Zoi Vrontisi

• Research Officer at National Technical University of Athens

The Paris Agreement aims to limit the increase of global mean temperature to well-below 2°C and preferably 1.5°C. This study provides a multi-model analysis of global projections of current policies and pledges, and climate pathways to implement the Paris Agreement’s overall goals. In this exercise, current policies and NDCs scenarios are updated....

Despite faster-than-expected progress in clean energy technology deployment, global annual CO2 emissions have increased from 2020 to 2023. The feasibility of limiting warming to 1.5 °C is therefore questioned. Here we present a model intercomparison study that accounts for emissions trends until 2023 and compares cost-effective scenarios to alterna...

One of the core strategic objectives of the EU is to ensure that Europe becomes the first climate-neutral continent, with net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Carbon neutrality is an ambitious objective that requires large investments sustained over time. In particular, it will require dramatic changes in the way we source and use energy. The...

Research and development (R&D) investments foster green innovation, which is key to decarbonize the energy system and attain long-term climate goals. In this paper, we link three integrated assessment models that possess a macroeconomic framework—WITCH, MERGE-ETL, and GEM-E3—with the bottom-up technology-rich energy system model TIAM-ECN, in order...

Climate stabilization requires the deployment of several low-carbon options, some of which are still not available at large scale or are too costly. Governments will have to make important decisions on how to incentivize Research and Development (R&D). Yet, current assessments of climate neutrality typically do not include research-driven innovatio...

Climate change is an extremely complex challenge characterized by its systemic nature and deep uncertainties. Thus, finding solutions requires a continuing and constructive dialogue between the research community and a wide range of stakeholders from governments, non-governmental organizations, civil society, international organizations, industry,...

Research and development (R&D) investments foster green innovation, which is key to decarbonize the energy system and attain long-term climate goals. In this paper, we link three integrated assessment models that possess a macroeconomic framework – WITCH, MERGE-ETL and GEM-E3 – with the bottom-up technology-rich energy system model TIAM-ECN, in ord...

Island communities are among the first and most adversely affected by the impacts of global climate change. Islands are vulnerable to climate change because of their isolated geography, large coastal areas, and low economic diversification. This paper presents a model-based evaluation of the macroeconomic impacts of climate change on the Blue Econo...

Mitigation pathways exploring end-of-century temperature targets often entail temperature overshoot. Little is known about the additional climate risks generated by overshooting temperature. Here we assessed the benefits of limiting overshoot. We computed the probabilistic impacts for different warming targets and overshoot levels on the basis of a...

Global emissions scenarios play a critical role in the assessment of strategies to mitigate climate change. The current scenarios, however, are criticized because they feature strategies with pronounced overshoot of the global temperature goal, requiring a long-term repair phase to draw temperatures down again through net-negative emissions. Some i...

As part of the European Green Deal, the EU aims to become climate-neutral and reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Ιn this context, EU member states are required to develop a national strategy to achieve the required emissions reductions under the Paris Agreement and EU climate goals. Western Macedonia is a region in North-western Greec...

The Paris Agreement does not only stipulate to limit the global average temperature increase to well below 2 °C, it also calls for 'making finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions'. Consequently, there is an urgent need to understand the implications of climate targets for energy systems and quantify the associat...

The implementation of determined or ambitious environmental policies may lead to regressive distributional impacts, disproportionately affecting low income population groups. The imposition of additional taxes on energy products affects negatively low-income households that face funding scarcity, increasing the risk of energy poverty. In this study...

Wind energy is the leading renewable technology towards achieving climate goals, yet biodiversity trade-offs via land take are emerging. Thus, we are facing the paradox of impacting on biodiversity to combat climate change. We suggest a novel method of spatial planning that enhances windfarm sustainability: investments are prioritized in the most f...

Global emissions scenarios play a critical role in the assessment of strategies to mitigate climate change and their related societal transformations. The current generation of scenarios, however, are criticized because they rely heavily on net negative CO2 emissions (NNCE) that result from allowing temperature limits to be temporarily exceeded. In...

CD-LINKS insights critically informed the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) special report on Global Warming of 1.5°C, as well as other reports on the assessment of investment and finance needs. Through continued inter-disciplinary global research efforts such as CD-LINKS, we can strategically and systematically work to achieve objec...

The bottom-up approach of the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) in the Paris Agreement has led countries to self-determine their greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction targets. The planned ‘ratcheting-up’ process, which aims to ensure that the NDCs comply with the overall goal of limiting global average temperature increase to well below...

The European Union has recently established the “Clean Energy for all Europeans” climate policy framework, aiming at the achievement of the European Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) submitted to the Paris Agreement. The EU28 NDC includes a commitment for emission reductions in 2030 but also refers to an economy-wide effort towards 2050 so a...

This study assesses Japan’s mid-century low-emission pathways using both national and global integrated assessment models in the common mitigation scenario framework, based on the carbon budgets corresponding to the global 2 °C goal. We examine high and low budgets, equal to global cumulative 1600 and 1000 Gt-CO2 (2011–2100) for global models, and...

This paper explores the consequences of different policy assumptions and the derivation of globally consistent, national low-carbon development pathways for the seven largest greenhouse gas (GHG)–emitting countries (EU28 as a bloc) in the world, covering approximately 70% of global CO2 emissions, in line with their contributions to limiting global...

