La alianza de estados insulares pequeños y la securitización del cambio climático en la convención marco de Naciones Unidas sobre cambio climático (1992-2012)

La presente monografía busca explicar el proceso de securitización realizado por la AOSIS del cambio climático en las COP de la CMNUCC. Esta investigación defiende que la AOSIS sí ha hecho dicho proceso a través de estrategias como el liderazgo moral y los nexos con actores no-estatales; pero dicho proceso no ha sido exitoso, dado el predominio del discurso del desarrollo sostenible en las negociaciones, el debilitamiento de la AOSIS como actor securitizador y el poco apoyo formal de las potencias emergentes y el bloque UMBRELLA. Para sustentar lo anterior, se realizará una revisión de informes científicos que demuestran que el cambio climático es una amenaza a la seguridad, y un estudio desde de la teoría de securitización de Thierry Balzacq, de los discursos dados por los estados AOSIS, de las COP y de las posiciones de algunos bloques de negociación sobre el cambio climático.

The crime kuznets curve

We document the existence of a Crime Kuznets Curve in US states since the 1970s. As income levels have risen, crime has followed an inverted U-shaped pattern, first increasing and then dropping. The Crime Kuznets Curve is not explained by income inequality. In fact, we show that during the sample period inequality has risen monotonically with income, ruling out the traditional Kuznets Curve. Our finding is robust to adding a large set of controls that are used in the literature to explain the incidence of crime, as well as to controlling for state and year fixed effects. The Curve is also revealed in nonparametric specifications. The Crime Kuznets Curve exists for property crime and for some categories of violent crime.

An integrated assessment of carbon dioxide capture and storage in the UK

Geological carbon dioxide storage (CCS) has the potential to make a significant contribution to the decarbonisation of the UK. Amid concerns over maintaining security, and hence diversity, of supply, CCS could allow the continued use of coal, oil and gas whilst avoiding the CO2 emissions currently associated with fossil fuel use. This project has explored some of the geological, environmental, technical, economic and social implications of this technology. The UK is well placed to exploit CCS with a large offshore storage capacity, both in disused oil and gas fields and saline aquifers. This capacity should be sufficient to store CO2 from the power sector (at current levels) for a least one century, using well understood and therefore likely to be lower-risk, depleted hydrocarbon fields and contained parts of aquifers. It is very difficult to produce reliable estimates of the (potentially much larger) storage capacity of the less well understood geological reservoirs such as non-confined parts of aquifers. With the majority of its large coal fired power stations due to be retired during the next 15 to 20 years, the UK is at a natural decision point with respect to the future of power generation from coal; the existence of both national reserves and the infrastructure for receiving imported coal makes clean coal technology a realistic option. The notion of CCS as a ‘bridging’ or ‘stop-gap’ technology (i.e. whilst we develop ‘genuinely’ sustainable renewable energy technologies) needs to be examined somewhat critically, especially given the scale of global coal reserves. If CCS plant is built, then it is likely that technological innovation will bring down the costs of CO2 capture, such that it could become increasingly attractive. As with any capitalintensive option, there is a danger of becoming ‘locked-in’ to a CCS system. The costs of CCS in our model for UK power stations in the East Midlands and Yorkshire to reservoirs in the North Sea are between £25 and £60 per tonne of CO2 captured, transported and stored. This is between about 2 and 4 times the current traded price of a tonne of CO2 in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. In addition to the technical and economic requirements of the CCS technology, it should also be socially and environmentally acceptable. Our research has shown that, given an acceptance of the severity and urgency of addressing climate change, CCS is viewed favourably by members of the public, provided it is adopted within a portfolio of other measures. The most commonly voiced concern from the public is that of leakage and this remains perhaps the greatest uncertainty with CCS. It is not possible to make general statements concerning storage security; assessments must be site specific. The impacts of any potential leakage are also somewhat uncertain but should be balanced against the deleterious effects of increased acidification in the oceans due to uptake of elevated atmospheric CO2 that have already been observed. Provided adequate long term monitoring can be ensured, any leakage of CO2 from a storage site is likely to have minimal localised impacts as long as leaks are rapidly repaired. A regulatory framework for CCS will need to include risk assessment of potential environmental and health and safety impacts, accounting and monitoring and liability for the long term. In summary, although there remain uncertainties to be resolved through research and demonstration projects, our assessment demonstrates that CCS holds great potential for significant cuts in CO2 emissions as we develop long term alternatives to fossil fuel use. CCS can contribute to reducing emissions of CO2 into the atmosphere in the near term (i.e. peak-shaving the future atmospheric concentration of CO2), with the potential to continue to deliver significant CO2 reductions over the long term.

