A transition to greenhouse gas neutral economies require deep restructuring of infrastructures and technologies of the energy and mobility systems. This on turn means savings of fossil fuels on one hand but huge investments in renewable energy production units, battery systems or power to gas/liquids-systems.
Such technologies and infrastructure require certain mineral raw materials, which like Lithium or Rare Earth Elements could become economically and/or geopolitically scarce in the future.
Although the overall material demand of renewable based energy and mobility systems will be lower than those based on fossil fuels, the increasing demand for specialty mineral raw materials will be significantly rising – as those mostly come from outside Germany and the EU, their sustainable sourcing does not only relate to security of supply, but also to issues of social and environmental standards in exporting countries.
Here, resource policy can play a crucially supportive role, either by working towards harmonized standards for extraction, or – which is more relevant from a sustainable supply perspective and from reducing energy demand vs. virgin raw material extraction – by increasing recycling rates of these materials. In addition, resource policy will also contribute to reducing GHG emissions, not only through a generally lower energy demand of recycling vs. virgin material extraction (at least up to a certain recycling rate), but also through lowering virgin material demand by improving resource use efficiency and hence also potentially through reducing the energy need for extraction, transport and manufacturing of a lower material demand (if rebound effects do not get into the way).
The decarbonisation conference will tackle the climate-energy-resource nexus. It aims at highlighting synergies and ways for minimising trade-offs between decarbonisation and dematerialization. The conference will bring together findings from past and ongoing research projects that through using simulation models analyse resource ruck sacks of renewable energy systems as well as resource saving and GHG savings potential of changes to energy and mobility systems.
Furthermore, policy implications shall be discussed, also reflecting the need to consider deep system changes and pathways to decarbonisation and resource efficiency – which, although difficult to simulate in computer models, constitute significant watersheds between successful or failing policy efforts.
Veranstalter: | Umweltbundesamt |
Veranstaltungsort: | Ludwig-Erhard-Haus Fasanenstraße 85 10623 Berlin |
Beginn: | 08.11.2016 09:00 Uhr |
Ende: | 08.11.2016 18:00 Uhr |
Internet: | Weitere Informationen |