Evaluating global environmental and resource scarcities together with climate change

In his talk, Takanobu Kosugi will first evaluate environmental side-effects of carbon-abating energy technologies, thus highlighting the links between several resource and environmental problems and climate change. A screening of several carbon reduction technologies based on life-cycle impact assessments shows that concern about the effects of fuel cell vehicle and bio-ethanol production is warranted because of platinum extraction for the former, phosphorus consumption and land use for the latter. The global potentials of these effects and their mitigation up to 2050 will be evaluated with numerical simulation. Dr. Kosugi will also introduce a model-based framework to assess global environmental and resources policy in the 21st century. Takanobu Kosugi has conducted various studies relevant to the evaluation of climate change mitigation technologies by using system analytic methods such as mathematical programming at: Osaka University, where he completed his Ph.D. in electrical engineering in 2000, the Research Institute of Innovative Technology for the Earth, and since 2004, the College of Policy Science at Ritsumeikan University as an associate professor. Dr. Kosugi is also a research scholar at the Ritsumeikan Research Centre for Sustainability Science. His fields of interest include both the technological and economic aspects of the mitigation of climate change. He is a member of the International Society for Environmental Information Sciences, the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, the Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, the Japan Society of Energy and Resources, and the Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan.