Low-carbon society: an enhanced modelling tool for the transition to sustainability

Project Information

LOCOMOTION

Grant agreement ID: 821105

DOI

10.3030/821105

Project closed

EC signature date 3 May 2019

Start date 1 June 2019

End date 30 November 2023

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Climate action, Environment, Resource Efficiency and Raw Materials

Total cost

€ 6 315 865,00

EU contribution

€ 6 315 865,00

Coordinated by

UNIVERSIDAD DE VALLADOLID
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - LOCOMOTION (Low-carbon society: an enhanced modelling tool for the transition to sustainability)

Reporting period: 2021-12-01 to 2023-11-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Europe and the world stand at a turning point. The global climate is heating up. Species are dying out at unprecedented speed. Many of the world’s finite resources are being overexploited. At the centre of this worldwide crisis stands humanity. Citizens are demanding change, while civil society and policymakers are seeking sustainable alternatives for a low-carbon, net zero-emissions future.

Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) link socioeconomic, energy and environmental models into a single modelling framework to assess the feasibility and effectiveness of different sustainability policy options.

Building on an existing IAM developed in the EU-funded MEDEAS project, LOCOMOTION has built a new IAM, “WILIAM”, that excels through its robustness, transparency, accessibility, usability and reliability.

• WILIAM is a new multi-regional global IAM with 9 global regions and integrating the 27 EU countries. It is a large policy-simulation model whose core motivation is to capture socioeconomic implications of the energy transition(s) accounting for biophysical constraints.
• WILIAM includes modules on demography, society, economy, finance, energy, materials, land and water, and climate, and integrates relevant features and functionalities from other models.
• WILIAM models a rich portfolio of conventional and non-conventional policies (e.g. CO2 taxes, basic income, behavioural changes, working time reduction, recycling, etc.) aiming at being able to simulate a broad range of narratives, such as Green Growth, Green Deal and Post-growth/Degrowth.
• WILIAM improves the usability of IAMs through the development of graphical user interfaces and a participatory simulation game for educational purposes, and transparency through an open access policy.
• WILIAM ensures the effective exploitation of the IAM of the three target groups, that are policymakers, concerned citizens and experts in relevant related fields.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

In this last period, the WILIAM ("Within limits IAM") has been finalised and published (version 1.2). The model includes:

- The model includes a geographic breakdown of variables into 9 global regions, and for the region "EU-27" a breakdown into countries for the variables of the economy, finance, demography and society modules.

- WILIAM model is structured in eight integrated modules: (1) demography, (2) society, (3) economy, (4) finance, (5) energy, (6) materials, (7) land and water, and (8) climate.

• Demography: models regional population evolution (including household’s heterogeneity) feeding economy, given exogenous assumptions.
• Society: includes indicators of inequality (Gini), development (HDI) and a stylized education submodule.
• Economy: The economy is represented by a dynamic econometric model covering 35 regions, with detailed representation of consumption (including 60 household types), production (based on input-output tables of 62 sectors), government (including collection of taxes + public expenditures), investment, labour, international trade and financial dimensions.
• Finance: models the constraints in the economic and energy system due to financial assets and public and private debt.
• Energy: represents the full energy supply-chain, i.e the main refinery, transformation and supply processes. The variability of renewables is considered by keeping track of sub-annual time scale effects on annual energy balances depending on the current power system setup of build-up of generation capacities and flexibility capacities (demand-side management, storage, sector coupling, hydrogen and synthetic fuels). The computation of the EROI of the full system considers the EROI and material requirements of green technologies, which feedbacks the energy demand. Techno-sustainable potentials of renewables are included considering biophysical, geographical, natural resources and EROI constraints. Passenger transport is modelled bottom-up and includes a detailed representation of 11 transport modes, 10 power trains and a portfolio of behavioural policies.
• Materials: includes fossil fuels, uranium and the main base metals which are fully integrated with energy and economy modules. The material requirements for key green technologies are also assessed in a bottom-up way for solar, wind and electric batteries.
• Land and water: The land-use module including human food, energy and climate interactions, thus allowing endogenizing land-based renewable potentials (solar and bioenergy), considering the agriculture and land related emissions, and the effects of climate change on biophysical variables such as crop yields. The main output of the water module is water availability based on demand, supply and climate change impacts.
• Climate: The module converts emissions coming from the other modules in changes in main climate variables, such as mean temperature change and sea level rise. Climate change impacts on capital stock, labour productivity and crop yields are computed.

- Selected simulation results, modelling passenger transport policies, universal basic income, fiscal policies, green hydrogen policies and distributional issues regarding land use have been presented (Deliverable 8.4).

- To enable the use of the model for users without programming skills, two user-friendly and target group specific interfaces (the Model Explorer and the Model Analyzer) have be developed and published for use. A participatory simulation game for educational purposes has been developed.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

In spite of advances made in integrated assessment modelling, many IAMs, and especially those with greater influence over policy, share a core set of assumptions whose validity is being disputed in the scientific community, leaving scope for improvement.

WILIAM occupies this niche and focuses on

• the careful modelling of the complex human-nature system that is governed by dynamic, tightly coupled, nonlinear, self-organising, adaptive and evolving feedbacks
• the proper representation of biophysical and temporal constraints to renewable and non-renewable energy production
• the declining Energy Return on Energy Investment (EROI) with increasing shares of renewable energy
• the consistent integration of climate change damage feedbacks
• the dominance of conventional economic equilibrium and optimisation approaches, which suffer significant limitations when it comes to capturing socioeconomic system dynamics and the role of macroeconomic policies for sustainability governance.

The main methodological innovations are
• The endogenous and dynamic integration of economic, financial, energy-related, social, demographic and environmental variables into the models.
• The use of a wide array of methods, such as System Dynamics, Input-Output Analysis, EROEI calculations, Life Cycle Analysis, land and carbon footprinting, microsimulation, etc.;
• The adoption of relevant functionalities from other models.
• The consistent quantification and representation of uncertainty in model results.

The resulting WILIAM model is a robust, transparent and user-friendly tool for policy analysis:
• Supporting EU climate policy and the preparation of EU submissions to international processes, such as the 2023 global stock-taking exercise under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
• Supporting EU contributions to major international scientific assessments.
• Fostering innovative policymaking through the development of robust methodologies and tools.