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1 – 10 of 165Min-Jung Kim, Seock-Jin Hong and Hun-Koo Ha
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…
Abstract
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.
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Environmental economics has typically adopted two approaches to the demonstration of the optimal level of pollution. The first superimposes a marginal pollution cost (MPC…
Abstract
Environmental economics has typically adopted two approaches to the demonstration of the optimal level of pollution. The first superimposes a marginal pollution cost (MPC) function on the traditional model of the profit maximising firm and demonstrates that Pareto optimality requires the output price to be set equal to marginal social cost (MSC), defined as the sum or marginal private cost (MC) and marginal pollution cost. The second looks at the marginal pollution cost and compares it to the marginal cost of pollution control (MPCC). The optimum in this approach then exists when marginal pollution cost equals marginal cost of pollution control.
Markus Schwarz, Sebastian Goers, Michael Schmidthaler and Robert Tichler
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.
Abstract
Purpose
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.
Design/methodology/approach
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.
Findings
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.
Research limitations/implications
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.
Originality/value
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.
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Tommaso Piseddu and Fedra Vanhuyse
With more cities aiming to achieve climate neutrality, identifying the funding to support these plans is essential. The purpose of this paper is to exploit the present of a…
Abstract
Purpose
With more cities aiming to achieve climate neutrality, identifying the funding to support these plans is essential. The purpose of this paper is to exploit the present of a structured green bonds framework in Sweden to investigate the typology of abatement projects Swedish municipalities invested in and understand their effectiveness.
Design/methodology/approach
Marginal abatement cost curves of the green bond measures are constructed by using the financial and abatement data provided by municipalities on an annual basis.
Findings
The results highlight the economic competitiveness of clean energy production, measured in abatement potential per unit of currency, even when compared to other emerging technologies that have attracted the interest of policymakers. A comparison with previous studies on the cost efficiency of carbon capture storage reveals that clean energy projects, especially wind energy production, can contribute to the reduction of emissions in a more efficient way. The Swedish carbon tax is a good incentive tool for investments in clean energy projects.
Originality/value
The improvement concerning previous applications is twofold: the authors expand the financial considerations to include the whole life-cycle costs, and the authors consider all the greenhouse gases. This research constitutes a prime in using financial and environmental data produced by local governments to assess the effectiveness of their environmental measures.
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Wolfgang Buchholz and Dirk Rübbelke
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…
Abstract
Purpose
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.
Design/methodology/approach
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.
Findings
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.
Research limitations/implications
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.
Practical implications
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.
Social implications
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.
Originality/value
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.
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Andries Nentjes and Doede Wiersma
Environmental resources and human knowledge are the ultimate foundations on which human welfare is based. The impact of technical knowledge is well researched. Denison, for…
Abstract
Environmental resources and human knowledge are the ultimate foundations on which human welfare is based. The impact of technical knowledge is well researched. Denison, for example, attributes no less than 47 per cent of the growth of real GNP in the USA over the period 1948–81 to technical change. The importance of the environmental resource base has been brought to the foreground by studies like Limits to Growth. Nowadays environmental policies are applied in most industrialised countries just to prevent further deterioration of the environment. In these countries it is not the physical environmental constraint that is felt, but perhaps the drag on economic growth exercised by the costs of environmental regulation. Whatever the nature of the environmental limit to economic growth may be, physical or juridical, it can be overcome by the use and extension of knowledge in order to reduce the amount of pollution and the costs of pollution control. Technical advance or innovation in pollution control is and will remain a very important factor affecting the success of the efforts that are made to improve environmental quality and to maintain growth of output. In this article we shall give a survey of the economic research in the area of innovation and pollution control. The main research themes will be indicated, “blank spots” pointed out and suggestions made about possible subjects for fruitful future research. In section I a short introduction is given to the general economic approach to technical change and innovation. In section II the existing economic literature on pollution control and innovation is reviewed. It will be argued that some of the most relevant research themes have not been taken up. These issues will be discussed in sections III and IV. Section V contains conclusions and recommendations for future research.
Xianrong Wu, Junbiao Zhang and Liangzhi You
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…
Abstract
Purpose
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).
Design/methodology/approach
The shadow price of agricultural carbon emissions is estimated by applying directional distance function and non-parametric methods.
Findings
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.
Practical implications
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.
Originality/value
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.
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This paper aims to focus on scrutinizing the economics of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Vietnam's rice production sector.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to focus on scrutinizing the economics of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Vietnam's rice production sector.
Design/methodology/approach
Using surveyed data from household rice producers, the smallest available production scale, the author delves into the economics of GHG emissions, constructs a data-driven bottom-up marginal abatement cost curve for Vietnam’s rice production, and evaluates the impacts of carbon pricing on production outputs and GHG emissions.
Findings
The author’s estimates reveal that the average profit earned per tonne of GHG emissions is $240/tCO2. Notably, the profit earning per tonne of GHG emissions varies substantially across producers, indicating significant opportunities for improvement among low-efficiency producers. The analysis suggests that a reasonable carbon price would yield a modest impact on the national rice output. The quantitative analysis also reaffirms that the primary driver of GHG emissions in Vietnam’s rice production stems from non-energy inputs and industrial processes rather than the utilisation of energy inputs, emphasizing the importance of improving cultivation techniques.
Originality/value
This research is original.
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