an analysis of the driving forces of energy related carbon dioxide emissions in china s industrial sector abstract both energy consumption and the growth of carbon dioxide co2 emissions in china are attributed to the industrial sector energy conservation and co2 emissions reduction in china s industrial sector is decisive for achieving a low carbon transition we analyze the change of energy related co2 emissions in china s industrial sector from 1991 to 2010 based on the logarithmic mean divisia index lmdi method results indicate that industrial activity is the major factor that contributes to the increase of industrial co2 emissions while energy intensity is the major contributor to the decrease of co2 emissions industry size shows a varying trend interchanging intervals of growth along the study period moreover both energy mix and carbon intensity of energy use have negative effects on the increase of co2 emissions the cointegration method is adopted to further explore determinants of co2 emissions in china s industrial sector results show that there exists a long run relationship between industrial co2 emissions and affecting factors such as co2 emissions per unit of energy consumption industrial value added labor productivity and fossil fuel consumption china s industrial co2 emissions are mainly attributed to the coal dominated energy structure policy suggestions are thus provided to reduce industrial co2 emissions in china

history dependence in concave economies abstract this paper investigates concave intertemporal optimization problems and derives two mechanisms either growth or control state interactions e g due to endogenous preferences that allow for multiple steady states including an unstable one therefore history dependence is possible in a perfectly governed economy subject to the law of diminishing returns if one of these two mechanisms is present this result complements a large amount of literature that attributes history dependence to convexities as a consequence lock ins into undesired evolutions are possible beyond the familiar case of increasing returns

dynamics of energy related co2 emissions in china during 1980 to 2002 the relative importance of energy supply side and demand side effects abstract based on a newly developed model that integrates energy production transformation and consumption processes this paper compares the relative importance of some traditionally recognized factors operating on the energy demand side with a body of newly defined factors on the supply side in terms of their contribution to trends in china s co2 emissions related to the total primary energy supply c tpes before 1996 changes in china s c tpes were mainly driven by changes on the energy demand side factors operating on the energy supply side played trivial roles during the period 1996 2000 however increasing demand side effects declined dramatically and at the same time decreasing effects from supply side expanded significantly such changes resulted directly in a decline in the c tpes the decreasing effects from international trade as well as statistical imbalances between supply and demand reinforced the declining trend the shrinkage of demand side effects mainly arose from the slowdown of economic growth and speed of decrease in energy intensity the expansion of supply side effects was principally attributed to the speed of decrease in gross unit consumption in transformation sectors especially in electricity sector therefore the acceleration of efficiency improvements in end use and transformation sectors accounted for the decline in the c tpes over the period 1996 2000

decomposition analysis of co2 emission intensity between oil producing and non oil producing sub saharan african countries abstract the need to decompose co2 emission intensity is predicated upon the need for effective climate change mitigation and adaptation policies such analysis enables key variables that instigate co2 emission intensity to be identified while at the same time providing opportunities to verify the mitigation and adaptation capacities of countries however most co2 decomposition analysis has been conducted for the developed economies and little attention has been paid to sub saharan africa the need for such an analysis for ssa is overwhelming for several reasons firstly the region is amongst the most vulnerable to climate change secondly there are disparities in the amount and composition of energy consumption and the levels of economic growth and development in the region thus a decomposition analysis of co2 emission intensity for ssa affords the opportunity to identify key influencing variables and to see how they compare among countries in the region also attempts have been made to distinguish between oil and non oil producing ssa countries to this effect a comparative static analysis of co2 emission intensity for oil producing and non oil producing ssa countries for the periods 1971 1998 has been undertaken using the refined laspeyres decomposition model our analysis confirms the findings for other regions that co2 emission intensity is attributable to energy consumption intensity co2 emission coefficient of energy types and economic structure particularly co2 emission coefficient of energy use was found to exercise the most influence on co2 emission intensity for both oil and non oil producing sub saharan african countries in the first sub interval period of our investigation from 1971 1981 in the second subinterval of 1981 1991 energy intensity and structural effect were the two major influencing factors on emission intensity for the two groups of countries however energy intensity effect had the most pronounced impact on co2 emission intensity in non oil producing sub saharan african countries while the structural effect explained most of the increase in co2 emission intensity among the oil producing countries finally for the period 1991 1998 structural effect accounted for much of the decrease in intensity among non oil producers while co2 emission coefficient of energy use was the major force driving the decrease among oil producing countries the dynamic changes in the co2 emission intensity and energy intensity effects for the two groups of countries suggest that fuel switching had been predominantly towards more carbon intensive production in oil producing countries and less carbon intensive production in non oil producing ssa countries in addition to the decomposition analysis the article discusses policy implications of the results we hope that the information and analyses provided here would help inform national energy and climate policy makers in ssa of the relative weaknesses and possible areas of strategic emphasis in their planning processes for mitigating the effects of climate change

understanding developing country stances on post 2012 climate change negotiations comparative analysis of brazil china india mexico and south africa abstract an essential issue in future climate negotiations is how to bring developing countries on board this paper proposes and applies the two level interest based model to analyze the factors that affect the likely stances of the plus five countries brazil china india mexico and south africa on international climate negotiations this study finds mitigation capability to be a crucial factor which consists of at least such sub factors as per capita income energy endowment and economic structure while ecological vulnerability does not seem to play an important role which includes reductions in agricultural outputs sea level rise climate related natural disasters and others the paper proposes six options in an ascending order of stringency that the plus five are likely to adopt the paper suggests that the basic four the plus five excluding mexico particularly china and india are less likely to adopt a voluntary commitment to an emissions cap on the national economy in the near future than mexico which has the highest mitigation capability among all five the basic four are likely to adopt more stringent climate polices with increasing mitigation capabilities suggesting the importance of effective international financial and technology transfer mechanisms and further tighten emission reduction targets from developed countries

structural decomposition analysis of sources of decarbonizing economic development in china 1992 2006 abstract to analyze and understand decarbonizing economic development in china this paper undertakes a structural decomposition analysis of the historical change in energy related carbon intensity in china between 1992 and 2006 the results show that the energy related carbon intensity in china decreased by about three fourths between 1992 and 2006 and reduced carbon emissions by about two billion tons the decline in the energy related carbon intensity was mainly caused by changes in production pattern especially changes in energy intensity within each sector between 1992 and 2002 however the most important driving force of carbon intensity from 2002 2006 was not the energy intensity within each sector but the input mix on the other hand changes in demand pattern pushed up the carbon intensity to further decarbonize the economy in the future it is important for china to further enforce policies on shaping the production pattern such as reducing energy intensity and pay more attention to increasing the sustainability of the demand pattern at the same time

