Climate actions effects on ressource sustainability in a carbon constrained world

This paper analyzes carbon dioxide removal (CDR), with a focus on Bioenergy Carbon Capture and Storage, as climate actions related to the Sustainable Development Goal 13. It examines this goal’s interlinkage to other UN goals such as SDG6 (water) and SDG7 (energy) in accordance with the concept of the water-energy-land nexus. To align the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) to the Paris Agreement long-term goal of net-zero emissions, the global energy system’s evolution is studied, using the global and regional outputs of the techno-economic optimization of TIAM-FR that incorporates various mitigation options including a disaggregated biomass representation. In addition, a water module is used to assess water withdrawals and consumptions. The analysis is made under three climate scenarios. Results show that bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (CCS) contributes to decarbonizing the energy mix (SDG7) even with sustainability constraints. Also, carbon capture and storage technologies are a plausible solution to keep the temperature limit at 1.5 degrees, but impact water use due to their use of water-intensive resources and technologies (SDG13 in trade-off with SDG6). The analysis shows that the Paris Agreement scenarios, both with and without temperature overshoot, increase global water use by 65% and 62%, respectively, by 2050 compared to 2020. Regionally, water-scarce areas like the Middle East and India exhibit similar patterns, whereas Africa shows lower water use compared to an NDC scenario by leveraging itsrenewable energy potential.