Scenarios on the burden sharing of climate change mitigation

International political debate on how climate change should be mitigated has grown stronger, and one key issue has been burden sharing, i.e. the question of how much each nation should be allowed to emit greenhouse gases. This Thesis examines the outcomes of emission reductions using the TIMES energy system model in four SRES scenarios, proposes a multicriteria approach for evaluating economic implications, regional equity and attractiveness of burden sharing, and analyzes four previously proposed burden sharing schemes: Triptych, Multistage, Equal emissions per capita and Grandfathering approaches. The developed scenarios confirmed the result of previous studies that emissions can be significantly reduced while satisfying the rising demand for energy due to technological alternatives with lower emissions. A combination of biofuels, wind, hydro and nuclear power would allow substantial emission reductions in the electricity sector, while a switch from fossil to biofuels could be expected in industrial and transportation sectors. With the trade of emission allowances, the emission reductions were made in a globally cost-optimal manner regardless of the burden sharing scheme. Therefore the burden sharing doesn’t influence the impact of emission reductions on regional economies. The trade is however likely to involve major transfers of wealth, making the burden sharing a highly relevant issue in international politics. Also due to this, the regional mitigation costs varied greatly with different burden sharing schemes. Global mitigation costs were calculated to be 1% of global GDP, a much lower figure than the costs of climate change, estimated e.g. in the Stern Review to be around 10% of GDP. This multi-criteria assessment highlighted the conflicting interests of the developed and developing nations for choosing the burden sharing method. The four schemes created a wide range of outcomes with regard to emission trading, equity and attractiveness. With the methodology used, all of the schemes were seen as relevant, Triptych however providing greatest trade-off between the developed and the developing nations. Number of pages: 67