Forestry - WITCH

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Model Documentation - WITCH

    Corresponding documentation
    Previous versions
    Model information
    Model link
    Institution European Institute on Economics and the Environment (RFF-CMCC EIEE), Italy, http://www.eiee.org.
    Solution concept General equilibrium (closed economy)
    Solution method Optimization
    Anticipation

    Forestry is an important contributor of CO2 emissions and, similarly to non-CO 2 gases, it might
    provide relatively convenient abatement opportunities. Forestry sector models differ substantially
    from energy-economy ones, so that normally the interaction is solved via soft link (e.g. iterative)
    coupling. WITCH is enhanced with baseline emissions and supply mitigation curves for reduced
    deforestation. The focus is on REDD given its predominant role in CO2 emissions and the policy
    importance of this option as stressed in the 2007 Bali Action Plan.

    Baseline emissions are provided by the Brent Sohngen GTM model. REDD supply mitigation cost
    curves have been built and made suitable to be incorporated in the WITCH model.
    Two versions of abatement cost curves have been incorporated in the model representing two
    extreme cases. The first version includes abatement curves for the whole century for the Brazilian
    tropical forest only and have been developed using Brazil?s data from the Woods Hole Research
    Center. A second version includes abatement curves for all world tropical forests,
    based on the Global Timber Model of Brent Sohngen, Ohio State University, used within
    the Energy Modeling Forum 21 and data from the IIASA cluster model.