Transport impacts on atmosphere and climate: metrics

The transport sector emits a wide variety of gases and aerosols, with distinctly different characteristics which influence climate directly and indirectly via chemical and physical processes. Tools that allow these emissions to be placed on some kind of common scale in terms of their impact on climate have a number of possible uses such as: in agreements and emission trading schemes; when considering potential trade-offs between changes in emissions resulting from technological or operational developments; and/or for comparing the impact of different environmental impacts of transport activities. Many of the non-CO2 emissions from the transport sector are short-lived substances, not currently covered by the Kyoto Protocol. There are formidable difficulties in developing metrics and these are particularly acute for such short-lived species. One difficulty concerns the choice of an appropriate structure for the metric (which may depend on, for example, the design of any climate policy it is intended to serve) and the associated value judgements on the appropriate time periods to consider; these choices affect the perception of the relative importance of short- and long-lived species. A second difficulty is the quantification of input parameters (due to underlying uncertainty in atmospheric processes). In addition, for some transport-related emissions, the values of metrics (unlike the gases included in the Kyoto Protocol) depend on where and when the emissions are introduced into the atmosphere – both the regional distribution and, for aircraft, the distribution as a function of altitude, are important. In this assessment of such metrics, we present Global Warming Potentials (GWPs) as these have traditionally been used in the implementation of climate policy. We also present Global Temperature Change Potentials (GTPs) as an alternative metric, as this, or a similar metric may be more appropriate for use in some circumstances. We use radiative forcings and lifetimes from the literature to derive GWPs and GTPs for the main transport-related emissions, and discuss the uncertainties in these estimates. We find large variations in metric (GWP and GTP) values for NOx, mainly due to the dependence on location of emissions but also because of inter-model differences and differences in experimental design. For aerosols we give only global-mean values due to an inconsistent picture amongst available studies regarding regional dependence. The uncertainty in the presented metric values reflects the current state of understanding; the ranking of the various components with respect to our confidence in the given metric values is also given. While the focus is mostly on metrics for comparing the climate impact of emissions, many of the issues are equally relevant for stratospheric ozone depletion metrics, which are also discussed.

Daytime CO2 urban surface fluxes from airborne measurements, eddy-covariance observations and emissions inventory in Greater London

Airborne measurements within the urban mixing layer (360 m) over Greater London are used to quantify CO2 emissions at the meso-scale. Daytime CO2 fluxes, calculated by the Integrative Mass Boundary Layer (IMBL) method, ranged from 46 to 104 μmol CO2 m−2 s−1 for four days in October 2011. The day-to-day variability of IMBL fluxes is at the same order of magnitude as for surface eddy-covariance fluxes observed in central London. Compared to fluxes derived from emissions inventory, the IMBL method gives both lower (by −37%) and higher (by 19%) estimates. The sources of uncertainty of applying the IMBL method in urban areas are discussed and guidance for future studies is given.

Effects of urban density on carbon dioxide exchanges: observations of dense urban, suburban and woodland areas of southern England

Anthropogenic and biogenic controls on the surface–atmosphere exchange of CO2 are explored for three different environments. Similarities are seen between suburban and woodland sites during summer, when photosynthesis and respiration determine the diurnal pattern of the CO2 flux. In winter, emissions from human activities dominate urban and suburban fluxes; building emissions increase during cold weather, while traffic is a major component of CO2 emissions all year round. Observed CO2 fluxes reflect diurnal traffic patterns (busy throughout the day (urban); rush-hour peaks (suburban)) and vary between working days and non-working days, except at the woodland site. Suburban vegetation offsets some anthropogenic emissions, but 24-h CO2 fluxes are usually positive even during summer. Observations are compared to estimated emissions from simple models and inventories. Annual CO2 exchanges are significantly different between sites, demonstrating the impacts of increasing urban density (and decreasing vegetation fraction) on the CO2 flux to the atmosphere.

