Composition of Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Spain: an Input-Output Analysis

Extending the traditional input-output model to account for the environmental impacts of production processes reveals the channels by which environmental burdens are transmitted throughout the economy. In particular, the environmental input-output approach is a useful technique for quantifying the changes in the levels of greenhouse emissions caused by changes in the final demand for production activities. The inputoutput model can also be used to determine the changes in the relative composition of greenhouse gas emissions due to exogenous inflows. In this paper we describe a method for evaluating how the exogenous changes in sectorial demand, such as changes in private consumption, public consumption, investment and exports, affect the relative contribution of the six major greenhouse gases regulated by the Kyoto Protocol to total greenhouse emissions. The empirical application is for Spain, and the economic and environmental data are for the year 2000. Our results show that there are significant differences in the effects of different sectors on the composition of greenhouse emissions. Therefore, the final impact on the relative contribution of pollutants will basically depend on the activity that receives the exogenous shock in final demand, because there are considerable differences in the way, and the extent to which, individual activities affect the relative composition of greenhouse gas emissions. Keywords: Greenhouse emissions, composition of emissions, sectorial demand, exogenous shock.

Trade of permits for greenhouse gas emissions; bilateral trade need not be the answer

The Kyoto Protocol sets national quotas on CO2 emissions and allows international trade of these quotas. We argue that this trade is characterized by asymmetric, identity-dependent externalities, and show that bilateral trade may not be sufficient for an efficient allocation of emissions. We derive conditions under which bilateral trade does improve the allocation of permits. The conditions are strong. In this sense, we argue that, for emissions permits, market design matters.

Economic structure and key sectors analysis of greenhouse gas emissions in Uruguay

This paper identifies the key sectors in greenhouse gas emissions of the Uruguayan economy through input-output analysis. This allows to precisely determine the role played by the different productive sectors and their relationship with other sectors in the relation between the Uruguayan productive structure and atmospheric pollution. In order to guide policy design for GHG reduction, we decompose sectors liability between the pollution generated through their own production processes and the pollution indirectly generated in the production processes of other sectors. The results show that all the key polluting sectors for the different contaminants considered are relevant because of their own emissions, except for the sector Motor vehicles and oil retail trade, which is relevant in CO2 emissions because of its pure, both backward and forward, linkages. Finally, the best policy channels for controlling and reducing GHGs emissions are identified, and compared with the National Climate Change Response Plan (NCCRP) lines of action.

2007 Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Selected Iowa Source Categories

The Department’s 2007 Greenhouse Gas Inventory is a refinement of previous statewide inventories. It is a bottom-up inventory of two sectors – fossil fuel combustion at federally-recognized major sources of air pollution and fossil fuel combustion and ethanol fermentation at dry mill ethanol plants. This is the first bottomup greenhouse gas inventory conducted for Iowa and the first bottom-up greenhouse gas inventory of ethanol plants in the nation that the Department is aware of. In a bottom-up inventory, facility-specific activity data is used to calculate emissions. In a top-down inventory, aggregate activity data is used to calculate emissions. For example, this bottom-up inventory calculates greenhouse gas emissions from the fossil fuel combustion at each individual facility instead of using the total amount of fossil fuel combusted state-wide, which would be a top-down inventory method. The advantage to a bottom-up inventory is that the calculations are more accurate than a top-down inventory. However, because the two methods differ, the results from a bottom-up inventory are not directly comparable to a top-down inventory.

Greenhouse Gas and Nitrogen Fertilizer Scenarios for U.S. Agriculture and Global Biofuels, June 2011

This analysis uses the 2011 FAPRI-CARD (Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute–Center for Agricultural and Rural Development) baseline to evaluate the impact of four alternative scenarios on U.S. and world agricultural markets, as well as on world fertilizer use and world agricultural greenhouse gas emissions. A key assumption in the 2011 baseline is that ethanol support policies disappear in 2012. The baseline also assumes that existing biofuel mandates remain in place and are binding. Two of the scenarios are adverse supply shocks, the first being a 10% increase in the price of nitrogen fertilizer in the United States, and the second, a reversion of cropland into forestland. The third scenario examines how lower energy prices would impact world agriculture. The fourth scenario reintroduces biofuel tax credits and duties. Given that the baseline excludes these policies, the fourth scenario is an attempt to understand the impact of these policies under the market conditions that prevail in early 2011. A key to understanding the results of this fourth scenario is that in the absence of tax credits and duties, the mandate drives biofuel use. Therefore, when the tax credits and duties are reintroduced, the impacts are relatively small. In general, the results show that the entire international commodity market system is remarkably robust with respect to policy changes in one country or in one sector. The policy implication is that domestic policy changes implemented by a large agricultural producer like the United States can have fairly significant impacts on the aggregate world commodity markets. A second point that emerges from the results is that the law of unintended consequences is at work in world agriculture. For example, a U.S. nitrogen tax that might presumably be motivated for environmental benefit results in an increase in world greenhouse gas emissions. A similar situation occurs in the afforestation scenario in which crop production shifts from high-yielding land in the United States to low-yielding land and probably native vegetation in the rest of the world, resulting in an unintended increase in global greenhouse gas emissions.

