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The purpose of this paper is to present and discuss the methodological approach and the results of the investigation of greenhouse gas emission abatement costs in Upper Austria.

The assessment covers the quantification of marginal abatement costs (MACs) of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the emission reduction potentials of various energy efficiency and fuel switch measures with a special emphasis on the heat, electricity and transport sectors in Upper Austria during the period from 2010 to 2030.

The expert‐based assessment in Upper Austria shows negative abatement costs for 19 of 56 evaluated strategies. While these measures are very efficient from an economic point of view, the remaining 37 measures are associated with higher costs. The evaluation reveals a significant reduction potential of 5.2 million tons CO₂e (which represent 21 per cent) of the current GHG emissions in Upper Austria for the examined period.

MACs are generally limited to a certain time frame. Furthermore, the expert‐based approach is based on several assumptions and neglects behavioural and learning aspects.

This contribution uses a multi‐criteria approach that reveals the economic efficiency and the ecological effectiveness of the considered strategies/technologies with regard to greenhouse gas emission reductions, the improvement of the overall energy efficiency, and the competitiveness of a fuel switch towards renewable energy sources. Drawing upon the findings of this study, policy recommendations can be elaborated and the necessary improvements of the regulative framework can be implemented.

Mitigating agricultural greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is an essential part of China's effort to achieve net-zero emissions. This study assesses the cost-effectiveness of China's agricultural GHG reduction under diverse carbon policies.

The study employs a parametric non-radial distance function approach and estimates the technical abatement potential and marginal abatement cost (MAC) of GHG in China's agricultural sector for the 2008–2017 period.

Agriculture is expected to make a great contribution to China's net-zero emissions progress. This study empirically analyses the cost-effectiveness of China's agricultural GHG reduction under diverse carbon policies. A parametric non-radial distance function approach is used to derive technical abatement potential and MAC of GHG for the 2008–2017 period. The results indicate that no significant improvement had been achieved in terms of agricultural GHG reduction in China during 2008–2017. The country's agricultural sector could reduce 20–40% GHG emissions with a mean value of 31%. In general, western provinces have larger reduction potential than eastern ones. The average MAC for the whole country is 4,656 yuan/ton CO₂e during 2008–2017. For most western provinces, their MAC values are considerably higher than those for most eastern provinces. Compared with previous sectoral estimates of GHG mitigation cost, this study’s estimates indicate that reducing agricultural GHG emissions in some provinces is likely to be cost-effective. The Chinese government should consider expanding its national carbon market to cover agricultural sector.

The Chinese government should consider expanding its national carbon market to cover agricultural sector.

Existing studies in the field mostly ignore input constraints, which is inconsistent with carbon mitigation policy practice, especially in the agricultural sector. This study’s approach integrates both input and output constraints reflecting differing policy practice.

The purpose of this paper is to estimate shadow prices of agricultural carbon emissions produced by agricultural inputs, rice paddy and burning crop residue, and to explore the impact of cropping pattern on marginal abatement cost (MAC).

The shadow price of agricultural carbon emissions is estimated by applying directional distance function and non-parametric methods.

The estimated shadow price of agricultural carbon emissions ranges from 6.78 to 557.83 yuan/ton, and the average value is 62.50 yuan/ton (or $10.18/ton). The MAC value varies in different provinces and years. The regional difference of MAC shows a decreasing trend during the investigation period. Cropping pattern shows a significant negative impact on agricultural MAC. A 1 percent decrease of rice proportion leads to a 0.31 percent increase in MAC value. This implies that the higher the proportion of rice is, the lower the economic cost to reduce agricultural carbon emissions would be.

It is feasible to draw up appropriate mechanisms for the allocation of emission reduction responsibilities according to conditions in various regions, with emphasis on the local cropping patterns. There is a trade-off between reducing carbon emission and increasing crop yields.

This study calculates agricultural MAC by using the shadow price approach, taking agricultural carbon emissions as undesired environmental output. The study also provides a reference emission right price and provides guidance to make use of cropping structure adjustment and optimization for exploring the emission reduction strategy.

Climate finance is regularly not only seen as a tool to efficiently combat global warming but also to solve development problems in the recipient countries and to support the attainment of sustainable development goals. Thereby, conflicts between distributive and allocative objectives arise, which threaten the overall performance of such transfer schemes. Given the severity of the climate change problem, this study aims to raise concerns about whether the world can afford climate transfer schemes that do not focus on prevention of (and adaptation to) climate change but might be considered as a vehicle of rent-seeking by many agents.

