Beschreibung:
Reaching climate stabilisation targets requires strengthening the efforts to decrease greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across all final energy uses. The European Union (EU) and United Kingdom (UK) have decided to become the first climate neutral economic bloc by 2050, with ambitious 2030’s GHG emission reduction objectives. National energy and climate plans are currently being updated to account for these new targets, considering the role of emerging technologies and behavioural changes on emission reductions.Here, the DESSTINEE model is used to develop nationally representative energy demand scenarios compatible with the transition to net-zero economies. We show that country-level final energy consumption per unit of GDP must decrease by 31–59% across the European Union and the UK by 2050. The wide spread between countries stems from different penetration rates for electricity and other low carbon vectors within heating, transport, and heavy industries, in addition to different paces for efficiency improvement. Outcomes of this research are foreseen to contribute to translating emission reduction objectives into concrete, sectorial, and geographically disaggregated measures and policies; providing significant insights for the design, evaluation, and monitoring of climate change mitigation policies