International Equity on Greenhouse Gas Emissions and World Levels: an integrated analysis through distributive welfare indices

Up until now, analyses of the international distribution of pollutant emissions have not paid sufficient attention to the implications that, in terms of social welfare, the combined evolution of the global world average entails. In this context, this paper proposes the use of environmental welfare indices, taken and adapted from the literature on social welfare and inequality, in order to make a comprehensive examination of the international equity factor and the mean factor in this field. The proposed methodology is implemented empirically in order to explore the evolution in distributive-based environmental welfare on a global level for the three main pollutants with greenhouse gas effects: CO2, CH4 and NO, both globally and for selected years during the period of 1990- 2005. The main results found are as follows: firstly, typically, the environmental welfare associated with the overall greenhouse gases decreased significantly over the period, due primarily to the role of CO2; secondly, in contrast, the global welfare associated with CH4 and NO improved; and thirdly, typically, the evolutions can be attributed to a greater extent to the mean component than to the distributive component, although there are exceptions. These results would seem to be relevant in policy terms. JEL codes: D39; Q43; Q56. Keywords: environmental welfare: greenhouse gases; environmental equity.

Reduction of Greenhouse Gas Emissions in North-West Russia - Finnish Business Opportunities

Tutkimus suomalaisten yritysten liiketoimintamahdollisuuksista hiilidoksidipäästöjen vähentämisen parissa Luoteis-Venäjällä.

Unconventional Determinants of Greenhouse Gas Emissions: The Role of Trust

[cat] Les normes socials han estat incloses en la teoria de l’acció col.lectiva per a superar les dificultats per explicar perquè la gestió del béns comuns podria ser més efectiva quan s’autoregula per les mateixes comunitats. El paper rellevant de la confiança en els altres s’ha identificat en diversos contextos d’acció social a nivell local, però només recentment s’ha considerat la idea que també podria ser rellevant en el cas de béns comuns de caire global, seguint l’evidència bàsicament descriptiva recollida per Elinor Ostrom. Però fins ara no hi havia proves quantitatives disponibles d’aquesta idea. Utilitzant un conjunt de dades de 29 països europeus durant el període 1990-2007, donem evidència empírica a favor del paper del nivell de confiança en els altres en el context dels béns públics globals. Concloem que el nivell de confiança en els altres té un impacte reductor de les emissions de gasos d’efecte hivernacle; per exemple, l’extrapolació dels resultats implicaria una reducció d’emissions d’Espanya del 12,5% si el nivell mitjà de confiança en els altres dels espanyols fos tan elevat com els dels suecs.

Unconventional Determinants of Greenhouse Gas Emissions: The Role of Trust

[cat] Les normes socials han estat incloses en la teoria de l’acció col.lectiva per a superar les dificultats per explicar perquè la gestió del béns comuns podria ser més efectiva quan s’autoregula per les mateixes comunitats. El paper rellevant de la confiança en els altres s’ha identificat en diversos contextos d’acció social a nivell local, però només recentment s’ha considerat la idea que també podria ser rellevant en el cas de béns comuns de caire global, seguint l’evidència bàsicament descriptiva recollida per Elinor Ostrom. Però fins ara no hi havia proves quantitatives disponibles d’aquesta idea. Utilitzant un conjunt de dades de 29 països europeus durant el període 1990-2007, donem evidència empírica a favor del paper del nivell de confiança en els altres en el context dels béns públics globals. Concloem que el nivell de confiança en els altres té un impacte reductor de les emissions de gasos d’efecte hivernacle; per exemple, l’extrapolació dels resultats implicaria una reducció d’emissions d’Espanya del 12,5% si el nivell mitjà de confiança en els altres dels espanyols fos tan elevat com els dels suecs.

Balancing effluent quality, economic cost and greenhouse gas emissions during the evaluation of (plant-wide) control/operational strategies in WWTPs

The objective of this paper was to show the potential additional insight that result from adding greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to plant performance evaluation criteria, such as effluent quality (EQI) and operational cost (OCI) indices, when evaluating (plant-wide) control/operational strategies in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). The proposed GHG evaluation is based on a set of comprehensive dynamic models that estimate the most significant potential on-site and off-site sources of CO2, CH4 and N2O. The study calculates and discusses the changes in EQI, OCI and the emission of GHGs as a consequence of varying the following four process variables: (i) the set point of aeration control in the activated sludge section; (ii) the removal efficiency of total suspended solids (TSS) in the primary clarifier; (iii) the temperature in the anaerobic digester; and (iv) the control of the flow of anaerobic digester supernatants coming from sludge treatment. Based upon the assumptions built into the model structures, simulation results highlight the potential undesirable effects of increased GHG production when carrying out local energy optimization of the aeration system in the activated sludge section and energy recovery from the AD. Although off-site CO2 emissions may decrease, the effect is counterbalanced by increased N2O emissions, especially since N2O has a 300-fold stronger greenhouse effect than CO2. The reported results emphasize the importance and usefulness of using multiple evaluation criteria to compare and evaluate (plant-wide) control strategies in a WWTP for more informed operational decision making