Essays on growth and environment

This thesis consists of a summary and four self-contained papers. Paper [I] Following the 1987 report by The World Commission on Environment and Development, the genuine saving has come to play a key role in the context of sustainable development, and the World Bank regularly publishes numbers for genuine saving on a national basis. However, these numbers are typically calculated as if the tax system is non-distortionary. This paper presents an analogue to genuine saving in a second best economy, where the government raises revenue by means of distortionary taxation. We show how the social cost of public debt, which depends on the marginal excess burden, ought to be reflected in the genuine saving. We also illustrate by presenting calculations for Greece, Japan, Portugal, U.K., U.S. and OECD average, showing that the numbers published by the World Bank are likely to be biased and may even give incorrect information as to whether the economy is locally sustainable. Paper [II] This paper examines the relationships among per capita CO2 emissions, per capita GDP and international trade based on panel data spanning the period 1960-2008 for 150 countries. A distinction is also made between OECD and Non-OECD countries to capture the differences of this relationship between developed and developing economies. We apply panel unit root and cointegration tests, and estimate a panel error correction model. The results from the error correction model suggest that there are long-term relationships between the variables for the whole sample and for Non-OECD countries. Finally, Granger causality tests show that there is bi-directional short-term causality between per capita GDP and international trade for the whole sample and between per capita GDP and CO2 emissions for OECD countries. Paper [III] Fundamental questions in economics are why some regions are richer than others, why their growth rates differ, whether their growth rates tend to converge, and what key factors contribute to explain economic growth. This paper deals with the average income growth, net migration, and changes in unemployment rates at the municipal level in Sweden. The aim is to explore in depth the effects of possible underlying determinants with a particular focus on local policy variables. The analysis is based on a three-equation model. Our results show, among other things, that increases in the local public expenditure and income taxe rate have negative effects on subsequent income income growth. In addition, the results show conditional convergence, i.e. that the average income among the municipal residents tends to grow more rapidly in relatively poor local jurisdictions than in initially “richer” jurisdictions, conditional on the other explanatory variables. Paper [IV] This paper explores the relationship between income growth and income inequality using data at the municipal level in Sweden for the period 1992-2007. We estimate a fixed effects panel data growth model, where the within-municipality income inequality is one of the explanatory variables. Different inequality measures (Gini coefficient, top income shares, and measures of inequality in the lower and upper part of the income distribution) are examined. We find a positive and significant relationship between income growth and income inequality measured as the Gini coefficient and top income shares, respectively. In addition, while inequality in the upper part of the income distribution is positively associated with the income growth rate, inequality in the lower part of the income distribution seems to be negatively related to the income growth. Our findings also suggest that increased income inequality enhances growth more in municipalities with a high level of average income than in municipalities with a low level of average income.

Soil CO2 emission estimated by different interpolation techniques

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Carbon dioxide emissions after application of tillage systems for a dark red latosol in southern Brazil

Soil tillage may influence CO2 emissions in agricultural systems. Agricultural soils are managed in several ways in Brazil, ranging from no tillage to intensive land preparation. The objective of this study was to determine the effect of common soil tillage treatments (disk harrow, reversible disk plow, rotary tiller and chisel plow tillage systems) on the intermediate CO2 emissions of a dark red latosol, located in southern Brazil. Different tillage systems produced significant differences in the CO2 emissions, and the results indicate that the chisel plow produced the highest soil carbon loss during the 15 days period after tillage treatments were performed. Emissions to the atmosphere increased as much as 74 g CO2 m(-2), at the end of a 2-week period, in the plot where the chisel plow treatment was applied, in comparison to the non-disturbed plot. The results indicate that the total increase on the intermediate term soil CO2 emissions due to tillage treatments in southern Brazil is comparable to that reported for the more humid and cooler regions. (C) 2001 Elsevier B.V. B.V All rights reserved.

