University of Cape Town

Climate Change Mitigation in Developing Countries

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This course challenges you to consider how one might lift societies out of poverty while also mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. We explore the inherent complexity of developing country governments wanting to grow their economies in a climate friendly way. You will be introduced to an approach with which to address this challenge. The approach consists of a facilitated process whereby academic researchers and high-level influential actors within society co-produce knowledge. You will track this process in four Latin American countries - Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru, and South Africa. You will hear from various professionals about their contexts and the different challenges and opportunities the process includes. This course will cover topics such as facilitation process techniques, energy modeling, scenario building, innovation and policy making. You will have the opportunity to respond to these topics with ideas and reflection from your own context. Whether you are a climate change practitioner, work in development or are simply curious about how climate mitigation is understood, this course will give you insights into the complexity of how countries from the South pursue development goals while addressing climate mitigation. The course is free to enroll and take. You will be offered the option of purchasing a certificate of completion, which you become eligible for if you successfully complete the course requirements. This can be an excellent way of staying motivated! Financial Aid is also available.

From the lesson

Mitigation action research and modelling

Knowledge generated through research can effect change. We describe the models and tools that are available to support the generation of this knowledge. Apart from knowledge related to greenhouse gas mitigation and the costs thereof, we are interested in the positive and negative developmental impacts of moving to a low carbon economy. Emissions and costs are relatively easy to quantify but developmental impacts are less easily quantified. This week, we explore how this challenge can be addressed.

Introduction4:45

Meet the Instructors

Professor Harald Winkler
Director
Energy Research Centre, University of Cape Town

Hi there.

My name is Brett Cohen and I'm a Senior Researcher at

the Energy Research Centre at the University of Cape Town.

Where I'm going to have a look at some of the models and tools that might be used

to support the kinds of processes that we are exploring as part of this course.

Now, in your previous session you learnt about the importance of having an evidence

base of knowledge in order to effect change.

And at the same time you also heard briefly about the role that research

consortium has to play in supporting the processes that we discuss in here.

So in this session what I'm going to do is introduce you to these models and tools

that not only provide you with information about greenhouse gas emissions and

how they might evolve.

But also to talk a little bit about the way that we quantify the developmental

impact of greenhouse gas mitigation and some of the costs associated with it.

I'm also then going to have a look at how we use the information that's

gathered out of these models and tools In order to tell stories that might

be helpful in engaging policy makers and stakeholders.

Now, when I talk about the models and tools here, what kinds of information

might we be interested In producing using such models and tools.

Well, the first thing that might come to mind is that we might be interested

in how our greenhouse gas emissions, measured in, say, tons of CO2 equivalence,

might evolve over time.

And the first instance that we might look at is the evolution

of these emissions under what we sometimes term a business as usual,

or a BAU and we sometimes term a baseline.

All right? The terms are used interchangeably.

Sometimes people use different, use them in different contexts, so

it's important to understand what is being referred to here.

But you might see that terminology.

And then what we have a look at is how these emissions might evolve

in various mitigation scenarios.

So what might the impacts of, for example, using wind or

solar power in the electricity sector, do?

What might intervention in the transport sector, such as Bus Rapid Transport

systems, road to rail shift, electric vehicles too.

In the industrial sector, we have a whole host of different interventions that we

might look at in the cement sector, the iron and steel sector and others.

The waste sector is a producer of greenhouse gas emissions.

And we might choose to capture landfill gas or recycle materials.

Which will then have upstream and downstream impacts on a emissions.

And finally in the AFOLU sector, AFLOU stands for agriculture, forestry and

land use, we might look at what grassland preservation would do to emissions or

what changing agricultural practices might do.

We then might also run some scenarios when we have a look at the impact of a tax,

for example, on our greenhouse gas emissions.

And then what that allows us to do is to come along and plot different scenarios

of emission reductions under differing levels of penetration or

levels of effort on related to these mitigated interventions.

And our ultimate is to try and reduce greenhouse guest emissions to the point

where we are able to allow greenhouse guest emissions to rise to a point and

ultimately start to decline.

because that's what we need to do in order to reach our two degrees targets.

The metals and tools that we referred to in this exercise, not only provide us with

information relating to reductions in greenhouse gas emissions over time, but

also could provide us with information as to

what is it going to cost in order to affect these interventions.

What is the impact going to be on our GDP of our economy?

What is the impact going to be on balance of payments, unemployment

and then we could also like at things like household income

and various other aspects of the broader economy.

So those are the kinds of considerations that we're going to be covering as part of

today's lesson.