The world society will face a double challenge to increase energy supply to an increasing global population and to mitigate GHG emissions throughout this century. Implementation of the Copenhagen Accord of the UNFCCC requires following the IPCC RCP2.6 mitigation pathway for all GHGs, particularly energy and industry related CO2 emissions. Global GHG emissions will need to decrease fast, energy related CO2 emissions will need to become negative beyond 2070. During this timeframe the energy sector will be increasingly affected by gradual changes in temperature, precipitation and other climatic attributes as well as by changes in extreme weather events.

This poses a complex decision problem for all stakeholders in the energy sector. Decarbonizing the energy sector means that there will be an increasing need for the deployment of low-carbon technologies while their technical and economic performance will be affected by unfolding climate change. Although there are no direct trade-offs between mitigation and adaptation (i.e., climate change preventing the use of low-carbon technologies), the impacts on the availability and properties of other resources (especially water and land) create linkages that need to be addressed in an integrated mitigation-adaptation decision framework.

This presentation will discuss selected cases of the adaptation-mitigation linkages in the energy sector, such as the impacts of climate change on water resources and supply versus the need for increasing deployment of low-carbon technologies that are large water users and the trade-offs in land use for low-carbon energy supply versus food and fibre production, forests and natural ecosystems services.