nonconvexities in optimal pollution accumulation abstract with a few exceptions the analysis of optimal pollution accumulation or detrimental stock externalities rests on the assumptions that the level of damage is unbounded and that pollution decay increases monotonically with the level of pollution stock we show that these assumptions are restrictive and that their generalization alters the basic economic properties of optimal pollution control we specify a decay function which is concave with low stock levels and convex when pollution is higher we show that although multiple steady states may exist the globally optimal solution may be independent of the initial pollution level it is also possible that there are cutoff levels which determine the optimal long run equilibrium implying that the feedback control law is discontinuous and nonmonotonic bounded damage may have similar implications but in contrast to concave convex decay they may occur even with zero discounting

consumption based and territory based carbon emissions intensity determinants and forecasting using club convergence across countries abstract understanding the dynamics of carbon emissions across time and space is important when formulating energy policies to minimise climate changes in the future if per capita carbon emissions or carbon intensity converge over time then any negotiation of multilateral agreements will be easier than if convergence is absent it is also possible for club convergence to exist where countries within a club converge but countries between clubs do not converge we examine the convergence of consumption based and territory based carbon emissions intensity across 70 countries we find two convergent clubs for consumption based emissions and three convergent clubs for territory based emissions increases in each of total factor productivity renewable energy consumption and urbanisation increase the odds of belonging to a low carbon emissions intensity club an increase in industry value added reduces the odds of belonging to a low carbon intensity club increases in total factor productivity can be obtained through effective macroeconomic policy while increasing renewable energy consumption may require structural changes in economies focused on transitioning to a low carbon economy under a business as usual forecasting scenario the number of consumption based carbon emissions intensity clubs increases between 2014 and 2030 making it more difficult to negotiate multilateral agreements on climate change in the future

inter factor inter fuel substitution carbon intensity and energy related co2 reduction empirical evidence from china carbon dioxide co2 reduction which is the central issue in addressing global warming depends on the extent that clean energy can substitute for co2 emitting coal and non energy factors can substitute for energy factor the purposes of this paper are to empirically investigate inter factor inter fuel substitution in china and to evaluate the determinants of china s energy related carbon intensity as well as mitigation effects of carbon tax considering china s rapid increase in energy consumption and the slow adjustment in substitution the two stage estimation method and the dynamic error correction mechanism are employed in this study the empirical results suggest substitutability among different types of energy sources as well as substitutability among energy labor and capital the magnitude of cross price elasticities indicates that the substitutions are inelastic which limits the scope of the chinese government to implement substitution strategy aiming at energy conservation and environmental management china s carbon intensity declined during 1985 2012 most of which can be attributed to labor substitution and energy price increase however carbon intensive technology being embodied in china s capital investment energy consuming equipment has contributed to the increase in carbon intensity a carbon tax of rmb 50 tonne could reduce 332 9 million tonnes co2 emissions on the basis of 2012 in addition if ignoring the feedback between inter factor inter fuel substitutions co2 mitigation potential would be underestimated

a note on the extinction of renewable resources abstract this paper presents two sets of conditions under which a sole owner of a renewable resource stock who maximizes a nonlinear benefit function would find it more profitable to harvest the stock to extinction than follow a continuous harvesting strategy when the minimum viable resource stock is positive extinction is optimal as long as the initial resource stock is sufficiently small regardless of the discount rate when the minimum viable resource stock is zero and the discount rate exceeds the growth potential of the species extinction is optimal for sufficiently small initial stocks

china s energy consumption and sustainable development comparative evidence from gdp and genuine savings this paper employs the structural vector autoregressions framework and the generalized impulse response function to study the long term dynamic relation between china s energy consumption and sustainable economic growth in addition to the conventional economic indicators gdp growth rates genuine savings rates are particularly examined to indicate sustainable economic development results show that the high elasticity of energy consumption dramatically undermines the capacity of china s sustainability in terms of reducing genuine savings rates we also use variance decomposition to calculate relative variance contribution rates in order to identify the most important factor affecting gdp growth as well as genuine savings rates the analysis finds that clean and renewable energy increase the country s genuine savings significantly that is renewable energy consumption promotes sustainable development for both natural and economic societies however increase in traditional solid energy consumption is more likely to benefit only the growth of gdp

energy investment economic growth and carbon emissions in china empirical analysis based on spatial durbin model abstract the international community has reached a consensus on preventing the global climate from deterioration by stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere energy industry is a key field for greenhouse gas emission and investment in the energy industry plays a crucial part in promoting the low carbon development of china s energy industry energy investment can effectively break the high carbon lock in effect of energy industry and achieve the low carbon development of energy industry by guiding regulating and gathering social funds into the field of cleaner production and the field of low carbon technology based on the unified framework of energy economy and environment this article takes 30 provinces in china as the research object and constructs a spatial econometric model to investigate the impact of energy investment and economic growth on carbon emission reduction the results indicate that both energy investment and economic growth are responsible for the increase of china s provincial co2 emissions but their driving mechanisms are significantly different furthermore the increase of carbon emissions in adjacent provinces will bring about the increase of local carbon emissions through spatial spillover effects based on these findings the corresponding countermeasures and policy suggestions are put forward

on conservation of renewable resources with stock dependent return and nonconcave production textabstractthis paper analyzes conservation and extinction of renewable resources when the production function is nonconcave and the return function depends on consumption and the resource stock the paper focuses on the efficiency of global conservation a safe standard of conservation and extinction which outcome obtains depends on the marginal rate of substitution between investment and the stock in addition to the discount factor and the marginal productivity of the resource conservation may be efficient even if the discounted intrinsic growth rate of the resource is less than 1 journal of economic literature classification numbers d90 q20

carbon inequality at the sub national scale a case study of provincial level inequality in co2 emissions in china 1997 2007 abstract this study asks whether sub national inequalities in carbon dioxide co2 emissions mirror international patterns in carbon inequality using the case study of china several studies have examined global level carbon inequality however such approaches have not been used on a sub national scale this study examines inter provincial inequality in co2 emissions within china using common measures of inequality coefficient of variation gini index theil index to analyze provincial level data derived from the ipcc reference approach for the years 1997 2007 it decomposes co2 emissions inequality into its inter regional and intra regional components patterns of per capita co2 emissions inequality in china appear superficially similar to though slightly lower than per capita income inequality however decomposing these inequalities reveals different patterns while inter provincial income inequality is highly regional in character inter provincial co2 emissions inequality is primarily intra regional while apparently similar global patterns in co2 emissions are not mirrored at the sub national scale

