiad009

Transitioning to net-zero carbon emissions requires phasing-out unabated coal power; however, recently it has only been declining in some countries, while it stagnated or even increased in others. Where and under what circumstances, has coal capacity reached its peak and begun to decline? We address this question with an empirical analysis of coal capacity in 56 countries, accounting for 99% of coal generation in the world. The peaks in national coal power have been equally spread per decade since 1970. The peaks are more likely to occur in country-years with high levels of electoral democracy, higher GDP per capita, slower electricity demand growth, and with low levels of political corruption. Normally, peaking coal power preceded rather than followed political coal phase-out pledges, often with long time lags. We conclude that though the cost of coal alternatives are declining and concerns over climate change increasing, coal power does not automatically peak even in situations with low demand growth, aging power plants and high import dependence. A quick and decisive destabilization of coal regimes requires, in addition, having sufficient economic capacities and strong democratic governance.

Coal-exit alliance must confront freeriding sectors to propel Paris-aligned momentum

S.L. Bi, N. Bauer & J. Jewell. (2023). Coal-exit alliance must confront freeriding sectors to propel Paris-aligned momentum. Nature Climate Change 1-10. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-022-01570-8

The global phase-out of coal by mid-century is considered vital to the Paris Agreement to limit warming well-below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels. Since the inception of the Powering Past Coal Alliance (PPCA) at COP23, political ambitions to accelerate the decline of coal have mounted to become the foremost priority at COP26. However, mitigation research lacks the tools to assess whether this bottom-up momentum can self-propagate toward Paris alignment. Here, we introduce dynamic policy evaluation (DPE), an evidence-based approach for emulating real-world policy-making. Given empirical relationships established between energy-economic developments and policy adoption, we endogenize national political decision-making into the integrated assessment model REMIND via multistage feedback loops with a probabilistic coalition accession model. DPE finds global PPCA participation <5% likely against a current policies backdrop and, counterintuitively, foresees that intracoalition leakage risks may severely compromise sector-specific, demand-side action. DPE further enables policies to interact endogenously, demonstrated here by the PPCA’s path-dependence to COVID-19 recovery investments.

Quitting fossil fuels: how fast can the world do it?

J. Jewell, M. Vetier, V. Vinichenko, O.M. Lægreid, S. Pai, A. Cherp, H. Brauers, I. Braunger, L. Nacke, H. Zerriffi. (2022). Quitting fossil fuels: how fast can the world do it? Policy brief.

To meet climate targets, fossil fuel use needs to rapidly decline. Has anything similar happened in the past? Do current coal phase-out efforts put us on the path to save the climate? And how would such radical fossil fuel decline affect fossil fuel workers? To answer these questions, we analyzed historical precedents of fossil fuel decline, current efforts to phase-out coal and future pathways to reach climate targets.

We find surprising precedents of decline in the 1970s and 80s when industrialized wealthy economies responded to the oil crises. At the same time, the current pledges of coal phase-out are insufficient to deliver on the 1.5°C targets and are limited to countries with low costs and high enough capacity to overcome those costs. Nevertheless, in spite of the opposition from fossil fuel workers to transitions, we identify opportunities for low-carbon jobs to replace fossil fuel jobs.

Download and read the policy brief from the Contractions project.

Dynamic Evaluation of Policy Feasibility, Feedbacks and the Ambitions of COALitions

S. Bi, N. Bauer, J. Jewell. (2021). Dynamic Evaluation of Policy Feasibility, Feedbacks and the Ambitions of COALitions. In Review. Research Square. PrePrint.

The Paris Agreement prioritised international bottom-up climate negotiations. Meanwhile, research has asserted the coal exit as a prerequisite for Paris-consistent pathways. The Powering Past Coal Alliance (PPCA), an opt-in initiative toward phasing-out coal-fired electricity by mid-century, embodies both paradigms but currently encompasses just 5% of global coal demand. To assess its long-term prospects against Paris-consistent pathways, we couple the energy-economy model REMIND to an empirical coalition accession model and demonstrate a novel scenario analysis technique, Dynamic Policy Evaluation (DPE). Capturing co-evolutionary feedbacks between policy uptake and global energy markets, we simulate nationally-and-temporally-fragmented PPCA accession and analyse its sensitivity to coalition growth, sectoral ambition, and Covid-19-related uncertainty. Surprisingly, we find that virtually global PPCA participation achieves <3% of 1.5oC-consistent coal declines, as non-electric consumption remains unregulated. In contrast, our median-estimate scenario (82% accession) assuming economy wide coverage achieves ~53% efficacy (virtually-global: ~85%), suggesting that the PPCA should prioritise policy ambition over coalition expansion.

