Reconciling top-down and bottom-up modelling on future bioenergy deployment

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation (SRREN) assesses the role of bioenergy as a solution to meeting energy demand in a climate-constrained world. Based on integrated assessment models, the SRREN states that deployed bioenergy will contribute the greatest proportion of primary energy among renewable energies and result in greenhouse-gas emission reductions. The report also acknowledges insights from life-cycle assessments, which characterize biofuels as a potential source of significant greenhouse-gas emissions and environmental harm. The SRREN made considerable progress in bringing together contrasting views on indirect land-use change from inductive bottom-up studies, such as life-cycle analysis, and deductive top-down assessments. However, a reconciliation of these contrasting views is still missing. Tackling this challenge is a fundamental prerequisite for future bioenergy assessment.