GHG Mitigation in Iran’s Energy Sector According to the National General Policies

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change calls on member states to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions as much as possible in order to combat global warming. Iran has announced 4 and 12 percent emission reduction targets in 2030 in its Intended Nationally Determined Contributions compared to the Business-As-Usual (BAU) scenario, in which the energy sector has the largest share in this program. On the other hand, the goals of the country's upstream documents in the field of energy economy and environment show that the country is serious in policy-making level to reduce energy intensity and improve efficiency, which will implicitly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In this study, while reviewing the policies of the country’s upstream documents in the field of energy economy and environment, we introduce the goals that are in line with GHGs mitigation, and by optimizing the national energy system, we have compared these goals in the form of different scenarios with the BAU scenario. The results show that reducing the energy intensity and reducing per capita emissions according to the national targets will reduce the emissions in the energy sector by 50 to 65%, which is significant compared to the INDCs targets. In addition, modifying energy pricing –especially in industrial sector- based on the assumptions of this research can be effective in reducing GHGs emissions in the energy sector up to 20%.