Review of Climate Strategies in Northern Europe: Exposure to Potential Risks and Limitations

Johannes Hyvönen (), Tero Koivunen and Sanna Syri
Additional contact information
Johannes Hyvönen: Department of Mechanical Engineering, School of Engineering, Aalto University, 02150 Espoo, Finland
Tero Koivunen: Department of Mechanical Engineering, School of Engineering, Aalto University, 02150 Espoo, Finland
Sanna Syri: Department of Mechanical Engineering, School of Engineering, Aalto University, 02150 Espoo, Finland

Energies, 2024, vol. 17, issue 7, 1-17

Abstract: Several northern European countries have announced ambitious plans to become carbon neutral already before the year 2050. Recent research has, however, highlighted how potential bottlenecks in raw material and resource availability could significantly delay or hinder wind and solar photovoltaic (PV) expansion and continued biomass usage in parts of Europe. To address this issue, this paper assesses how exposed the national energy and climate plans (NECPs) of Finland, Estonia, Germany, Sweden, and Denmark are to resource limitations and techno-economic risks by reviewing and analysing 2030 NECP targets compared to statistical energy use data in these countries. The results indicate that the NECPs of Denmark and Germany are particularly exposed to risks related to global raw material availability, as Denmark plans to rapidly grow the share of wind and solar PV in electricity generation to 81% and 13% by 2030, respectively, followed by Germany, which outlines a 39% and 16% share of wind and solar PV in its national climate strategy. The NECPs of Finland and Germany are also shown to be vulnerable to limitations in biomass availability, as there is a significant disparity between the projected biomass usage and legally binding European Union (EU) targets for land use, land use change, and forestry (LULUCF) sector emissions in 2030 in these countries.

Keywords: climate policy; climate neutrality; resource adequacy; critical raw materials; biomass availability; Finland; Estonia; Germany; Sweden; Denmark (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/17/7/1538/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/17/7/1538/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:17:y:2024:i:7:p:1538-:d:1362477

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().