optimal and open access harvesting of multi use species in a second best world expansion of human populations and activities has caused increased conflicts between wildlife and humans as a result the distinction between resource and pest species has become blurry we propose an economically based classification of species based on a multi use bioeconomic model the classification of the steady state population of a species is shown to depend on both species density and economic factors we extend earlier work on multi use resource pest species by applying the theoretical model to a developing country context where property rights to wildlife are imperfectly enforced so that second best trade measures are often applied by the international community to promote conservation upon calibrating the model using data for the african elephant we derive three further results first when comparing the optimal stock of a multi use species to the open access stock we find that the ranking in terms of abundance is ambiguous second and consistent with existing literature on resource management in a second best world our case study supports the idea that trade bans have ambiguous effectson wildlife abundance third due to a bifurcation effect characterizing the multi use model s solution strategic and temporary subsidizing by the north may enable them to free ride on conservation efforts of the south henceforth

account for sector heterogeneity in china s energy consumption sector price indices vs gdp deflator abstract a common practice in decomposition analyses is to deflate output indicators to purge the impact of inflation by using a general deflator this practice fails to account for sector heterogeneity and can be hazardous although the general identified patterns are largely correct the calculated magnitudes can be misleading or even wrongly signed instead it is strongly recommended that sector heterogeneity is accounted for by using individual sector price indices for all relevant sectors instead of one general gdp deflator this paper analyzes this advanced decomposition using chinese data and compares to the usual method of using only one deflator it is found that while most differences are only of quantitative quality some show even a qualitative difference furthermore the rising energy intensity in the early 2000s which has been discussed by previous studies vanishes completely

energy embodied in the international trade of china an energy input output analysis abstract growing international trade has not only positively affected the people s republic of china s china s economic development but also expanded the exportation of energy embodied in goods during their production this energy flow out will pose risks to china s rational utilization of natural resources as well as environmental protection in this paper we evaluate the energy embodied in goods produced in china during 1992 2005 and use input output structural decomposition analysis to identify five key factors causing the changes of energy embodied in exports direct primary energy efficiency primary energy consumption structure structure of intermediate inputs structure of exports and scale of exports for the three sub periods of 1992 1997 1997 2002 and 2002 2005 results show that china is a net exporter of energy and the energy embodied in exports tends to increase over time the expanding total volume of exports and increasing exports of energy intensive goods tend to enlarge the energy embodied in exports within all three sub periods but these driving forces were offset by a considerable improvement of energy efficiency and changes in primary energy consumption structure from 1992 to 2002 and the effects of structure of intermediate input only in the sub period from 1992 to 1997 from 2002 to 2005 the sharp augmentation of energy embodied in exports was driven by all the five factors our research has practical implications for the chinese economy results of this study suggest that the energy embodied in trade should receive special attentions in energy policies design to limit the energy resource out flow and pollution generation

measuring the existence value of wildlife what do cvm estimates really show two research programs are brought together to contribute to the growing body of work on alternatives to standard welfare based approaches to environmental valuation and policy the first is the theoretical literature undermining the new welfare

manufacturing energy use in eight oecd countries decomposing the impacts of changes in output industry structure and energy intensity this paper examines trends in manufacturing energy use in eight oecd countries decomposing the changes that occured between 1973 and 1987 into the effects of changes in aggregate manufacturing activity industry structure and energy intensities measured at the industry group level while manufacturing production grew in every country except the uk the rate of growth was variable from nation to nation structural change led to modest reductions in energy use in most countries although in norway structural change led to substantial growth in energy use the reduction in energy intensities was strikingly uniform across all nations ranging from 20 norway to 36 japan over the period of the analysis while other studies have used divisia decomposition techniques we use an alternative method based on laspeyres indices a comparison of the two techniques shows that they yield closely similar empirical results although the laspeyres approach is more easily interpreted while the interactions between changes in structure and intensity are arbitrarily assigned to the two factors by the divisia approach the lapeyres method yields interaction terms that explicitly account for such effects

why did the energy intensity fall in china s industrial sector in the 1990s the relative importance of structural change and intensity change there have been a variety of studies investigating the relative importance of structural change and real intensity change to the change in china s energy consumption in the 1980s however no detailed analysis to date has been done to examine whether or not the increased energy efficiency trend in the 1980s still prevailed in the 1990s this article has filled this gap by investigating the change in energy consumption in china s industrial sector in the 1990s based on the data sets of value added and end use energy consumption for the 29 industrial subsectors and using the newly proposed decomposition method of giving no residual our results clearly show that the overwhelming contributor to the decline in industrial energy use in the 1990s was the decline in real energy intensity indicating that the trend of real energy intensity declines in the 1980s at the 2 digit level was still maintained in the 1990s this conclusion still holds even if we lower the growth rate dramatically in line with the belief that the growth rate of china s gdp may be overestimated

index decomposition analysis applied to co2 emission studies index decomposition analysis ida was first extended from energy consumption to energy related co2 emission studies in 1991 since then many studies have been reported covering various countries and emission sectors however unlike the case of energy consumption studies a comprehensive literature survey that focuses specifically on emission studies has so far not been reported in this paper we attempt to fill this gap by reviewing 80 papers appearing in peer reviewed journals from 1991 to 2012 in this application area the first part of this paper deals with the developments with regard to the ida approaches used by researchers and the scope and focus of their studies in the second part the empirical results reported in the surveyed studies are analyzed consolidated and presented by emission sector the objective is to reveal the relative contributions of key effects on changes in the aggregate carbon intensity and this is done by emission sector and by country the findings of both parts are useful in understanding the development of ida in the application area of emission study as well as the key drivers of aggregate carbon intensities in the past and their possible future developments

