Assessing climate change mitigation with a hybrid energy-economy approach for Africa, the Middle East and Latin America

In this research, I create a hybrid energy-economy model for developing countries in Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. The CIMS framework is used because it incorporates elements of technological detail, macroeconomic feedbacks and behavioural realism, the three requirements of a hybrid energy-economy model. Despite the income gap continuing to grow between the richest and poorest countries, energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions triple across the region over the first half of the 21st century. The model shows that carbon capture and storage is a significant mitigation action, particularly due to the large potential for enhanced oil recovery in depleted oil wells. A comparison of marginal abatement costs reveals somewhat similar abatement potential across regions. However, further global analysis should ensure that comparable assumptions about mitigation options are made across regional models. Data constraints are a major limitation for this analysis, and I outline several areas for further research.