Spatial and temporal variability in soil CO2-C emissions and relation to soil temperature at King George Island, maritime Antarctica

Few studies have examined the effects of temperature on spatial and temporal trends in soil CO2-C emissions in Antarctica. In this work, we present in situ measurements of CO2-C emissions and assess their relation with soil temperature, using dynamic chambers. We found an exponential relation between CO2 emissions and soil temperature, with the value of Q10 being close to 2.1. Mean emission rates were as low as 0.026 and 0.072 g of CO2-C m-2 h-1 for bare soil and soil covered with moss, respectively, and as high as 0.162 g of CO2-C m-2 h-1 for soil covered with grass, Deschampsia antarctica Desv. (Poaceae). A spatial variability analysis conducted using a 60-point grid, for an area with mosses (Sannionia uncianata) and D. antarctica, yielded a spherical semivariogram model for CO2-C emissions with a range of 1 m. The results suggest that soil temperature is a controlling factor on temporal variations in soil CO2-C emissions, although spatial variations appear to be more strongly related to the distribution of vegetation types. © 2010 Elsevier B.V. and NIPR.

Emissão de CO2 e sua relação com propriedades, manejo do solo e palha em áreas de cana-de-açúcar

Pós-graduação em Agronomia (Ciência do Solo) - FCAV

Transporte de CO2 no Sistema Solo-Planta-Atmosfera

Pós-graduação em Física - IGCE

Renewable energy sources in Latin America and the Caribbean: situation and policy proposals

Includes bibliography

Efeito dos resíduos de cana-de-açúcar na emissão de CO2 em condição sem distúrbio e após preparo do solo, em áreas de produção no Sudeste do Brasil

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

An assessment of the economic impact of climate change on the Energy Sector in Trinidad and Tobago

The energy sector is a dominant one in Trinidad and Tobago and it plays an important role in the twin-island republic‟s economy. In 2008, the share of the energy sector in gross domestic product (GDP) amounted to approximately 48% while contributing 57% to total Government revenue. In that same year, the sector‟s share of merchandise exports was 88%, made up mainly of refined oil products including petroleum, liquefied natural gas (LNG), and natural gas liquids (Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago, 2009). Trinidad and Tobago is the main exporter of oil in the Caribbean region and the main producer of liquefied natural gas in Latin America and the Caribbean. The role of the country‟s energy sector is, therefore, not limited to serving as the engine of growth for the national economy but also includes providing energy security for the small island developing States of the Caribbean. However, with its hydrocarbon-based economy, Trinidad and Tobago is ranked seventh in the world in terms of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions per capita, producing an estimated 40 million tonnes of CO2 annually. Almost 90% of these CO2 emissions are attributed directly to the energy sector through petrochemical production (56%), power generation (30%) and flaring (3%). Trinidad and Tobago is a ratified signatory to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol. Although, as a non-Annex 1 country, Trinidad and Tobago is not required to cut its greenhouse gas emissions under the Protocol, it is currently finalizing a climate change policy document as well as a national energy policy with specific strategies to address climate change. The present study complements the climate change policy document by providing an economic analysis of the impact that climate change could have on the energy sector in Trinidad and Tobago under the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change alternative climate scenarios (A2 and B2) as compared to a baseline situation of no climate change. Results of analyses indicate that, in the short-run, climate change, represented by change in temperature, is not a significant determinant of domestic consumption of energy, electricity in particular, in Trinidad and Tobago. With energy prices subsidized domestically and fixed for years at a time, energy price does not play a role in determining electricity demand. Economic growth, as indicated by Gross Domestic Product (GDP), is the single major determinant of electricity consumption in the short-run. In the long-run, temperature, GDP, and patterns of electricity use, jointly determine electricity consumption. Variations in average annual temperature due to climate change for the A2 scenario are expected to lead to an increase in electricity consumption per capita, equivalent to an annual increase of 1.07% over the 2011 baseline value of electricity consumption per capita. Under the B2 scenario, the average annual increase in electricity consumption per capita over the 2011 baseline value is expected to be 1.01%. The estimated economic impact of climate change on electricity consumption for the period 2011-2050 is valued at US$ 142.88 million under the A2 scenario and US$ 134.83million under the B2 scenario. These economic impact estimates are equivalent to a loss of 0.737% of 2009 GDP under the A2 climate scenario and a loss of 0.695% of 2009 GDP under the B2 scenario. On the energy supply side, sea level rise and storm surges present significant risks to oil installations and infrastructure at the Petroleum Company of Trinidad and Tobago (PETROTRIN) Pointe-a-Pierre facilities (Singh and El Fouladi, 2006). However, data limitations do not permit the conduct of an economic analysis of the impact of projected sea level rise on oil and gas production.