Periodic Reporting for period 2 - LOCOMOTION (Low-carbon society: an enhanced modelling tool for the transition to sustainability) Reporting period: 2020-12-01 to 2021-11-30 Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project Europe and the world stand at a turning point. The global climate is heating up. Species are dying out at unprecedented speed. Many of the world’s finite resources are being overexploited. At the centre of this worldwide crisis stands humanity. Citizens are demanding change, while civil society and policymakers are seeking sustainable alternatives for a low-carbon, net zero-emissions future. This raises the question of how do we evaluate the ramifications and consequences of the various options so as to make informed and wise decisions? Through Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs), which link socioeconomic, energy and environmental models into a single modelling framework.LOCOMOTION aims to design an IAM, the WILIAM model, to provide policymakers and relevant stakeholders with a reliable and practical modelling system to assess the feasibility and effectiveness of different sustainability policy options.Building on an existing IAM developed in the EU-funded MEDEAS project, a number of substantive improvements are planned with respect to the state-of-the-art in energy-economy-environment modelling:• Expanding the geographical coverage and detail by creating a new multi-regional world model with 8 global regions and integrating the 27 EU countries.• Improving the state-of-the-art of IAMs by increasing the detail and precision of the existing modules and adding new modules.• Integrating relevant functionalities from other models and comparing modelling results. Potential integration of some specific functions of the most renowned IAMs and models and benchmarking of results.• Improving scenario assessment by integrating demand management policies.• Developing a modelling framework that better represents uncertainty. • Improving the usability of the IAMs through the development of graphical user interfaces and a simulation game.• Ensuring the effective exploitation of the WILIAM model among the three target groups (policymakers, concerned citizens and experts in relevant related fields). Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far Advances regarding the increased detail and precision of the modules of the WILIAM model:Economic & financial module.•Upgraded household consumption representation for the EU (D4.1).•Upgraded firms’ production representation (D4.2).•The Input-Output approach in the production sub-module has been developed with a new multi-regional disaggregation (D4.2).•Representation of governmental consumption, linking the main macroeconomic magnitudes to the governmental expenditure by function, has been designed and developed (D4.3). It is currently being integrated in the model.•Integration of a new financial sub-module using the Stock-Flow Consistent (SFC) approach. The functions have been designed and developed (D4.4). •Labour modelling. The functions have been designed and developed (see D4.5).•Quantification of climate change impacts and adaptation endogenously, with identification of climate-sensitive sectors, quantification of sectoral impacts and estimation of adaptation costs. Functionalities are now being integrated in the model.Energy module:•Dynamic and endogenous computation of the Energy Return on Investment (EROI) at technology and system levels. EROI for Non-RES technologies have been estimated and their parameterized (D7.3).•Material requirements and EROI of storage technologies have been estimated, resulting in a scientific publication.•Representation of the intermittent character of the RES and technological solutions to handle it. Two different approaches to address intermittency modelling are being analysed (D7.4) having resulted in a scientific publication. •A wide set of flexibility options for the EU has been tested and parameterized to achieve the maximum electrical mix of renewable energies, resulting in a scientific publication that is under review.•For the non-EU-27 regions, other flexibility options have been developed (D7.4).Population and society module•Population disaggregated by age and income cohorts and sex has been modelled. The disaggregation by income level has been replaced by 6 groups according to the composition of the households, which in turn can be urban or rural households (D5.3).• International migratory movements have been modelled (D5.3).• A basic model has been developed for some social variables and indicators (D5.3).Environmental module.•The climatic module has being improved using the most updated information from different climatic models. Damage functions have been developed in coordination with WP4 and WP5 (D6.3).•Main physical changes and impacts induced by the increase of GHG concentrations have been identified.Non-energetic materials module. •The sub-modules for the extraction of some of the most relevant minerals have been translated from World7 (Stella) to WILIAM (VensimAdvances regarding the improved scenario assessment:•Policies to be modelled have been selected from over 1,000 identified policies. •Alternative storylines (Green Growth, Green Deal, Postgrowth) have been defined. Advances regarding the enhanced usability of the WILIAM model:To enable the use of the model for users without programming skills, two user-friendly and target group specific interfaces will be developed. Advances have been made on all tools. Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far) In spite of advances made in integrated assessment modelling, many IAMs, and especially those with greater influence over policy, share a core set of assumptions whose validity is being disputed in the scientific community, leaving scope for improvement.WILIAM IAMs strive to occupy this niche and focus on• the careful modelling of the complex human-nature system that is governed by dynamic, tightly coupled, nonlinear, self-organising, adaptive and evolving feedbacks• the proper representation of biophysical and temporal constraints to renewable and non-renewable energy production• the declining Energy Return on Energy Investment (EROI) with increasing shares of renewable energy• the consistent integration of climate change damage feedbacks• the dominance of conventional economic equilibrium and optimisation approaches, which suffer significant limitations when it comes to capturing socioeconomic system dynamics and the role of macroeconomic policies for sustainability governance.The main methodological innovations are• The endogenous and dynamic integration of economic, financial, energy-related, social, demographic and environmental variables into the models.• The use of a wide array of methods, such as System Dynamics, Input-Output Analysis, EROEI calculations, Life Cycle Analysis, land and carbon footprinting, microsimulation, etc.;• The adoption of relevant functionalities from other models.• The consistent quantification and representation of uncertainty in model results.The resulting WILIAM model will be a robust, transparent and user-friendly tool for policy analysis:• Supporting EU climate policy and the preparation of EU submissions to international processes, such as the 2023 global stock-taking exercise under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.• Supporting EU contributions to major international scientific assessments.• Fostering innovative policymaking through the development of robust methodologies and tools. locom-color.png
