Seite - 25 - in options, Band summer 2016

asia & oceania 25summer 2016 + optionswww.iiasa.ac.at regional focus Aligning climate policy with energy access goals The UN Sustainable Development Goals have set a target of achieving universal access to modern energy by 2030—but at the same time they call for urgent action to combat climate  change. “There is a lot of pressure on developing countries to take action on climate change. But there has not been much research on how these two policy goals interact,” says IIASA researcher Shonali  Pachauri, who led the study. “We wanted to find out if there are trade‑offs, and if so, how can we design policies that get around this problem?” The new study focused on South Asia, where an estimated 72% of the population still relies on solid fuels for cooking. It  shows that on the current trajectory, by  2030 that number could be reduced to 727 million (35% of the population). But  with climate policies and no complementary energy access policies, the study shows, an  additional 336 million people who would have otherwise switched to modern fuels will be unable to afford the switch. Stringent climate policies would  increase the cost of fossil fuels, including those used for the cleaner burning stoves (such as kerosene, liquefied petroleum  gas, electricity, and piped gas) that are slowly replacing traditional cooking fuels. The  study shows that without simultaneous targeted efforts to increase funding for energy access, many who would otherwise have been able to switch from traditional solid fuels to modern cooking fuels would no  longer be able to afford the switch. KL Further info Cameron  C, Pachauri  S, Rao  ND, McCollum  D, Rogelj  J, Riahi  K (2016). Policy trade-offs between climate mitigation and clean cook-stove access in South Asia. Nature Energy 1:15010 [doi:10.1038/NENERGY.2015.10]. Shonali Pachauri pachauri@iiasa.ac.at Narasimha  D. Rao nrao@iiasa.ac.at Algae as feedstock could bring major climate benefits Algae—tiny plantlike organisms that live in the ocean—are full of nutrients, easy to grow, and do not take up arable land. In 2014, researchers in Australia showed that algae could be easily cultivated and processed into feed for livestock that is nutritious and palatable. This development raised hopes—if algae could replace or supplement livestock feed on large scale, could it reduce the huge impact that livestock production has on the climate? A recent IIASA study examined how large‑scale algae cultivation as a food source would affect land use for agriculture and greenhouse gas emissions from livestock production. It showed that algal feedstock could reduce the area of cropland for feed and pasture, which currently represent 75% of agricultural land globally, by over a billion hectares, even as demand for meat and poultry increases around the world. This land could be repurposed to bolster food security, bioenergy production, and habitat restoration. “Increasingly, we need to think of arable land as a scarce resource, and we need to optimize how we use it in order to make progress on fighting climate change. This  study shows algae could play a major role in freeing the land resources needed to simultaneously solve the problems of climate change, energy demand, and food security,” said IIASA researcher Brian Walsh, who led the study. The work shows that the microalgal feedstock could not only reduce CO2 emissions, but also allow for the removal of carbon from the atmosphere, with the potential to reduce the amount global temperature is projected to rise by 2100. KL Further info Walsh  BJ, Rydzak  F, Palazzo  A, Kraxner  F, Herrero  M, Schenk  PM, Ciais  P, Janssens  IA, Peñuelas  J, Niederl-Schmidinger  A, Obersteiner  M (2015). New  feed sources key to ambitious climate targets. Carbon Balance and Management 10(1):26 [doi:10.1186/s13021-015-0040-7]. Brian Walsh walsh@iiasa.ac.at