THE CLEAN ENERGY R&D STRATEGY FOR 2°C

Abstract

This paper uses an integrated assessment model to quantify the climate R&D investment strategy for a variety of scenarios fully consistent with 2°C. We estimate the total climate R&D investment needs in approximately 1 USD Trillion (all monetary values in this paper are given in 2005 US dollars using market exchange rates) cumulatively in the period 2010–2030, and 1.6 USD Trillions in the period 2030–2050. Most of the R&D would be carried out in industrialized countries initially, but would be evenly split after 2030. We also assess a "climate R&D deal" in which countries cooperate on innovation (while innovation is a broad topic, in this paper, we will be referring to its R&D component) in the short term, and find that an R&D agreement slightly underperforms a climate policy based on the extension of the Copenhagen pledges till 2030. Both policies are inferior to full cooperation on mitigation starting in 2020. A global agreement on clean energy innovation beyond 2030 without sufficiently stringent GHG emissions reduction policies is found to be incompatible with 2°C.