Large developing economies: current and potential future contributions to climate change

The main focus of this project is to improve the knowledge basis for greenhouse gas (GHG) emission scenarios for China and India by considering a wider set of emissions and by studying the impact of the development process and policies of China and India on global warming. A core issue in global warming and climate policy is the future role of large developing economies like China and India. Economic development will go along with increasing, but more efficient energy use, which at first hand seems prom ising for climate mitigation. However, emissions from energy use contain a set of emission species that work with different warming potential and some of them even with a cooling effect. It is therefore essential for global climate research to sort out th e sources and trends in various emissions components and to identify emission drivers, in particular for countries like China and India, where a rural population of more than a billion people rapidly might change their energy use and climate footprint. The project will carry out statistical surveys of residential energy use to identify differences in demand characteristics by rural and urban populations. Advanced measurements of emissions from different stoves will be carried out for GHGs including spec ies that might contribute to climate cooling. Improved data on residential energy use and emissions will be incorporated in CGEs for the two countries for emission scenario development and policy analysis. A global climate model (C2M2) will be used to cal culate changes in the global temperature across emissions scenarios, and to assess impacts on global warming from policies aiming at poverty reduction.