Effect of Oil Price on Emissions Trading Market: VAR Analysis

In this study, we investigated the relationship of European Union carbon dioxide CO2 allowances EUAs prices and oil prices by employing a VAR analysis, Granger causality test and impulse response function. If oil price continues increasing, companies will decrease dependency on fossil fuels because of an increase in energy costs. Therefore, the price of EUAs may be affected by variations in oil prices if the greenhouse gases discharged by the consumption of alternative energy are less than that of fossil fuels. There are no previous studies that investigated these relationships. In this study, we analyzed eight types of EUAs EUA05 to EUA12 with a time series daily data set during 2005-2007 collected from a European Climate Exchange time series data set. Differentiations in these eight types were redemption period. We used the New York Mercantile Exchange light sweet crude price as an oil price. From our examination, we found that only the EUA06 and EUA07 types of EUAs Granger-cause oil prices and vice versa and other six types of EUAs do not Granger-cause oil price. These results imply that the earlier redemption period types of EUAs are more sensitive to oil price. In employing the impulse response function, the results showed that a shock to oil price has a slightly positive effect on all types of EUAs for a very short period. On the other hand, we found that a shock to price of EUA has a slightly negative effect on oil price following a positive effect in only EUA06 and EUA07 types. Therefore, these results imply that fluctuations in EUAs prices and oil prices have little effect on each other. Lastly, we did not consider the substitute energy prices in this study, so we plan to include the prices of coal and natural gas in future analyses.

Stock prices of clean energy firms, oil and carbon markets : a vector autoregressive analysis

Recent discussions of energy security and climate change have attracted significant attention to clean energy. We hypothesize that rising prices of conventional energy and/or placement of a price on carbon emissions would encourage investments in clean energy firms. The data from three clean energy indices show that oil prices and technology stock prices separately affect the stock prices of clean energy firms. However, the data fail to demonstrate a significant relationship between carbon prices and the stock prices of the firms.

Does energy substitution affect carbon dioxide emissions : income relationship?

Considerable discussion has taken place during the last decade regarding the role of economic growth in determining environmental quality. Using data from 30 OECD countries for the period 1960-2003 and the nonparametric method of generalized additive models, which enables us to use flexible functional forms, this paper examines the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis for carbon dioxide (CO2). We find that the reduction of coal share in energy use has a significant effect on CO2. Our results imply that economic growth is not sufficient to decrease CO2 emissions.

The relationship between small firm growth and HRM practices

The relationship between small firm growth and HRM practices Rowena Barrett, Susan Mayson and Niel Warriner Introduction In this chapter we explore the relationship between small firms’ growth orientation, their business planning efforts and the role the owner plays and whether or not formal HRM practices are used. Formal HRM practices are assessed in terms of whether they are written down, regularly applied or assured to take place. We take on board Heneman et al.’s (2000) suggestion that ‘surveys of employer practices across SMEs [would] be [a] valuable addition to the strategic human resource management literature’ (p. 23) and report the results of an online and paper survey of a sample of 1753 small firms (defined as those employing less than 20 people) in the state of Victoria (SE Australia). Our particular interest in this chapter, which is based on an analysis of 410 responses to the survey, is whether growthoriented small firms adopt formal HRM practices. This research contributes to understanding whether more formal organizational systems and routines are more likely to be used (or not) to nurture human capital in growth-oriented small firms. Moreover by focusing on firm growth, this chapter, consistent with recent calls in the literature (see Baron, 2003; Barrett and Mayson, 2006; Katz et al., 2000; Tansky and Heneman, 2003), contributes to a better understanding of issues at the intersection of entrepreneurship and HRM research.

Second skin : fashion design education to enhance sun safety awareness toolkit

A toolkit designed to facilitate greater understanding of the role of fashion design in society and the value of design thinking skills in solving wicked challenges. The program uses fashion as a catalyst to provide a framework for young people to address a systemic health issue (skin cancer), and in doing so, obtain a more acute awareness of the sun safety message (alternative to a scare campaign.

