PBL projects

Bio-energy

Bio-energy plays a major role in all ambitions climate policy scenarios, developed by IMAGE and other integrated assessment models. However, first generation biofuels have recently raised a lot of discussion on the net greenhouse gas savings, (indirect) land use, biodiversity and food price effects. The PBL-wide bio-energy projects has been initiated in order to combine the work and knowledge on biofuels at PBL, and to inform policy makers, especially in the ongoing Dutch and European decision making. The IMAGE model contributes to the ongoing analyses, both with the TIMER model, and in connection with GTAP (LEI).

Related publications:

Mitigation

A major application of the IMAGE modeling system is to look into possible mitigation strategies to climate change. These strategies consider a wide range of different options to reduce greenhouse gas emissions such as energy efficiency improvement, changes in energy supply, reducing  non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions and reducing deforestation. IMAGE analysis looks into different aspects of these scenarios including consequences for land use, energy systems and climate.

• Oil and natural gas prices and greenhouse gas emission mitigation
  article, 2009
• Assessment of bottom-up sectoral and regional mitigation potentials. Background report
  WAB report, 2008
• Quantifying the effectiveness of climate change mitigation through forest plantations and carbon sequestration with an integrated land-use model
  article, 2008
• Temperature increase of 21st century mitigation scenarios
  article, 2008
• Long-term reduction potential of non-CO2 greenhouse gases
  article, 2007
• From Climate objectives to emissions reduction. Insights into the opportunities for mitigating climate change
  PBL report 2006
• Stabilising greenhouse gas concentrations at low levels: an assessment of options and costs
  PBL report, 2006
• Long-Term Multi-Gas Scenarios to Stabilise Radiative Forcing – Exploring Costs and Benefits Within an Integrated Assessment Framework
  article, 2006
• Multi-gas scenarios to stabilize radiative forcing
  article, 2006
• Energy and emission scenarios for China in the 21st century - exploration of baseline development and mitigation options
  article, 2003
• Mitigation scenarios in a world oriented at sustainable development: the role of technology, efficiency and timing
  PBL report, 2000

Sustainable Protein Supply

The environmental impact of livestock production has received a lot of attention recently. In this project we explore options to increase the sustainability of protein supply (meat, dairy and vegetatatian protein sources), through changes in the production change, changes in the consumption patterns, and “system options” like implementation of nature conservation and reducing emissions from deforestation and  degradation. The tow agro-economic models GTAP (at LEI), and the IMPACT (at IFPRI), are used to implement these options and analyze their economic consequences, while the IMAGE model is used to provide land-supply and assess the and environmental consequences.