Characterizing Japan’s energy pathways for climate change mitigation: A multi-model study

This study presents a multi-model analysis of long-term climate policy of Japan, whose mid-century strategy is subject to an ongoing policy debate, focusing on the carbon dioxide emissions in the energy sector. The models demonstrate multiple future pathways of the low-carbon energy system in Japan. The median of marginal abatement cost is found to be around 1070 USD2010/tCO2 for a high GDP growth scenario and 870 USD2010/tCO2 for a medium GDP growth scenario. The residual emissions are dominated by the industry sector, suggesting a need to accelerate development of industrial mitigation options.