Gecs First Year meeting, August 2001 GECS project First Six-months meeting, Grenoble, IEPE, 22-23 of February 2001 The project The goal of the GECS project is to develop global (world) scenarios in order to analyse the impacts of Post-Kyoto policies under flexibility mechanisms for emission reduction, including options to reduce emissions resulting from land use change and for strengthening carbon sinks. The aim is also to fully analyse the spectrum of issues resulting from the mechanisms established at the Kyoto Conference and furthermore extend the analysis for the post-Kyoto perspectives. In this endeavour, a high priority is put on the identification of emission reduction strategies that may fit in a perspective of sustainable development at world level, i.e. that correspond to criteria of international and intergenerational equity. The research component of the project aims at enhancing and using international energy and economy models already developed in the context of preceding Framework Programmes, in order to fully analyse the consequences of different patterns of international commitments, agreements and rules for the control of greenhouse gas emissions to the 2030 horizon. The will develop the synergies between the POLES model of the world energy sector developed by IEPE and IPTS ? and the world general equilibrium GEM-E3 model ? developed by NTUA and CES-KUL as complementary tools for the analysis of the climate negotiation. This synergy will not be developed by a formal integration of the two models, but by: - the use of common sets of scenarios on international commitments and on the different types of flexibility systems to be discussed in the negotiation process for the Kyoto and post-Kyoto time-frame, the design of these scenarios being taken in charge by the BFP; - "soft links" between the models relying on structured sets of hypotheses (baseline world economic projections to 2030) or results (e.g. international energy prices from the POLES to the GEM-E3 model and conversely economic impacts of abatement policies from the GEM-E3 to the POLES model); - a systematic comparison of the results on "gross" and "net" costs of abatement policies (i.e., respectively, sectoral and economy-wide costs), by main world regions and under the different entitlement and flexibility schemes; this abatement cost comparison study will also encompass the results of models outside the project and particularly of US models, as they appear in Energy Modelling Forum and IPCC-WG3 studies. New model development will also take place through the introduction of modules developed by RIVM and CIRAD and concerning the emission projection and Marginal Abatement Costs curves for greenhouse gas other than energy related CO2, particularly as concerns land-use and agricultural activities. For these new developments, the experience from other models such as the IMAGE* model of RIVM will allow to introduce a new dimension, by the explicit modelling of land use and associated emission functions by region. This will considerably increase the relevance of the existing energy or economy models in terms of coverage and enhance their appropriateness to the study of issues of multi-gas flexibility which will be further discussed in the next stages of the international negotiation, . The project will thus allow to provide European decision-makers and negotiators with analytical and quantified information on the sectoral and economy-wide impacts of alternative schemes of emission entitlements, flexibility systems and policy instruments. It may thus help to define a European strategy in the international negotiation, while at the same time taking into account the preoccupation of sustainable development at world level. As a whole, this project will also provide a consistent global framework for other research programmes and activities dedicated either to the economic analysis of mitigation strategies or to the development of new technologies in a sustainability perspective. GECS - Organisation and workpackages The project is organised along four main research axes, which constitute four different work packages (WP). A fifth activity corresponds to the co-ordination of research and the elaboration of the deliverables of the study, in the form of a "Climate Policy Report" before the Sixth Conference Of Parties (COP-6) by the end of 2000, of a methodology report by mid-2001 and of a book on "Greenhouse gas Emission Control Strategies", at the end of the project. The five work packages are organised as follows: WP 1. - World GHG emission control scenarios: targets, entitlements, rules for flexibility and markets WP 2. - Multi-gas emission and carbon sinks projections, Marginal Abatement Cost functions modelling WP 3. - Climate negotiation oriented model developments: endogenisation of permit prices (POLES model) and assessment of the international impacts of abatement policies (GEM-E3 model) WP 4. - World GHG Emission Control Strategies: quantified targets, global and regional costing studies, impacts and policy implications WP 5. - Co-ordination and deliverables: "Climate Policy Report" in 2000, "GECS Assessment Methodology Report" and "GHG Emission Control Strategies to 2030" in 2001