Amplification of future energy demand growth due to climate change
B. J. van Ruijven, E. De Cian, and I. Sue Wing
Nature Communications (24 June 2019)
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-10399-3
Future energy demand is likely to increase due to climate change, but the magnitude depends on many interacting sources of uncertainty. We combine econometrically estimated responses of energy use to income, hot and cold days with future projections of spatial population and national income under five socioeconomic scenarios and temperature increases around 2050 for two emission scenarios simulated by 21 Earth System Models (ESMs). Here we show that, across 210 realizations of socioeconomic and climate scenarios, vigorous (moderate) warming increases global climate-exposed energy demand before adaptation around 2050 by 25-58