Cost-effective achievement of the Paris Agreement's long-term goals requires the unanimous phase-out of coal power generation by mid-century. However, continued investments in coal power plants will make this transition difficult. India is one of the major countries with significant under construction and planned increase in coal power capacity. To...

Many countries have implemented national climate policies to accomplish pledged Nationally Determined Contributions and to contribute to the temperature objectives of the Paris Agreement on climate change. In 2023, the global stocktake will assess the combined effort of countries. Here, based on a public policy database and a multi-model scenario a...

Following the Paris Agreement, climate policies have been developing rapidly, consequently affecting all economic agents. To this extent, trade implications and competitiveness effects have been of prime concern to energy and climate policy makers. In this study, we employ the GEM-E3 hybrid CGE model to quantify the regional and sectoral trade impa...

This article presents a multi-model assessment of the macroeconomic impacts of coastal flooding due to sea level rise and the respective economy-wide implications of adaptation measures for two greenhouse gas (GHG) concentration targets, namely the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP)2.6 and RCP4.5, and subsequent temperature increases. We c...

The Paris agreement has provided a new framework for climate policy. Complementary forms of international collaboration, such as climate clubs, are probably necessary to foster and mainstream the process of gradual and voluntary increase in nationally determined contributions. We provide a quantitative macro-economic assessment of the costs and ben...

CHAPTER 5 A CIRCULAR APPROACH TO AGRICULTURE, LAND USE AND THE BIOECONOMY: AN OPPORTUNITY TO RESTORE SOIL FERTILITY AND DECARBONISE THE ECONOMY ................................................................... 1 Introduction............................................................................................ 2 Decarbonising European agri...

What strategy to adopt in R&I in order to speed up and foster mitigation policies in the EU that respond to the goals of the Paris Agreement, while growing the competitiveness of the EU economy? This was the main question that Commissioner Carlos Moedas put to the Members of the High-Level Panel (HLP) of the European Decarbonisation Initiative when...

The Paris Agreement—which is aimed at holding global warming well below 2 °C while pursuing efforts to limit it below 1.5 °C—has initiated a bottom-up process of iteratively updating nationally determined contributions to reach these long-term goals. Achieving these goals implies a tight limit on cumulative net CO2 emissions, of which residual CO2...

The Paris Agreement is a milestone in international climate policy as it establishes a global mitigation framework towards 2030 and sets the ground for a potential 1.5 °C climate stabilization. To provide useful insights for the 2018 UNFCCC Talanoa facilitative dialogue, we use eight state-of-the-art climate-energy-economy models to assess the effe...

The objective of this report is to elaborate on current and expected comparative advantages of EU industries that produce low-carbon emitting products and to estimate whether there could be benefits for the EU economy from initiating ambitious adoption and development of clean energy technologies at a much faster pace than other countries. The indu...

The United Nations-led international climate change negotiations in Paris in December 2015 (COP21) trigger and enhance climate action across the globe. This paper presents a model-based assessment of the Paris Agreement. In particular, we assess the mitigation policies implied by the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) put forward...

This paper assesses the macroeconomic and sectoral impacts of the "Clean Air Policy Package" proposed by the European Commission in December 2013. The analysis incorporates both the expenditures necessary to implement the policy by 2030 and the resulting positive feedback effects on human health and crop production. A decomposition analysis identif...

The report describes the importance of oil for the EU economy and analyses the potential economic effects that current low oil prices since mid-2014 may have in the EU28 economy. Further it assesses how the current oil price decrease may evolve up to 2020 and the consequences for global oil consumption. The analysis shows that a decrease of the oil...

The objective of the JRC PESETA II project is to gain insights into the sectoral and regional patterns of climate change impacts in Europe by the end of this century. The study uses a large set of climate model runs and impact categories (ten impacts: agriculture, energy, river floods, droughts, forest fires, transport infrastructure, coasts, touri...

The objective of the JRC PESETA II project is to gain insights into the sectoral and regional patterns of climate change impacts in Europe by the end of this century. The study uses a large set of climate model runs and impact categories (ten impacts: agriculture, energy, river floods, droughts, forest fires, transport infrastructure, coasts, touri...

Energy networks, that is, electrical networks and fossil fuel pipelines, are the backbone of energy systems. They are a prerequisite for energy security and good quality of delivered energy services. Energy networks are exposed to weather conditions and are found to be vulnerable to the impacts of climate variability like extreme weather effects an...

This report presents the economic and structural database compiled for the MEDPRO project. The database includes governance, infrastructure, finance, environment, energy, agricultural data and development indicators for the 11 southern and eastern Mediterranean countries (SEMCs) studied in the MEDPRO project. The report further details the data and...

In this chapter the impacts of anthropogenic climate variability on large energy projects are assessed. Particular attention is made to the centralized form of the current global energy infrastructure. The analysis is focused on thermal power plants and in particular on nuclear plants and concentrated solar thermal plants, because both technologies...

This chapter presents an analysis of the conditions under which energy can be a lever of sustainable development for the N. Africa (The countries considered are: Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia.) countries in the context of intensification of greenhouse gas abatement policies. The analysis begins with the identification of the distributi...

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