The burning season

"Every year deliberately lit fires rage across Indonesia. They destroy pristine rainforest, endanger orangutans and contribute to climate change. A young carbon trading entrepreneur goes in search of a solution." "Dorjee Sun, a young Australian Entrepreneur, believes there's money to be made from protecting rainforests in Indonesia, saving the orangutan from extinction and making a real impact on climate change. Armed with a laptop and a backpack, he sets out across the globe to find investors in his carbon trading scheme. It is a battle against time. Achmadi, the palm oil farmer is ready to set fire to his land to plant more palm oil, and Lone's orangutan centre has reached crisis point with over 600 orangutans rescued from the fires. The Burning Season is an eco-thriller about a young man not afraid to confront the biggest challenge of our time."

Data mining the relationship between road crash and skid resistance

Road asset managers are seeking analysis of the whole road network to supplement statistical analyses of small subsets of homogeneous roadway. This study outlines the use of data mining capable of analyzing the wide range of situations found on the network, with a focus on the role of skid resistance in the cause of crashes. Results from the analyses show that on non-crash-prone roads with low crash rates, skid resistance contributes only in a minor way, whereas on high-crash roadways, skid resistance often contributes significantly in the calculation of the crash rate. The results provide evidence supporting a causal relationship between skid resistance and crashes and highlight the importance of the role of skid resistance in decision making in road asset management.

Emotional climate and behavioral management during sleep time in early childhood education settings

The majority of children cease napping between 3 and 5 years of age yet, internationally, the allocation of a sleep time during the day for children of this age remains a practice in many early childhood education (ECE) settings. These dual circumstances present a disjuncture between children's sleep needs and center practices, that may cause conflict for staff, increase stress for children and escalate negative emotional climate in the room. Testing this hypothesis requires observation of both the emotional climate and behavioral management used in ECE rooms that extends into the sleep time. This study was the first to apply the Classroom Assessment and Scoring System (CLASS) Pre-K (Pianta, La Paro, & Hamre, 2008) to observe the emotional climate and behavioral management during sleep time. Pilot results indicated that the CLASS Pre-K functioned reliably to measure emotional climate and behavioral management in sleep time. However, new sleep-specific examples of the dimensions used were developed, to help orient fieldworkers to the CLASS Pre-K rating system in the sleep time context. The CLASS was then used to assess emotional climate and behavior management between the non-sleep and sleep time sessions, in 113 ECE rooms in Queensland, Australia. In these rooms 2.114 children were observed. Of these children, 71% did not sleep at any point during the allotted sleep times. There was a significant drop in emotional climate and behavioral management between the non-sleep and sleep-time sessions. Furthermore, the duration of mandated sleep time (a period of time where no activities are provided to non-sleeping children) accounted for significant independent variance in the observed emotional climate during sleep-time. The CLASS Pre-K presents a valuable tool to assess the emotional climate and behavior management during sleep-time and draws attention to the need for further studies of sleep time in ECE settings.

Assessment of the mortality displacement in temperature-related deaths in Brisbane, Australia

This thesis is a population-based ecological study designed to investigate the issue of mortality displacement (or "harvesting" effect) in the assessment of temperature-related deaths in Brisbane, Australia. It examines the temperature impacts on mortality, and assesses the harvesting effects on the temperature–related deaths. This study contributes to the knowledge base of understanding the temperature-mortality relationship and assists in formulating and evaluating public health intervention strategies within the context of climate change.

Modelling attitudes to climate change : an order effect and a test between alternatives

Quantum-like models can be fruitfully used to model attitude change in a social context. Next steps require data, and higher dimensional models. Here, we discuss an exploratory study that demonstrates an order effect when three question sets about Climate Beliefs, Political Affiliation and Attitudes Towards Science are presented in different orders within a larger study of n=533 subjects. A quantum-like model seems possible, and we propose a new experiment which could be used to test between three possible models for this scenario.

Can social resilience inform SA/SIA for adaptive planning for climate change in vulnerable regions?

Social resilience concepts are gaining momentum in environmental planning through an emerging understanding of the socio-ecological nature of biophysical systems. There is a disconnect, however, between these concepts and the sociological and psychological literature related to social resilience. Further still, both schools of thought are not well connected to the concepts of social assessment (SA) and social impact assessment (SIA) that are the more standard tools supporting planning and decision-making. This raises questions as to how emerging social resilience concepts can translate into improved SA/SIA practices to inform regional-scale adaptation. Through a review of the literature, this paper suggests that more cross-disciplinary integration is needed if social resilience concepts are to have a genuine impact in helping vulnerable regions tackle climate change.