Developing Economic Targets for Strategic Carbon Reduction Pathways

Abstract

The rising concerns about the issue of climate change have led to the emergence of global efforts to mitigate the rising concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere. Different pathways for carbon reduction exist, however, the application of such strategies is minor relative to the available opportunities due to economic burdens. Given the variety of options, it is important to establish a decision-support tool that allows the identification of carbon reduction strategies with minimum cost. Recent developments in process integration have addressed the issue of designing carbon reduction pathways with minimum costs. However, no work has been done on developing a cost targeting method that gives quick insights on the economics of carbon mitigation. This work proposes a simple and effective technique that allows the quick determination of the lowest cost portfolios for the implementation of the different technologies for carbon reduction. Insights can be provided on the optimal carbon reduction pathways through developing cost curves. The method was applied to assess different planning strategies and the economics of carbon mitigation in different regions. The aim is to provide planners, policy makers, and analysts with a decision support tool that allows a quick identification of the optimal pathways.