Assessment of technical and economic strategies for greenhouse gas emission reduction in large developing countries

China, India, South Africa, Brazil and other large and rapidly growing developing economies will have a large impact on global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. They are therefore key partners in any future international cooperation on climate change, as for example the negotiations in preparation for the COP 15 meeting in Copenhagen in December 2009. The DTU Climate Centre at Risø compiled and reviewed international analyses of the technological options for GHG emission reductions, and performed a comparative analysis of the costs of GHG emission reduction within and between the countries mentioned. The latter analysis involved a range of methodological issues concerning cost curves for GHG emission reduction and concerning the comparability of analyses that use different “top-down” and “bottom-up” models.