how might china achieve its 2020 emissions target a scenario analysis of energy consumption and co2 emissions using the system dynamics model abstract according to the chinese government s co 2 reduction commitment the production and consumption of traditional and renewable energy in china from 2001 to 2012 this paper forecasts the energy consumption gross co 2 emissions and co 2 emission intensity in china from 2013 to 2020 via system dynamics simulation coupled with the energy system and renewable energy policy factors the effects of different economic growth rates and policy factors on the energy consumption were estimated the results showed that in different economic growth rates scenarios total energy consumption and co 2 emissions increased by 36 140 75 kwh and more than 10 000 billion kg in 10 gdp growth rate scenario than in the 7 scenario in 2020 the co 2 emission per gdp decreased by 52 in 2020 as compared to 2005 under the scenario of 10 gdp growth rate under different renewable energy policy factors scenarios the coal energy consumption decreased by 2 3 in scenario of 5 policy factor as compared to 1 policy factor scenario the co 2 emissions reduced by 3321 94 billion kg in 2020 under the scenario of 5 policy factor as compared to that in the scenario of 1 policy factor the co 2 emission per gdp reduced by 47 50 based on the 2005 level in different scenarios of renewable energy policies we found that with an increase in gdp total energy consumption and co 2 emissions increased in the base scenario higher economic growth rates led to an increase in energy consumption including both the traditional and renewable energy resources in stark contrast to total co 2 emission however co 2 emission intensity decreased with an increase in economic growth rate the renewable energy policy improved the renewable energy development reduced co 2 emissions and co 2 emission intensity it was more effective in energy saving and co 2 reduction than the high growth rate scenarios the results indicated that china is highly likely to achieve its co 2 emission reduction goal under different simulated scenarios besides the energy distribution was similar in different scenarios coal was the major energy source which amounted to more than 70 of the total energy consumption finally we conclude with important policy implications according to our simulations results

decomposition of aggregate carbon intensity for the manufacturing sector comparison of declining trends from 10 oecd countries for the period 1971 1991 abstract as with total energy consumption or aggregate energy intensity changes in aggregate carbon intensity may also be decomposed or attributed to changes in various components including fuel mix for electricity generation final energy mix sub sectoral economic activity and sub sectoral energy intensities the adaptive weighted divisia rolling base year index specification is applied to total carbon emissions from the manufacturing sector of 10 oecd countries for the period 1971 1991 declines in aggregate carbon intensity for these countries range from 70 and may be primarily attributed to decreases in energy intensity i e increases in the average factor productivity of energy however these declines in aggregate carbon intensity appear to have a complex linkage to increases in energy prices as well as changes in other determinants of gross industrial output

supply side structural effect on carbon emissions in china abstract this paper carries out a structural decomposition analysis sda of production related carbon emissions in china from 1992 to 2005 by adopting the ghosh input output model it finds that the supply side structure measured by sectoral shares in value added increased production related carbon emissions in 1992 2002 mainly due to the rapid growth of manufacturing sectors but reduced them in 2002 2005 thanks to the decreased shares of carbon intensive sectors whatever the supply side structure forward carbon multipliers of each sector or changes in supply side sectoral shares and related emissions effects calculated by adopting the ghosh input output model were different from their demand side counterparts estimated by adopting the leontief input output model the results suggest optimizing the supply side structure and lowering the forward carbon multipliers to control carbon emissions in the future

the approach to realizing the potential of emissions reduction in china an implication from data envelopment analysis abstract by proposing a three hierarchy meta frontier data envelopment analysis dea this paper first decomposes co 2 emissions efficiency and the potential for emissions reduction into the following three components structural technical and management based on these components we then conduct an empirical analysis of china s total factor co 2 emissions efficiency its potential for co 2 emissions reduction and its corresponding implementation path the results show that co 2 emissions efficiency in mainland china is relatively low because of structural inefficiency technical inefficiency and management inefficiency the chinese government is expected to realize a large quantity of co 2 emissions reduction potential nearly 40 of the current total co 2 emissions through adjusting the industrial structure narrowing the technology gap among regions promoting the reform of marketization and strengthening environmental regulation the causes of co 2 emissions inefficiency and the distribution of potential reductions in emissions show a distinct spatial difference characteristic therefore this paper also formulates emissions reduction strategies for china s 30 provinces according to their specific situations noting the direction of the industrial structure adjustment and the path to improving co 2 emissions efficiency

manufacturing energy use in oecd countries decomposition of long term trends abstract in this paper we examine manufacturing energy use in 13 oecd countries over the period 1971 1995 we describe changes in aggregate energy intensity using the adaptive weighting divisia decomposition method we contrast the development in the periods after the oil price shocks of 1973 and 1979 with the period of relatively stable energy prices after the oil price crash of 1986 the results show that manufacturing output grew in most countries pushing up energy use the share of electricity increased in almost every sector while there was a clear trend away from oil and coal towards natural gas changes in the structure of output drove up energy use between 1973 and 1994 in some countries and down in others changes in energy intensities had a profound and downward effect on manufacturing energy use in all countries however contrasting the period after oil prices fell in 1986 with earlier years we see that for most countries the rate of energy intensity decline slowed slightly but did not reverse with falling prices in a few countries efficiency improvements continued to have a strong effect this suggests that even without higher prices improvements of energy efficiency seems to take place

carbon intensity changes in the asian dragons lessons for climate policy design abstract there is a growing political interest in carbon intensity targets because they are the basis for climate pledges from relevant developing countries such as china they may be also the basis for policy designs in developed countries like eu members this paper develops a comprehensive econometric study on the main drivers of national emissions intensity in emerging countries in east asia this regional focus responds to their pivotal position in global economic growth and remarkable trends in carbon emissions intensity the main hypothesis of this paper is that the nature of economic growth has a major effect on carbon intensity trends that deserves some attention accordingly the novelty of this paper is to examine the contribution of intensive and extensive gdp growth for carbon intensity abatements labour productivity is revealed to be the main factor responsible for major carbon intensity reductions by asian dragons whereas household energy per capita and industrial energy per worker contributed in the opposite direction consequently intensity targets may become meaningless for real climate action contributions if they do not take into account labour productivity trends

asean tigers and sustainability of energy use decomposition analysis of energy and co2 efficiency dynamics abstract this study is a comparative analysis of the development of energy intensity and co2 emission intensity in the asean countries in the years 1971 97 the reasons and driving forces behind the changes are studied in the article using a complete decomposition methodology the decomposition analysis explains energy use or co2 emissions with three different factors activity effect structural effect and intensity effect the authors provide an analysis of dynamic changes of energy consumption and co2 emission flows intensity effects on energy use and co2 emissions revealed large differences in the performance of asean countries an interesting finding of the study is that in the 1990s the intensity effects on co2 emissions in asean countries have started to increase indicating decreasing co2 efficiencies of the economies the general observation on the basis of decomposition analyses is that the phase of industrialization is increasing the energy intensity of the nations and when the increased energy demand is fulfilled with fossil fuels the co2 emissions will inevitable grow however it has to be recognized that the co2 emissions per capita in asean countries are very low except in singapore compared with many oecd countries

contributions of weather and fuel mix to recent declines in us energy and carbon intensity a recent 1996 2000 acceleration of declines in energy andcarbon intensity in the u s remains largely unexplained this study usesdivisia decomposition and regression to test two candidate explanations fuel mix and weather the divisia method demonstrates that fuel mix doesnot explain the declines in carbon intensity the fuel mix both overalland for electricity generation became slightly more carbon intensiveover the study period though the slight trend reversed before the end ofthe period a regression based correction to the divisia indices accounting for variation in heating and cooling degree days indicatesthat warmer weather accounts for about 30 percent ofthe total declines this leaves declines of more than 2 percent per year and an accelerationof more than 1 percent over previous decade remaining to beexplained

can china achieve its carbon intensity target by 2020 while sustaining economic growth in 2009 the chinese government announced its carbon intensity target for 2020 can china achieve this carbon intensity while sustaining economic growth to address this essential issue the contributions of this study lie in three aspects first we quantitatively capture the relationship between china s economic growth and energy consumption using the cointegration theory and predict china s energy consumption by 2020 according to different economic growth targets second we forecast china s energy structure in 2020 using compositional data and arima models under different scenarios third we deduce china s co2 emission and carbon intensity in 2020 furthermore we investigate whether or not china can realize the carbon intensity target in premise of ensuring economic growth and evaluate the contribution of the energy structure s adjustment to meeting this target finally we put forward some relevant policy implications for achieving china s carbon intensity target

sustainable growth renewable resources and pollution thresholds and cycles abstract ayong le kama j econ dyn control 25 2001 1911 combines within an interesting model optimal saving a la ramsey with optimal intertemporal renewable resource use a la berck j environ econ manage 11 1981 101 this note draws attention to two possible outcomes thresholds and limit cycles that are overlooked in ayong le kama but also in other recent works and that are quite important in this context

does ecological economics have a future contradiction and reinvention in the age of climate change abstract this paper addresses the role of neoclassical methodologies in ecological economics and the contradictions these methodologies pose to the field s critical founding principles we first consider robert costanza s treatment of nicholas stern s global deal and then survey climate change related articles published in this journal over the past five years this survey reveals how mainstream neoclassical methodologies dominate discourse and do so by marginalizing more critical political economy analyses this situation imperils the field s founding vision of a no growth steady state it also fails to address the related growth dynamics of capitalism without such a critical treatment the field s formal embrace of methodological pluralism actually entails an ideological empiricism that renders ecological economics theoretically incoherent this situation undermines the field s historical promise as an alternative economic paradigm ecological economics now faces a problematic future its survival in a form faithful to its founding vision will require an explicit choice to address its internal contradictions and reinvent itself in ways relevant to our contemporary context without such a choice ecological economics will likely succumb to an implicit acceptance of the hegemony of mainstream economic methodologies and their pro growth imperatives

regional low carbon economy efficiency in china analysis based on the super sbm model with co2 emissions abstract as the largest energy consumer and co 2 emitting country the chinese government is committing to a low carbon economy it is meaningful and contributes to evaluate and analyze the low carbon economy efficiency lcee of china a super slack based measure super sbm model with undesirable outputs as combined with the malmquist productivity index is proposed to measure the lcee and the dynamic low carbon economy efficiency dlcee of 30 provinces in mainland china from 2005 to 2012 the theil index is also used to measure the rationalization level of industrial structure rlis for discussing the improvements to the lcee in china the results indicate that the proposed undesirable outputs super sbm model can effectively rank the sbm ef cient provinces china s regional economic development does not follow a low carbon pattern with an average lcee of 0 517 as a whole the china s economic development is gradually following a low carbon development pattern with an annual lcee improvement of 4 5 the rlis of china is also gradually changing better as well through a comparative analysis of the lcee and rlis the 30 provinces are divided into three sub areas and relevant suggestions are presented for improving the lcee of different sub areas in the future

thresholds in concave renewable resource models abstract a number of renewable resource models some of them just recently published e g about shallow lakes refer to convexities with respect to the resource stock as the source for multiple steady states and associated thresholds this short paper draws attention to the fact that multiple steady states and thresholds are possible in well behaved i e concave models too the ecological consequence is that renewable resource management is sensitive to initial conditions in more cases than so far suggested in the literature

drivers of intersectoral metal consumption intensity in china a combined input output and sensitivity analysis abstract as a country with a high level of metal consumption china must urgently formulate effective policies to improve its metal use efficiency this article identifies the key sectors with the highest metal consumption intensity mci and investigates the effect of the pure technical and final demand coefficients on the mci of key sectors using a combined input output and sensitivity analysis the results show that the average mci of key industries increased from 7 37 tonnes per ten thousand yuan to 32 13 tonnes per ten thousand yuan during the period from 2002 to 2012 and the manufacturing and processing of the metals sector n14 revealed the greatest mci moreover the elasticity of the mci in terms of the pure technical and final demand coefficients of key sectors also increased rapidly from 2002 to 2012 and the number of corresponding transactions leading to the increase in key sectoral mci significantly increased in terms of the elasticity of the technical coefficients their sensitivity exceeded that of the pure technical coefficients in most cases due to the influence of the demand structure and direct transactions between sectors had important impacts on the mci in most key industries meanwhile almost all the sectors exerted direct or indirect effects on the mci of the mining of metal ores industry n4 in addition the manufacturing of general and special purpose machinery n16 manufacturing of electrical machinery and apparatus n18 and construction n22 exerted influences on most sectors concerning the final demand coefficient elasticity the gross fixed capital formation of most sectors induced the greatest elasticity in the corresponding sectors and the greatest elasticity of all the sectors was related to the gross fixed capital formation of n22

coupling model of energy consumption with changes in environmental utility abstract this study explores the relationships between metropolis energy consumption and environmental utility changes by a proposed environmental utility of energy consumption euec model based on the dynamic equilibrium of input output economics theory it considers three simulation scenarios fixed technology technological innovation and green building effect it is applied to analyse hong kong in 1980 2007 continual increase in energy consumption with rapid economic growth degraded environmental utility first energy consumption at fixed technology was determined by economic outcome in 1990 it reached a critical balanced state when energy consumption was 22 109 kwh before 1990 x1 22 109 kwh expansion of energy consumption facilitated socio economic development but suppressed environmental benefits second technological innovation strongly influenced energy demand and improved environmental benefits the balanced state remained in 1999 when energy consumption reached 32 33 109 kwh technological innovation dampened energy consumption by 12 99 exceeding the fixed technology condition finally green buildings reduced energy consumption by an average of 17 5 in 1990 2007 they contributed significantly to energy saving and buffered temperature fluctuations between external and internal environment the case investigations verified the efficiency of the euec model which can effectively evaluate the interplay of energy consumption and environmental quality

uncertainty and amenity values in renewable resource economics in this paper we study the effects of amenities and uncertainty on the optimal exploitation of a renewable resource first if society displays a protection motive in the presence of amenities its optimal harvesting strategy will be more conservative second we show that ecological uncertainty leads society to develop the opposite behavior thus reducing its exposition towards risk a stationary analysis is undertaken to analytically quantify and compare these two effects with a gompertz natural regeneration function and a proportional risk the amenity effect is proved to prevail if and only if stochastic fluctuations on the resource stock are not too large

environmental and resource economics a canadian retrospective the paper reviews research contributions to environmental and resource economics by scholars in canada we focus mainly on work from the past 25 years but also highlight earlier pathbreaking work we begin by looking at broad trends in research both internationally and within canada we then review canadian contributions to various topics in the field canadians have played a leading role in the development of the field especially in resource economics international environmental economics and the valuation of environmental amenities

the lmdi approach to decomposition analysis a practical guide in a recent study ang energy policy 32 2004 compared various index decomposition analysis methods and concluded that the logarithmic mean divisia index method is the preferred method since the literature on the method tends to be either too technical or specific for most potential users this paper provides a practical guide that includes the general formulation process summary tables for easy reference and examples

modelling residential electricity demand in the gcc countries abstract this paper aims at understanding the drivers of residential electricity demand in the gulf cooperation council countries by applying the structural time series model in addition to the economic variables of gdp and real electricity prices the model accounts for population weather and a stochastic underlying energy demand trend as a proxy for efficiency and human behaviour the resulting income and price elasticities are informative for policy makers given the paucity of previous estimates for a region with particular political structures and economies subject to large shocks in particular the estimates allow for a sound assessment of the impact of energy related policies suggesting that if policy makers in the region wish to curtail future residential electricity consumption they would need to improve the efficiency of appliances and increase energy using awareness of consumers possibly by education and marketing campaigns moreover even if prices were raised the impact on curbing residential electricity growth in the region is likely to be very small given the low estimated price elasticities unless that is prices were raised so high that expenditure on electricity becomes such a large proportion of income that the price elasticities increase in absolute terms

what drives intersectoral co2 emissions in china abstract aiming to identify the intersectoral linkage of larger co2 emissions sectors this paper studies the co2 emissions elasticity of technical and final demand coefficients using the input output technique the results show that the greatest emission coefficient elasticities are those related to transactions between construction and manufacture of non metallic mineral products between gross fixed capital formation and construction and between agriculture and processing and manufacture of food and production and supply of electric power and heat power and mining and washing of coal all these transactions between these sectors imply that co2 emissions control policy only for a specific sector maybe have no obvious co2 emissions mitigations if national government promote the growth of those sectors which have the biggest emission coefficient sensitivity with it now chinese government formulates the policy to promote new type urbanization urbanization will cause the gross fixed capital formation in construction and the more demands for the products of manufacture of non metallic mineral products production smelting and pressing of ferrous metals and supply of electric power and heat power so how to balance the carbon emissions in larger emissions sectors and rapid urbanization is a big challenge for decision makers

guyana gold a unique resource curse this article offers explanations for the underwhelming economic performance of guyana a country heavily dependent on the revenue generated from gold mining here government intervention has spawned a gold mining sector which today is comprised exclusively of local small and medium scale operators but whilst this rather unique model appears to be the ideal blueprint for facilitating local development the country seems to be experiencing many of the same setbacks that have beset scores of other resource rich developing world economies unless these problems are anticipated properly diagnosed and appropriately tackled a resource curse type outcome is inevitable irrespective of the context

an emerging equilibrium in the eu emissions trading scheme abstract the european union s emissions trading scheme ets is the key policy instrument of the european commission s climate change program aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions to eight percent below 1990 levels by 2012 a critically important element of the eu ets is the establishment of a market determined price for eu allowances this article examines the extent to which several theoretically founded factors including economic growth energy prices and weather conditions determine the expected prices of the european union co 2 allowances during the 2005 through to the 2009 period the novel aspect of our study is that we examine heavily traded futures instruments that have an expiry date in phase 2 of the eu ets our study adopts both static and recursive versions of the johansen multivariate cointegration likelihood ratio test as well as a variation on this test with a view to controlling for time varying volatility effects our results are indicative of a new pricing regime emerging in phase 2 and point to a maturing market driven by the fundamentals these results are valuable both for traders of eu allowances and for those policy makers seeking to improve the design of the european union ets

what is the role of openness for china s aggregate industrial so2 emission a structural analysis based on the divisia decomposition method abstract having observed the weaknesses in previous structural analyses on the role of environmental kuznets curve ekc the author proposes a detailed analysis using a rich data set of provincial level production and so2 emission intensity of 13 industrial sectors the latter represent more than 98 of the total industrial production in each chinese province for the period 1991 2001 through the use of the log mean divisia index decomposition method the variations in province level industrial so2 emissions with regard to the 1990 baseline level are decomposed into the contribution from three components scale composition and technical effects the following analysis seeks to explain how trade openness affects aggregate industrial so2 emission through its impact on the structural determinants for these three components of region specific environmental variations

what induced china s energy intensity to fluctuate 1997 2006 abstract china is the second largest energy consumer in the world during 1997 2002 china s energy intensity declined by 33 however it rose by 10 7 over 2003 2005 and declined by 1 2 in 2006 what induced china s energy intensity to fluctuate so drastically industry accounts for approximately 70 of the total energy consumption in china in this paper we decompose china s industrial energy intensity changes between 1997 and 2002 into sectoral structural effects and efficiency effects measured by sectoral energy intensities at two digit level and including the shifts of product mix in the sub sector or firm level using tornqvist and sato vartia index methods the results show that in this period efficiency effects possibly contributed to a majority of the decline while the contribution from structural effects was less during 2003 2005 the excessive expansion of high energy consuming sub sectors and the high investment ratio were foremost sources of the increasing energy intensity attributed to the government efforts the energy intensity has started to decline slightly since july 2006 in future to save more energy in addition to technical progress china should attach more importance to optimizing its sectoral structure and lowering its investment ratio

