Efficiency and renewability in energy conversion – A system perspective on policy objectives and instruments for climate change mitigation

The use of energy from renewable sources and improved efficiency throughout energy conversion, distribution and end-use are important means for mitigating climate change. This paper provides a novel exploration of the relationship between the system boundary in national greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories and policy incentives regarding technologies for GHG emission reduction, including the use of biomass, the use of heat from combined heat and power (CHP) production, industry waste heat, and energy recovery of waste. A novel generalisable applied method for applying a system perspective on a policy coherence analysis is another contribution from this paper. Major findings include the discovery that policies largely favour the use of biomass over technologies for energy efficiency, which does not adhere to the EU energy efficiency first principle. Also, although the EU largely promotes CHP production and high-efficiency CHP production, these technologies are largely opposed by Swedish policies. The following theoretical explanations for this are proposed: (1) The use of attributional GHG inventories for geographical areas induces the use of attributional climate policy objectives; and (2) The use of attributional climate policy objectives induces policies largely supporting the domestic use of technologies which potentially improve one’s own climate objective, and largely opposing the domestic use of technologies which potentially worsens one’s own climate objective, irrespective of the impact on global GHG emissions. An expansion of the current study including other policy and geographical areas is suggested for future research to further validate the generalisability of these outlined theoretical explanations. In conclusion, as the reduction of global GHG emissions is crucial for mitigating climate change, a shift from an attributional view in national GHG emission governance towards a consequential view is suggested for better efficacy in global GHG emissions reduction.