Future designs of international transfer schemes within the framework of the Paris Agreement are to be based on experience gained from existing mechanisms. Therefore, the authors examine different existing schemes using a graphical technique first proposed by David Pearce and describe the conflicts between allocative and distributional goals that arise.

In line with the famous Tinbergen rule, the authors argue that other sustainability problems and issues of global fairness should not be primarily addressed by climate finance but should be mainly tackled by other means.

As there is still ongoing, intense discussion about how the international transfer schemes addressed in Article 6 of the Paris Agreement should be designed, the research will help to sort some of the key arguments.

There are prominent international documents (like the Paris Agreement and the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development) seeking to address different goals simultaneously. While synergies between policies is desirable, there are major challenges for policy coordination. Addressing several different goals using fewer policy instruments, for example, will not succeed as the Tinbergen Rule points out.

The integration of co-benefits in the analysis allows for taking into account the social effects of climate policy. As the authors argue, climate finance approaches could become overstrained if policymakers would consider them as tools to also solve local sustainability problems.

In this paper, the authors will not only examine what can be learnt from the clean development mechanism (CDM) for future schemes under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement but also observe the experiences gained from a non-CDM scheme. So the authors pay attention to the Trust Fund of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) which was established with global benefit orientation, i.e. – unlike the CDM – it was not regarded as an additional goal to support local sustainable development. Yet, despite its disregard of local co-benefits, the authors think that it is of particular importance to include the GEF in the analysis, as some important lessons can be learnt from it.

This study estimated greenhouse gas emissions from aviation transportation and sought systems that could manage these emissions based on the IPCC guidelines to prepare for greenhouse gas regulations on international airlines. For this purpose, policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from aviation transportation were developed based on international agreements and the cases of advanced countries. In addition, marginal abatement costs and greenhouse gas reduction measures were derived for the effective execution of these policies. While estimating greenhouse gas emissions from aviation transportation, it was found that there has been an average increase of 3.9% and 12.9% for domestic and international flights, indicating that it is urgent that we prepare global greenhouse gas regulations. The estimated marginal abatement cost of greenhouse gas from airplanes was approximately. USD 123, and this amount could be used to decide the price of emission rights, the amount of carbon tax, and could be referred to when distributing incentives for voluntary agreements.

The measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions for aviation transportation were classified into four types: voluntary agreements, international collaboration, greenhouse gas reduction technology and operation process development, and application of emission trading and carbon tax.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how project economics and decision making in industry can be affected by global climate change. When assessing the sustainability of any design or project, one of the key emerging considerations is the potential for the decision to contribute to greenhouse house gas (GHG) emissions. Changes in climate may also lead to new project risks with further economic implications.

Examination of the wider social economic implications of climate change provides the basis for considering individual projects within the context of the social costs of carbon emissions, the prospect of the gradual internalisation of those costs, and the costs and benefits of adaptation to protect against the impacts of global change on the project.

Emissions of greenhouse gases, still widely not priced in many parts of the world, drive the emerging observed and predicted effects of climate change on the planet. This damage has real value and can be monetised, allowing a notional social cost of carbon to be estimated. As climate change continues to manifest itself, societies start to react, constraining emissions and creating a market price or tax for carbon. If economic analysis for project decision making includes an explicit consideration of the likely future trajectory of carbon prices, and also examines the wider external social costs of carbon, the benefits of early adoption of revenue‐positive measures to reduce emissions are revealed. In the same way, the financial costs of procrastination are made increasingly evident as regulatory and economic baselines shift. Designing for inevitable climate change will also help industry future‐proof their operations.

At present, relatively few organisations examine the financial and economic implications of carbon emissions or the effects of a changing climate on their operations. To avoid unnecessary costs, and maximise benefit for stakeholders, decision making for business and government needs to incorporate an explicit economic treatment of the current and likely future implications of operating in a climate‐constrained and climate‐impacted world.

By conducting the kind of analysis proposed, organisations can not only help to reduce GHG emissions, but can also improve their own financial performance. The value of this analysis will only increase over the coming decades of the climate‐change era.