upgrading or downgrading china s regional carbon emission intensity evolution and its determinants one of china s major national targets is to environmentally upgrade its economy in this paper we define environmental upgrading as lowering the carbon intensity the disparities among china s regions suggest to examine china s carbon emission performance at the regional level for this purpose we use inter regional input output tables for 2002 2007 and 2012 that distinguish processing exports from ordinary exports the regional emission intensities eis show environmental downgrading in the period 2002 2007 and upgrading during 2007 2012 to identify the determinants of the evolution of regional eis we have employed a multiplicative structural decomposition analysis changes in direct emission coefficients and changes in production technology are found to be the major determinants however next to these standard determinants we also evaluate the effects on the changes in regional eis of changes in inter regional trade and changes in inter regional spillovers changing inter regional trade is found to have increased the ei significantly in western and central regions this suggests that more dirty production was shifted from coastal to inland regions our study yields clear policy recommendations for achieving china s transformation to a low carbon economy c 2020 elsevier b v all rights reserved

the control of co2 emissions and its economic impact an age model for a german state since it is believed that co2 is responsible for 55 of the greenhouse effect a co2 levy is now under consideration in several countries for an assessment of the macroeconomic implications of an integrated energy and environmental policy we employ an applied general equilibrium model age since all sectors of an economy and all private households contribute to co2 emission our model is a temporary equilibrium model with capacity extension under adjustment costs and with abatement activities for so2 and nox emissions

optimal investment and uncertainty on china s carbon emission abatement abstract to realize environmentally sustainable development of the economy china has decided to cut carbon dioxide emissions per unit of gdp by 40 to 45 percent by 2020 compared with the level in 2005 based on china s emission abatement target this paper first analyzes enterprises emission reduction pathways in practical production processes and then develops a framework to derive the magnitude of investment required in each pathway in order to achieve the designated target at the minimal cost under the framework it is found that in the absence of policy guidance individual enterprises emission reduction investments deviate from the optimal level to correct the distortion an alternative option is provided meanwhile to ensure achievement of the emission reduction target a stochastic model is introduced to measure the uncertainty arising from emission abatement investment the results show that an appropriate emission abatement ratio can reduce the systemic risk of emission abatement finally a simulation is given to demonstrate the results derived from the stochastic model

economic diversity development capacity and sustainable development of china abstract china s economic growth over the past several decades has been among the highest in the world it has been fueled by cheap fossil fuel energy so energy consumption has risen rapidly but there are signs that negative feedbacks in the form of waste and inefficiency may affect future development if energy throughput exceeds the capacity of the environment to process the inevitable waste from production then the development may not be sustainable we calculate economic diversity using an energy flow network analysis method to explore the relationships of development policy energy use efficiency and sustainable development china and its provinces are presented as a case study and the development status of each province in china is presented china s development policy does not appear to be sustainable over the period 1985 1998 because of unsustainable energy consumption trends and declining economic diversity an energy consumption tax is proposed for increasing diversity and dealing with increasing energy consumption in china

the multidimensionality of exclusion in the small scale gold mining sector in guyana institutional reform landlordism and mineral uncertainty abstract proponents of formalization argue that bringing artisanal and small scale mining asm into the legal sphere represents the best way of enabling social and economic development critics counter that formalization policies can be a source of exclusion for smaller producers as new properties become difficult and expensive to access and new regulatory standards prove beyond the technical and financial capacity of smaller operators guyana s long formalized asm gold mining sector offers a useful lens through which to examine these arguments this article finds that guyana s relatively established and egalitarian asm sector has become the site of various complex exclusionary dynamics on the one hand the impacts of increasingly restrictive state led forms appear to support contentions about how formal mining environments tend towards the exclusion of smaller operators on the other hand evidence shows that it is not merely state policies that are responsible for exclusion but further social and ecological factors such as landlord tenant relations and the depth and scarcity of mineral deposits overall these findings offer new perspectives on asm dynamics within formalized institutional environments they suggest that understanding exclusion can be aided by adopting an analytical lens capable of capturing the complex interactions between a range of social and ecological phenomena

decomposing the decoupling of co2 emissions and economic growth in brazil abstract this paper examines the occurrence of a decoupling between the growth rates in economic activity and co 2 emissions from energy consumption in brazil from 2004 to 2009 this decoupling was highlighted when economic activity and co 2 emissions moved in opposite directions in 2009 more generally we observe several periods of relative decoupling in brazil but not to the extent witnessed in 2009 to identify the determinants of emissions change we develop a decomposition model based on a log mean divisia index lmdi framework the results indicate that the carbon intensity and energy mix are the main determinant of emissions reduction in brazil between 2004 and 2009 modifications in the economy structure are also associated to emission mitigation in the period such evidence demonstrates similarities with events of decoupling registered for the interval 1980 1994 in brazil finds from brazil differ from observations in other countries in which improvement in energy intensity has been the most common determinant of emissions reduction

carbon dioxide mitigation target of china in 2020 and key economic sectors china proposed a co2 mitigation target in 2020 to deal with anthropogenic global climate change chinese policy makers mainly focus on three factors comprising consumption structure changes energy technology development and new energy increments in addition sectoral co2 reduction is increasingly concerned in the world thus it is significant to investigate integrated impacts of three factors to china s co2 mitigation target as well as to identify key economic sectors for achieving this target in this study energy demand and co2 emission in 2020 are predicted five scenarios are generated to illustrate the contributions of three factors in addition twelve key economic sectors for reducing energy demand and co2 emission are identified from both production and final demand perspectives under integrated impacts of three factors china s co2 intensity per unit gross domestic product in 2020 will decrease by about 43 9 in 2020 than 2005 level in the short term china s co2 mitigation will be highly dependent on energy technology development in the long term it will mainly rely on reshaped consumption structure changes and new energy development in addition china s future policies should focus on 12 identified key economic sectors

