IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enepol/v73y2014icp820-822.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The failure of marginal abatement cost curves in optimising a transition to a low carbon energy supply

Author

Listed:
  • Ward, D.J.

Abstract

One of the tools used to optimise actions in reducing the carbon intensity of the economy is to use Marginal Abatement Cost (MAC) curves. Whilst these are known to be imperfect they are widely used to prioritise actions and often in a way that is incorrect. In particular, whilst their use for measures which have positive costs and a net reduction in carbon emissions can correctly rank the measures for effectiveness, use for ranking measures which have a net negative cost, including a wide range of energy efficiency measures, is entirely inappropriate and leads to perverse and incorrect outcomes. As a result, many assessments of low carbon actions are fundamentally flawed in their ranking of effectiveness and action is needed to overcome this and allow an optimum outcome. An alternative approach is suggested here.

Suggested Citation

  • Ward, D.J., 2014. "The failure of marginal abatement cost curves in optimising a transition to a low carbon energy supply," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 820-822.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:73:y:2014:i:c:p:820-822
    DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2014.03.008
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421514001554
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.enpol.2014.03.008?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fabian Kesicki & Paul Ekins, 2012. "Marginal abatement cost curves: a call for caution," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(2), pages 219-236, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Robert Miehe & Matthias Finkbeiner & Alexander Sauer & Thomas Bauernhansl, 2022. "A System Thinking Normative Approach towards Integrating the Environment into Value-Added Accounting—Paving the Way from Carbon to Environmental Neutrality," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(20), pages 1-20, October.
    2. Yuan, Jun & Ng, Szu Hui & Sou, Weng Sut, 2016. "Uncertainty quantification of CO2 emission reduction for maritime shipping," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 113-130.
    3. Hu, Hongtao & Yuan, Jun & Nian, Victor, 2019. "Development of a multi-objective decision-making method to evaluate correlated decarbonization measures under uncertainty – The example of international shipping," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 148-157.
    4. Halkos, George & Tzeremes, Nickolaos & Kourtzidis, Stavros, 2014. "Abating CO2 emissions in the Greek energy and industry sectors," MPRA Paper 60807, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Chappin, E.J.L. & Soana, M. & Arensman, C.E.C. & Swart, F., 2020. "The Y factor for Climate Change abatement – A method to rank options beyond abatement costs," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    6. Yuan, Jun & Ng, Szu Hui, 2017. "Emission reduction measures ranking under uncertainty," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 270-279.
    7. Timmons, David & Konstantinidis, Charalampos & Shapiro, Andrew M. & Wilson, Alex, 2016. "Decarbonizing residential building energy: A cost-effective approach," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 382-392.
    8. Levihn, Fabian, 2016. "On the problem of optimizing through least cost per unit, when costs are negative: Implications for cost curves and the definition of economic efficiency," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 1155-1163.
    9. Blanco, Christian C. & Caro, Felipe & Corbett, Charles J., 2020. "Do carbon abatement opportunities become less profitable over time? A global firm-level perspective using CDP data," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Saujot, Mathieu & Lefèvre, Benoit, 2016. "The next generation of urban MACCs. Reassessing the cost-effectiveness of urban mitigation options by integrating a systemic approach and social costs," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 124-138.
    2. Vogt-Schilb, Adrien & Hallegatte, Stephane & de Gouvello Christophe, 2014. "Long-term mitigation strategies and marginal abatement cost curves : a case study on Brazil," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6808, The World Bank.
    3. Ahn, Young-Hwan & Jeon, Wooyoung, 2019. "Power sector reform and CO2 abatement costs in Korea," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 202-214.
    4. Adrien Vogt-Schilb & St�phane Hallegatte & Christophe de Gouvello, 2015. "Marginal abatement cost curves and the quality of emission reductions: a case study on Brazil," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(6), pages 703-723, November.
    5. Letmathe, Peter & Wagner, Sandra, 2018. "“Messy” marginal costs: Internal pricing of environmental aspects on the firm level," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 201(C), pages 41-52.
    6. Cunha, Felipe Arias Fogliano de Souza & Börner, Jan & Wunder, Sven & Cosenza, Carlos Alberto Nunes & Lucena, André F.P., 2016. "The implementation costs of forest conservation policies in Brazil," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 209-220.
    7. Weiwei Xiong & Katsumasa Tanaka & Philippe Ciais & Daniel J. A. Johansson & Mariliis Lehtveer, 2022. "emIAM v1.0: an emulator for Integrated Assessment Models using marginal abatement cost curves," Papers 2212.12060, arXiv.org.
    8. Van den Bergh, Kenneth & Delarue, Erik, 2015. "Quantifying CO2 abatement costs in the power sector," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 88-97.
    9. Heitmann, Nadine & Peterson, Sonja, 2012. "The potential contribution of the shipping sector to an efficient reduction of global carbon dioxide emissions," Kiel Working Papers 1813, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    10. Zhang, Shaohui & Worrell, Ernst & Crijns-Graus, Wina, 2015. "Evaluating co-benefits of energy efficiency and air pollution abatement in China’s cement industry," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 192-213.
    11. Vera Eory & Cairistiona F. E. Topp & Adam Butler & Dominic Moran, 2018. "Addressing Uncertainty in Efficient Mitigation of Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Emissions," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 69(3), pages 627-645, September.
    12. Benjamin Dequiedt & Dominic Moran, 2014. "The cost of emissions mitigation by legume crops in French agriculture," Working Papers 1410, Chaire Economie du climat.
    13. Eory, Vera, 2015. "Evaluating the use of marginal abatement cost curves applied to greenhouse gas abatement in agriculture," Working Papers 199777, Scotland's Rural College (formerly Scottish Agricultural College), Land Economy & Environment Research Group.
    14. May Elsayyad & Florian Morath, 2016. "Technology Transfers For Climate Change," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 57(3), pages 1057-1084, August.
    15. Philip Wallis & Michael Ward & Jamie Pittock & Karen Hussey & Howard Bamsey & Amandine Denis & Steven Kenway & Carey King & Shahbaz Mushtaq & Monique Retamal & Brian Spies, 2014. "The water impacts of climate change mitigation measures," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 125(2), pages 209-220, July.
    16. Wilmsmeier, Gordon & Kreuzer, Fabian Maximilian, 2014. "Energy efficiency and mobility: A roadmap towards a greener economy in Latin America and the Caribbean," Documentos de Proyectos 37148, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    17. Timilsina, Govinda R. & Sikharulidze, Anna & Karapoghosyan, Eduard & Shatvoryan, Suren, 2017. "Development of marginal abatement cost curves for the building sector in Armenia and Georgia," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 29-43.
    18. Alemu Mekonnen, 2014. "Economic Costs of Climate Change and Climate Finance with a Focus on Africa," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 23(suppl_2), pages 50-82.
    19. Robert Miehe & Matthias Finkbeiner & Alexander Sauer & Thomas Bauernhansl, 2022. "A System Thinking Normative Approach towards Integrating the Environment into Value-Added Accounting—Paving the Way from Carbon to Environmental Neutrality," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(20), pages 1-20, October.
    20. Peng, Bin-Bin & Xu, Jin-Hua & Fan, Ying, 2018. "Modeling uncertainty in estimation of carbon dioxide abatement costs of energy-saving technologies for passenger cars in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 306-319.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Energy; Efficiency; Optimisation;
    All these keywords.

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:73:y:2014:i:c:p:820-822. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/enpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.