Historical precedents and feasibility of rapid coal and gas decline required for the 1.5°C target

V. Vinichenko, A. Cherp, J. Jewell. (2021). Historical precedents and feasibility of rapid coal and gas decline required for the 1.5°C target. One Earth 4, 1477–1490. Open Access. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2021.09.012

To limit global warming to 1.5C, fossil fuel use must rapidly decline, but historical precedents for such large-scale transitions are lacking. Here we identify 147 historical episodes and policy pledges of fossil fuel decline in 105 countries and global regions between 1960 and 2018. We analyze 43 cases in larger systems most relevant to climate scenarios. One-half of 1.5C-compatible scenarios envision coal decline in Asia faster than in any of these cases. The remaining scenarios as well as many scenarios for coal and gas decline in other regions have precedents only where oil was replaced by coal, gas, or nuclear power in response to energy security threats. Achieving the 1.5C target will be difficult in the absence of fossil fuel decline mechanisms that extend far beyond historical experience or current pledges.

Failing the formative phase: the global diffusion of nuclear power is limited by national markets

E. Brutschin, A. Cherp, & J. Jewell. (2021). Failing the formative phase: the global diffusion of nuclear power is limited by national markets. Energy Research & Social Science, 80, 102221. Open Access. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2021.102221

Understanding the role of technology characteristics and the context in the diffusion of new energy technologies is important for assessing feasibility of climate mitigation. We examine the historical adoption of nuclear power as a case of a complex large scale energy technology. We conduct an event history analysis of grid connections of first sizable commercial nuclear power reactors in 79 countries between 1950 and 2018. We show that the introduction of nuclear power can largely be explained by contextual variables such as the proximity of a country to a major technology supplier (‘ease of diffusion’), the size of the economy, electricity demand growth, and energy import dependence (‘market attractiveness’). The lack of nuclear newcomers in the early 1990s can be explained by the lack of countries with high growth in electricity demand and sufficient capacities to build their first nuclear power plant, either on their own or with international help. We also find that nuclear accidents, the pursuit of nuclear weapons, and the advances made in competing technologies played only a minor role in nuclear technology failing to be established in more countries. Our analysis improves understanding of the feasibility of introducing contested and expensive technologies in a heterogenous world with motivations and capacities that differ across countries and by a patchwork of international relations. While countries with high state capacity or support from a major technology supplier are capable of introducing large-scale technologies quickly, technology diffusion to other regions might undergo significant delays due to lower motivations and capacities.

Meeting well-below 2°C target would increase energy sector jobs globally

S. Pai, J. Emmerling, L. Drouet, H. Zerriffi & J. Jewell. (2021). Meeting well-below 2°C target would increase energy sector jobs globally. One Earth, 4(7), 1026–1036. Open Access. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2021.06.005.

To limit global warming to well-below 2°C (WB2C), fossil fuels must be replaced by low-carbon energy sources. Support for this transition is often dampened by the impact on fossil fuel jobs. Previous work shows that pro-climate polices could increase employment by 20 million net energy jobs, but these studies rely on Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) jobs data, assumptions about jobs in non-OECD countries, and a single baseline assumption. Here we combine a global dataset of job intensities across 11 energy technologies and five job categories in 50 countries with an integrated assessment model under three shared socioeconomic pathways. We estimate direct energy jobs under a WB2C scenario and current policy scenarios. We find that, by 2050, energy sector jobs would grow from today’s 18 million to 26 million under a WB2C scenario compared with 21 million under the current policy scenario. Fossil fuel extraction jobs would rapidly decline, but losses will be compensated by gains in solar and wind jobs, particularly in the manufacturing sector (totaling 7.7 million in 2050).

Liquefied natural gas expansion plans in Germany: The risk of gas lock-in under energy transitions

H. Brauers, I. Braunger & J. Jewell. (2021). Liquefied natural gas expansion plans in Germany: The risk of gas lock-in under energy transitions. Energy Research & Social Science, 76, 102059. Open Access. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2021.102059

The German energy transition has been hailed as a role model for climate action. However, plans for the con­struction of three large-scale Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) import terminals are receiving strong state support. This is inconsistent with Germany’s climate targets, which require a reduction rather than expansion of natural gas consumption. In our paper, we aim to unpack the connection between the risk of natural gas lock-in and the energy transition. We analyse the co-evolution of the techno-economic, socio-technical and political realms of the German natural gas sector and influence of actors within that process. We use a combination of energy system and interview data, and introduce a new approach to triangulate material and actor analysis. We show that four natural gas lock-in mechanisms cause the support for LNG in Germany: (A) the geopolitical influence from the United States, combined with (B) security of supply concerns due to the planned coal and nuclear phase-out, (C) pressure from a wide variety of state and private sector actors, and (D) sunk investments in existing gas infra­ structure. Two additional mechanisms supporting the strong position of natural gas are (E) the strength of the emerging synthetic gas niche, and (F) weak opposition against LNG and natural gas. We highlight the severely overlooked lock-in potential and related emissions, which could complicate and decelerate energy transitions as more countries reach a more advanced phase of the energy transition.

Solar has greater techno-economic resource suitability than wind for replacing coal mining jobs

S. Pai, H. Zerriffi, J. Jewell & J. Pathak. (2020). Solar has greater techno-economic resource suitability than wind for replacing coal mining jobs. Environmental Research Letters. 15 (3), 034065. Open Access. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab6c6d.