The effects of location, feedstock availability, and supply-chain logistics on the greenhouse gas emissions of forest-biomass energy utilization in Finland

Forest biomass represents a geographically distributed feedstock, and geographical location affects the greenhouse gas (GHG) performance of a given forest-bioenergy system in several ways. For example, biomass availability, forest operations, transportation possibilities and the distances involved, biomass end-use possibilities, fossil reference systems, and forest carbon balances all depend to some extent on location. The overall objective of this thesis was to assess the GHG emissions derived from supply and energy-utilization chains of forest biomass in Finland, with a specific focus on the effect of location in relation to forest biomass’s availability and the transportation possibilities. Biomass availability and transportation-network assessments were conducted through utilization of geographical information system methods, and the GHG emissions were assessed by means of lifecycle assessment. The thesis is based on four papers in which forest biomass supply on industrial scale was assessed. The feedstocks assessed in this thesis include harvesting residues, smalldiameter energy wood and stumps. The principal implication of the findings in this thesis is that in Finland, the location and availability of biomass in the proximity of a given energyutilization or energy-conversion plant is not a decisive factor in supply-chain GHG emissions or the possible GHG savings to be achieved with forest-biomass energy use. Therefore, for the greatest GHG reductions with limited forest-biomass resources, energy utilization of forest biomass in Finland should be directed to the locations where most GHG savings are achieved through replacement of fossil fuels. Furthermore, one should prioritize the types of forest biomass with the lowest direct supply-chain GHG emissions (e.g., from transport and comminution) and the lowest indirect ones (in particular, soil carbon-stock losses), regardless of location. In this respect, the best combination is to use harvesting residues in combined heat and power production, replacing peat or coal.

Greenhouse gas emissions from peat and biomass-derived fuels, electricity and heat — Estimation of various production chains by using LCA methodology

More discussion is required on how and which types of biomass should be used to achieve a significant reduction in the carbon load released into the atmosphere in the short term. The energy sector is one of the largest greenhouse gas (GHG) emitters and thus its role in climate change mitigation is important. Replacing fossil fuels with biomass has been a simple way to reduce carbon emissions because the carbon bonded to biomass is considered as carbon neutral. With this in mind, this thesis has the following objectives: (1) to study the significance of the different GHG emission sources related to energy production from peat and biomass, (2) to explore opportunities to develop more climate friendly biomass energy options and (3) to discuss the importance of biogenic emissions of biomass systems. The discussion on biogenic carbon and other GHG emissions comprises four case studies of which two consider peat utilization, one forest biomass and one cultivated biomasses. Various different biomass types (peat, pine logs and forest residues, palm oil, rapeseed oil and jatropha oil) are used as examples to demonstrate the importance of biogenic carbon to life cycle GHG emissions. The biogenic carbon emissions of biomass are defined as the difference in the carbon stock between the utilization and the non-utilization scenarios of biomass. Forestry-drained peatlands were studied by using the high emission values of the peatland types in question to discuss the emission reduction potential of the peatlands. The results are presented in terms of global warming potential (GWP) values. Based on the results, the climate impact of the peat production can be reduced by selecting high-emission-level peatlands for peat production. The comparison of the two different types of forest biomass in integrated ethanol production in pulp mill shows that the type of forest biomass impacts the biogenic carbon emissions of biofuel production. The assessment of cultivated biomasses demonstrates that several selections made in the production chain significantly affect the GHG emissions of biofuels. The emissions caused by biofuel can exceed the emissions from fossil-based fuels in the short term if biomass is in part consumed in the process itself and does not end up in the final product. Including biogenic carbon and other land use carbon emissions into the carbon footprint calculations of biofuel reveals the importance of the time frame and of the efficiency of biomass carbon content utilization. As regards the climate impact of biomass energy use, the net impact on carbon stocks (in organic matter of soils and biomass), compared to the impact of the replaced energy source, is the key issue. Promoting renewable biomass regardless of biogenic GHG emissions can increase GHG emissions in the short term and also possibly in the long term.

Mitigation possibilities to Greenhouse gas emissions from power production in India

Global warming is assertively the greatest environmental challenge for humans of 21st century. It is primarily caused by the anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) that trap heat in the atmosphere. Because of which, the GHG emission mitigation, globally, is a critical issue in the political agenda of all high-profile nations. India, like other developing countries, is facing this threat of climate change while dealing with the challenge of sustaining its rapid economic growth. India’s economy is closely connected to its natural resource base and climate sensitive sectors like water, agriculture and forestry. Due to Climate change the quality and distribution of India’s natural resources may transform and lead to adverse effects on livelihood of its people. Therefore, India is expected to face a major threat due to the projected climate change. This study proposes possible solutions for GHG emission mitigation that are specific to the power sector of India. The methods discussed here will take Indian power sector from present coal dominant ideology to a system, centered with renewable energy sources. The study further proposes a future scenario for 2050, based on the present Indian government policies and global energy technologies advancements.