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Project title

Sustainable integrated pathways for carbon-negative energy, land and food systems

Primary Funding Agency

Environmental Protection Agency

Co-Funding Organisation(s)

Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine (DAFM)

Lead Organisation

University College Cork (UCC)

Lead Applicant

Hannah Daly

Project Abstract

Global climate mitigation efforts require rapid decarbonisation of the energy, food and land systems. Current mitigation efforts are not sufficient to limit temperature overshoot for compliance with the Paris Agreement target of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. As a result, integrated assessment modelling suggests that energy, food and land systems must together draw down and sequester carbon dioxide emissions (achieving "drawdown") from the atmosphere by around mid-century, requiring rapid and wide-scale change. Moreover, global and national mitigation studies increasingly point to the importance of changing consumption patterns, in particular reducing energy demand and waste, and plant-based dietary shifts, to complement the deployment of low-carbon technologies and efficiency measures. As the world approaches carbon drawdown, where the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere falls, mitigation efforts - in both technology and demand - in energy, land and food systems will increasingly interact, bringing both complementary and conflicts. For example, land-use change for afforestation or bioenergy production will conflict with food production and nature; large-scale Direct Air Capture and Storage (DACS) will have significant energy requirement, putting pressure on low-carbon electricity deployment; and novel low-carbon food production approaches, such as precision fermentation and cellular agriculture, may free up land availability but drive energy demand. Current climate mitigation modelling efforts, such as energy systems modelling, play an important role in mapping feasible decarbonisation pathways to form the evidence base for climate policy, pointing towards blind spots and system interactions, and measuring progress to targets. In Ireland, where climate mitigation efforts are rapidly accelerating, separate models focus on the decarbonisation of energy system (including the TIMES-Ireland model), food system (the FAPRI-Ireland model) and land use (GOBLIN). However, these models are not integrated, and they are limited in time horizon and scope to only factor in climate neutrality rather than drawdown later this century. This creates a significant gap in the knowledge base, and the potential for significant negative consequences, as mitigation efforts in one system may negatively impact the ability of other systems to decarbonise through locking in sub-optimal investments and neglecting to factor the potential for demand shifts. SELFS will build a next-generation integrated assessment model for Ireland, mapping integrated pathways for rapidly and deeply decarbonising the energy, land and food systems to 2100 under varying levels of carbon drawdown, and identifying the complementarities and trade-offs in mitigation efforts in different sectors and systems. The project will quantify the potential level of sequestered carbon required of Ireland under different global scenarios and approaches to equity, and explore the impact of alternative technological and demand mitigation levers on achieving carbon drawdown.

Grant Approved

�440,485.30

Research Hub

Climate Change

Research Theme

n/a

Start Date

28/02/2023

Initial Projected Completion Date

27/02/2027