Coal mining directly employs over 7 million workers and benefits millions more through indirect jobs. However, to meet the 1.5 °C global climate target, coal's share in global energy supply should decline between 73% and 97% by 2050. But what will happen to coal miners as coal jobs disappear ?Answering this question is necessary to ensure a just transition and to ensure that politically powerful coal mining interests do not impede energy transitions. Some suggest that coal miners can transition to renewable jobs. However, prior research has not investigated the potential for renewable jobs to replace 'local' coal mining jobs. Historic analyses of coal industry declines show that coal miners do not migrate when they lose their jobs. By focusing on China, India, the US, and Australia, which represent 70% of global coal production, we investigate: (1) the local solar and wind capacity required in each coal mining area to enable all coal miners to transition to solar/wind jobs; (2) whether there are suitable solar and wind power resources in coal mining areas in order to install solar/wind plants and create those jobs; and (3) the scale of renewables deployment required to transition coal miners in areas suitable for solar/wind power. We find that with the exception of the US, several GWs of solar or wind capacity would be required in each coal mining area to transition all coal miners to solar/wind jobs. Moreover, while solar has more resource suitability than wind in coal mining areas, these resources are not available everywhere. In China, the country with the largest coal mining workforce, only 29% of coal mining areas are suitable for solar power. In all four countries, less than 7% of coal mining areas have suitable wind resources. Further, countries would have to scale-up their current solar capacity significantly to transition coal miners who work in areas suitable for solar development.

Reply to: Why fossil fuel producer subsidies matter

J. Jewell, J. Emmerling, V. Vinichenko, C. Bertram, L. Berger, H. E. Daly, I. Keppo, V. Krey, D. E. H. J. Gernaat, K. Fragkiadakis, D. McCollum, L. Paroussas, K. Riahi, M. Tavoni & D. van Vuuren. (2020). Reply to: Why fossil fuel producer subsidies matter. Nature, 578 (7793), E5–E7. Open Access. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1921-9.

On the political feasibility of climate change mitigation pathways: Is it too late to keep warming below 1.5°C?

J. Jewell. & A. Cherp. (2020). On the political feasibility of climate change mitigation pathways: Is it too late to keep warming below 1.5°C? Wiley Interdisciplinary Rev (WIRE) Climate Change, 11 (621). Open Access. DOI: 10.1002/wcc.621.

Keeping global warming below 1.5°C is technically possible but is it politically feasible? Understanding political feasibility requires answering three questions: (a) “Feasibility of what?,” (b) “Feasibility when and where?,” and (c) “Feasibility for whom?.” In relation to the 1.5°C target, these questions translate into (a) identifying specific actions comprising the 1.5°C pathways; (b) assessing the economic and political costs of these actions in different socioeconomic and political contexts; and (c) assessing the economic and institutional capacity of relevant social actors to bear these costs. This view of political feasibility stresses costs and capacities in contrast to the prevailing focus on benefits and motivations which mistakes desirability for feasibility. The evidence on the political feasibility of required climate actions is not systematic, but clearly indicates that the costs of required actions are too high in relation to capacities to bear these costs in relevant contexts. In the future, costs may decline and capacities may increase which would reduce political constraints for at least some solutions. However, this is unlikely to happen in time to avoid a temperature overshoot. Further research should focus on exploring the “dynamic political feasibility space” constrained by costs and capacities in order to find more feasible pathways to climate stabilization. This article is categorized under: The Carbon Economy and Climate Mitigation > Decarbonizing Energy and/or Reducing Demand

Prospects for powering past coal

J. Jewell, V. Vinichenko, L. Nacke, & A. Cherp. (2019). Prospects for powering past coal. Nature Climate Change, 9(8), 592–597. Gated. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-019-0509-6. Preprint.

To keep global warming within 1.5 °C of pre-industrial levels, there needs to be a substantial decline in the use of coal power by 2030 and in most scenarios, complete cessation by 2050. The members of the Powering Past Coal Alliance (PPCA), launched in 2017 at the UNFCCC Conference of the Parties, are committed to “phasing out existing unabated coal power generation and a moratorium on new coal power generation without operational carbon capture and storage”. The alliance has been hailed as a ‘political watershed’ and a new ‘anti-fossil fuel norm’. Here we estimate that the premature retirement of power plants pledged by PPCA members would cut emissions by 1.6 GtCO2, which is 150 times less than globally committed emissions from existing coal power plants. We also investigated the prospect of major coal consumers joining the PPCA by systematically comparing members to non-members. PPCA members extract and use less coal and have older power plants, but this alone does not fully explain their pledges to phase out coal power. The members of the alliance are also wealthier and have more transparent and independent governments. Thus, what sets them aside from major coal consumers, such as China and India, are both lower costs of coal phase-out and a higher capacity to bear these costs. To limit warming, a rapid reduction in coal use is needed. Early retirement of coal power plants by members of the Powering Past Coal Alliance, which includes mainly wealthy countries that use little coal, would have a modest climate impact. Prospects for expanding the Alliance are examined.