Exploring Enablers for an Ambitious Coal Phaseout
Exploring Enablers for an Ambitious Coal Phaseout
复制标题
DOI：
10.17645/pag.v10i3.5535
复制
发表时间：
2022-01-01
影响因子：
2.2
通讯作者：
Riahi, Keywan
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Brutschin, Elina;Schenuit, Felix;Riahi, Keywan
为了实现《巴黎协定》的减排目标，许多国家将不得不提前淘汰燃煤电厂，即在其正常寿命结束之前，这很可能导致大量资产搁浅。这可能会带来重大挑战，特别是对于许多电力需求不断增长且目前正在扩大煤炭船队的快速发展国家而言。最近的研究表明，电厂老化和煤炭消耗量下降的国家更倾向于逐步淘汰煤炭，但人们对燃煤电厂提前退役的地点、原因和方式知之甚少。在混合《巴黎协定》的背景下，人们的注意力越来越多地转向国内减排能力，同时考虑到不同部门的既得利益，人们的注意力也转向国家实施深度脱碳所需转型的能力。在本文中，我们旨在研究逐步淘汰煤炭背景下的这些能力。我们使用最新的全面的全球燃煤电厂数据集，并采用混合方法研究设计来（a）确定与提前退役燃煤电厂有关的一般新兴模式，以及（b）推导出提前退役燃煤电厂的程式化政治策略类型。我们发现国家能力是煤炭全面退役和过早退役的有力预测因素，并且我们确定了各国迄今为止用于提前退役煤炭的三种主要策略：(a) 使用自上而下的环境、气候或其他影响燃煤电厂运营许可证的法规执行监管； (b) 向公司和地区买断或提供补偿，以安抚既得利益； (c) 电力行业不断加速的市场和价格动态挤出了煤炭。我们建议，未来的研究应更系统地探索在需要快速淘汰煤炭的地区和国家中最有前途的战略，同时考虑到其政治结构，以及此类战略可能对全球减排努力产生的影响。
To reach the mitigation goals of the Paris Agreement, many countries will have to phase out their coal power plants prema-turely, i.e., before the end of their normal lifetimes, which will lead quite possibly to significant stranded assets. This could present a major challenge, particularly for many of the rapidly developing countries whose electricity demand is growing and which are currently expanding their coal fleets. Recent research shows that countries with aging power plants and decreasing coal consumption are more inclined to phase out coal, but little is known about where, why, and how coal power plants are being prematurely retired. In the context of the hybrid Paris Agreement, attention is increasingly shift-ing to domestic mitigation capacities and, alongside this-given the vested interests involved in different sectors-to state capacity to implement the transformations required to achieve deep decarbonization. In this article, we aim to study those capacities in the context of coal phaseout. We use a recent and comprehensive global dataset on coal power plants and employ a mixed-methods research design to (a) identify general emerging patterns with respect to premature coal fleet retirement, and (b) derive stylized types of political strategies to prematurely retire coal power plants. We find state capac-ity to be a robust predictor of general and premature coal retirement, and we identify three main strategies that countries have used to date to prematurely retire coal: (a) rein-in using top-down regulatory enforcement of environmental, climate, or other regulations that affect the operating licenses of coal plants; (b) buy-out or provision of compensation to com-panies and regions to appease vested interests; and (c) crowd out where accelerating market and price dynamics in the power sector crowd out coal. We propose that future research should explore more systematically the kinds of strategy that might be most promising in the regions and countries needing to rapidly phase out coal, taking into account their political structures, and also the implications that such strategies might have for global mitigation efforts.