A public emission reduction project offers saleable carbon credits to encourage individual residents to participate in activities with low carbon emissions: if the residents participate, they will earn carbon credits that can be sold to polluting firms for carbon offsetting. This study explores the economic and environmental implications of these projects.

The authors develop a multiperiod model to incorporate the decisions of individual residents and a polluting firm. The model captures residents' difference in estimating the price of carbon credits: A proportion of residents are naive residents who shortsightedly take the previous market price of carbon credits as the basis of their decision-making.

A public emission reduction project can improve the cost-efficiency of carbon reduction, increase both the profit of the polluting firm and consumer surplus, but may hurt the welfare of the participating residents. Reducing transaction costs of carbon credits may cause a greater loss to participating residents. As the ratio of naive residents decreases, the overall welfare of participating residents increases and the number of participating residents decreases.

To encourage more residents to reduce carbon emissions, the project should be promoted to new areas (e.g. rural areas) where there are more naive residents. Although reducing transaction costs is an effective way to increase the economic viability of the project, the government should pay attention to protecting the welfare of residents, and educating residents is an effective way to improve their overall welfare.

This paper is the first to reveal the economic and environmental implications of public emission reduction projects.

The Greehouse Gas (GHG) in the shipping industry has attracted increasing attention. One potential method to reduce the GHG mitigation cost is the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The purpose of this paper is to identify factors that may increase or hinder the CDM in the shipping industry and provide policy implications.

The paper is an extension and application of the methodology first published by Wang and Firestone in Energy for Sustainable Development. The gravity model in international trade theory is used. The econometric model is employed for the analysis.

Larger project endowment, higher government efficiency, high‐quality expertise and infrastructure may play roles in increasing CDM in the shipping industry. The promotion of small‐scale projects, upgrade of the infrastructure, assistance of technologies and knowledge overseas can help the shipping industry and small countries to attract more CDM.

The paper is among the first work to describe and analyze potential barriers for the international shipping industry to use the CDM. It also suggests a set of measures to address the policy options to promote CDM in the shipping industry and small developing countries.

This paper investigates the impact of CO2 vs CO2 “equivalents” (CO2e) by analyzing fugitive emissions, with a particular focus on Fluorinated gases (F-gases), arising from refrigerant leakages in buildings. F-gases are an especially powerful set of GHGs with a global warming potential hundreds to thousands of times greater than that of CO2.

The significant impact of CO2e is tested by means of an empirical study with current consumption data from German food retail warehouses. This evaluation involves the analysis of the Carbon Risk Real Estate Monitor's country- and property-type specific pathway, coupled with a paired samples t-test to examine the hypotheses. The assessment is undertaken by evaluating the type of gas and the amount of leakage reported in the baseline year, subsequently converting these values to CO2e units.

On average, F-gases account for 40% of total building emissions and nearly 45% of cumulative emissions until 2050. In light of ongoing climate change and the rising number of Cooling Degree Days (CDDs), it becomes imperative to assess both the environmental and economic impact of F-gases and to transition toward environmentally friendly refrigerants.

The analysis sheds light on the seldom-addressed threats posed by CO2e emissions stemming from refrigerant losses. By identifying these threats, investors can devise strategies to mitigate potential future costs and carbon risks.

There are certain differences in the production products of enterprises. What are the impacts of product differentiation on the iron and steel industry? Based on the macro background of CO₂ emission reduction, this paper aims to analyze the economic benefits and environmental changes of the iron and steel industry under the dual influence of CO₂ emission reduction policy and product differentiation policy.

Taking the basic data of iron and steel industry in six regions of China as an example, this paper constructed an extended two-stage dynamic game model to analyze the impact of product differentiation and carbon tax policy on the production, economic indicators and CO₂ emission levels for the overall industry and regional enterprises.

As the CO₂ emission reduction target increased, the unit carbon tax and total tax increased, whereas the macro-environmental losses, social welfare, consumer surplus and outputs decrease. Emission reduction pressures and other economic indicators showed obvious regional differences. Differentiated products promoted various indicators of enterprises and industries; higher degrees of product differentiation resulted in greater promoting effects on economic indicators.

This paper constructed multiple emission reduction and production backgrounds, and discusses the impact of the comprehensive implementation of these policies, which has been practically absent in previous studies. The results of this study are consistent with the current industrial policy for stable production and environmental protection, and also provides a reference for the formulation of detailed policies in the future.