EMF 35 JMIP study for Japan's long-term climate and energy policy: scenario designs and key findings.

In June, 2019, Japan submitted its mid-century strategy to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and pledged 80% emissions cuts by 2050. The strategy has not gone through a systematic analysis, however. The present study, Stanford Energy Modeling Forum (EMF) 35 Japan Model Intercomparison project (JMIP), employs five energy-economic and integrated assessment models to evaluate the nationally determined contribution and mid-century strategy of Japan. EMF 35 JMIP conducts a suite of sensitivity analyses on dimensions including emissions constraints, technology availability, and demand projections. The results confirm that Japan needs to deploy all of its mitigation strategies at a substantial scale, including energy efficiency, electricity decarbonization, and end-use electrification. Moreover, they suggest that with the absence of structural changes in the economy, heavy industries will be one of the hardest to decarbonize. Partitioning of the sum of squares based on a two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) reconfirms that mitigation strategies, such as energy efficiency and electrification, are fairly robust across models and scenarios, but that the cost metrics are uncertain. There is a wide gap of policy strength and breadth between the current policy instruments and those suggested by the models. Japan should strengthen its climate action in all aspects of society and economy to achieve its long-term target. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11625-021-00913-2.

Acute impact of right ventricular infarction on early hemodynamic course after inferior myocardial infarction.

BACKGROUND: Right ventricular myocardial infarction (RVMI) is the major cause of hypotension and/or shock (HpS) after acute inferior myocardial infarction (inferior AMI). It is, however, unclear how RVMI affects the acute hemodynamic course. METHODS AND RESULTS: In the present study, 153 patients with inferior AMI caused by right coronary artery occlusion were examined. Associations between in-hospital outcome and HpS before admission (preER-HpS) or HpS after admission (postER-HpS) were assessed using multivariate logistic regression analysis. Multivariate analysis was also conducted to determine a predictor for postER-HpS, including clinical findings in the emergency room as independent variables. HpS developed in 48.4% of patients with inferior AMI. Patients with RVMI more frequently had HpS than their counterparts in the first 6 h after infarction onset. RVMI was, however, not associated with preER-HpS, but was independently with postER-HpS (odds ratio (OR): 10.1; 4.0-27.7), whereas left ventricular failure was associated with preER-HpS, but not with postER-HpS. Furthermore, RVMI (OR: 9.4; 3.6-27.1) identified at presentation predicted postER-HpS. CONCLUSIONS: Independent of concomitant left ventricular involvement, RVMI was significantly associated with postER-HpS, but not with preER-HpS. These findings highlight the importance of identifying RVMI immediately after admission in the setting of inferior AMI. (Circ J 2010; 74: 148 - 155).

Energy transformation cost for the Japanese mid-century strategy.

The costs of climate change mitigation policy are one of the main concerns in decarbonizing the economy. The macroeconomic and sectoral implications of policy interventions are typically estimated by economic models, which tend be higher than the additional energy system costs projected by energy system models. Here, we show the extent to which policy costs can be lower than those from conventional economic models by integrating an energy system and an economic model, applying Japan's mid-century climate mitigation target. The GDP losses estimated with the integrated model were significantly lower than those in the conventional economic model by more than 50% in 2050. The representation of industry and service sector energy consumption is the main factor causing these differences. Our findings suggest that this type of integrated approach would contribute new insights by providing improved estimates of GDP losses, which can be critical information for setting national climate policies.

Dynamic linear modeling of monthly electricity demand in Japan: Time variation of electricity conservation effect.

After the severe nuclear disaster in Fukushima, which was triggered by the Great East Japan earthquake in March 2011, nuclear power plants in Japan were temporarily shut down for mandatory inspections. To prevent large-scale blackouts, the Japanese government requested companies and households to reduce electricity consumption in summer and winter. It is reported that the domestic electricity demand had a structural decrease because of the electricity conservation effect (ECE). However, quantitative analysis of the ECE is not sufficient, and especially time variation of the ECE remains unclear. Understanding the ECE is important because Japan's NDC (nationally determined contribution) assumes the reduction of CO2 emissions through aggressive energy conservation. In this study, we develop a time series model of monthly electricity demand in Japan and estimate time variation of the ECE. Moreover, we evaluate the impact of electricity conservation on CO2 emissions from power plants. The dynamic linear model is used to separate the ECE from the effects of other irrelevant factors (e.g. air temperature, economic production, and electricity price). Our result clearly shows that consumers' electricity conservation behavior after the earthquake was not temporary but became established as a habit. Between March 2011 and March 2016, the ECE on industrial electricity demand ranged from 3.9% to 5.4%, and the ECE on residential electricity demand ranged from 1.6% to 7.6%. The ECE on the total electricity demand was estimated at 3.2%-6.0%. We found a seasonal pattern that the residential ECE in summer is higher than that in winter. The emissions increase from the shutdown of nuclear power plants was mitigated by electricity conservation. The emissions reduction effect was estimated at 0.82 MtCO2-2.26 MtCO2 (-4.5% on average compared to the zero-ECE case). The time-varying ECE is necessary for predicting Japan's electricity demand and CO2 emissions after the earthquake.