Impact assessment of the increase in fossil fuel prices on the global energy system, with and without CO2 concentration stabilization

It is important to evaluate impacts of fossil fuel price hikes and climate stabilization that force the global energy system to adopt alternative and efficient technologies by routing future energy system dynamics into a different technology roadmap. Hence, a high-regional-resolution and technology-rich DNE21+ model is used for the simulation of some price-hike scenarios for the period from 2000 to 2030 by increasing the ordinate of cost–potential curve of crude oil, natural gas and coal by 55 US$(00)/bbl, 3.8 US$(00)/kcf and 56 US$(00)/tonne, respectively, above their reference values; and 550 ppmv stabilization is implemented by carbon limitation from 6998 to 8250 MtC/yr. This study detected that hike in fossil fuel prices acts as an anti-catalyst for human-induced anthropogenic emissions and alleviates heavy dependency upon fossil fuels. Further, it partially solves problems of climate change by reducing CO2 emission levels (23%), reflects human behavior through energy conservation (1.4 Gtoe), calls for efficiency improvement (7%), adopts more efficient and alternative technologies, compared to reference; however, with 550 ppmv stabilization, energy conservation rises to 1.6 Gtoe, demands 16% higher efficiency improvement and reduces CO2 emission by 36%, relative to reference.