energy intensity and foreign direct investment a chinese city level study article i nfo in this paper we investigate the relationship between the energy intensity of chinese cities and the location of foreign firms employing a unique dataset of 206 of the largest prefecture level cities between 2005 and 2008 our results reveal a non linearinverted u shaped relationship between energy intensity and city level per capita income with the majority of cities on the downward slope of the curve we also find evidence of a significant and negative relationship between the foreign direct investment fdi flows into a city and energy intensity however this effect varies by geographic location reflecting differences in the ability of regions to absorb and benefit from environmental spillovers the relatively small economic effect of fdi can in part explained by the propensity for foreign firms to invest in energy intensive sectors coupled with the trend for china to invest heavily in capital intensive industries

making concessions extractive enclaves entangled capitalism and regulative pluralism at the gold mining frontier in burkina faso summary this paper studies the regulation of concessions in the global gold mining rush the liberalization of the gold mining sector has given way to complex forms of regulation where non state and illegal mining entrepreneurs compete in governing mining extraction taking the case of gold mining in burkina faso this paper analyses the conditions and dynamics under which such complex regulation takes place we draw on extensive ethnographic fieldwork conducted in northern burkina faso in particular the burkinabe mining sector we argue that enclave economies in the gold mining sector are co produced by state and market regulation through a plurification of regulatory authority this plurification is the effect of competition among different frontier entrepreneurs who seek to broker regulatory authority in mining concession sites we show that concession sites are not discrete extractive enclaves but are better understood as indiscrete sites that are entangled in local politics and social relations rather than thinning social relations as is often claimed we observe that enclave economies thicken politics around concessionary regimes where governmental bodies re emerge as an arbitrating regulatory force these findings problematize policy prescriptions to formalize the gold mining sector and draw attention to the role of the state in re producing frontier entrepreneurs with unequal political rights to claiming concessions

path analysis of factors impacting china s co2 emission intensity viewpoint on energy abstract to explore the means of achieving carbon intensity targets in china this study empirically discusses the key factors influencing the co2 emission intensity and the causal relationships among these factors based on a path analysis using panel data six factors are included in the analysis gross domestic product gdp per capita a technology effect te energy price ep industrial structure is energy structure es and foreign direct investment fdi the study period is divided into three stages 1991 2002 2003 2014 and 1991 2014 improving t is the most significant way to decrease the emission intensity followed by fdi in each stage the effects of a ep es and fdi on the emission intensity mainly come from indirect contributions through te and is and the effects of te and is arise primarily through direct contributions improving a promotes the development of te in each stage and the adjustment of is in 1991 2002 but increases the proportion of secondary industry in 2003 2014 a rising ep negatively affects te in 2003 2014 improving the fdi promotes the development of te in each stage but is not conducive to the adjustment of is in 2003 2014

energy conservation and co2 emission reduction in china s 11th five year plan a performance evaluation in the 11th five year plan fyp 2005 2010 the chinese government initiated a series of energy saving and emission reduction policies in many key fields in response to environmental pollution and climate change this paper quantitatively evaluates the performance of energy conservation and co2 emission reduction in this period the impact of these policies and potentials by integrating the contributions of energy conversion efficiency and energy utilization efficiency improvement industrial restructuring fuel mix shift and renewable energy development in a unified framework as a first attempt to introduce energy conversion efficiency improvement into a decomposition approach comprehensive and specific policies are summarized as a policy list to be investigated the results show that energy intensity and conversion efficiency effects were mainly responsible for driving down energy consumption by 637 4 mtce and 85 4 mtce respectively and they reduced co2 emissions by 1345 3 mt and 243 8 mt respectively due to a significant improvement in the 11th fyp period most of the contributions made by the conversion efficiency effect 94 come from thermal power generation and the emission coefficient effect reduced co2 emissions by 17 4 mt through developing renewable energy economic growth is still the biggest driver of energy consumption and increasing emissions while industrial restructuring and fuel mix shift effects contributed relatively little developing renewable energy and promoting economic restructuring to limit the increase of energy intensive sectors are still the main challenges and the next policy focus to achieve the targets for energy saving and carbon emission reduction in the 12th five year plan

can an emission trading scheme promote the withdrawal of outdated capacity in energy intensive sectors a case study on china s iron and steel industry abstract outdated capacity and substantial potential for energy conservation are the two main features of energy intensive sectors in developing countries such countries also seek to implement market based options to further control domestic carbon emissions as well as to promote the withdrawal of outdated capacity and upgrade production level this paper presents a quantitative assessment of the emission trading scheme ets for china s iron and steel industry the diverse array of normal and outdated capacities was modeled in a two country three good partial equilibrium model simulation results show that the abatement potential can be underestimated if the energy saving effects that result from emission abatement are not considered in the scenario analysis we demonstrated that the free allocation of allowances can cause a competitiveness distortion among domestic normal and outdated capacities given the government s intention to promote outdated capacity withdrawal and production level upgrading an output based allocation approach is strongly suggested for china s iron and steel sector

computers productivity and input substitution i introduction the last two decades has been a puzzling time for many productivity analysts while computer prices fell at extraordinary rates and firms invested hundreds of billions of dollars in new computer equipment aggregate productivity growth remained sluggish this computer productivity paradox has generated a large literature that examines the economic impact of the computer revolution 1 this paper offers a simple solution to the computer productivity paradox by making careful distinction between computers as an output from one sector and an input to other sectors data for 35 manufacturing and service sectors for 1947 1991 show that sectoral differences are crucial in understanding the impact of computers aggregate analysis is inappropriate since it obscures basic distinctions between a shifting production function in the computer producing sector multi factor productivity growth and movements along production functions in the computer using sectors substitution and capital accumulation once these differences are isolated the growth impact of computers is readily observable the computer producing sector experienced fundamental technological progress and now produces cheaper better computers the sectoral data show this as rapid multi factor productivity mfp growth for 1973 1991 although aggregate mfp growth remains below historic averages the computer producing sector has clearly done its part mfp growth in this sector is many times the economy average and has contributed over one third of aggregate mfp growth for 19811991 the sectoral detail shows that the slowdown in aggregate productivity would have been much more severe were it not for such large mfp gains in the computer producing sector for the other sectors of the economy computers affect growth in a more traditional although less glamorous way when the price of real computing power fell so dramatically in the 1970s and 1980s firms responded by substituting away from relatively expensive labor and non computer capital and investing heavily in cheap computers for these sectors the computer revolution affects output growth not by raising mfp but by inducing firms to accumulate computers at extraordinary rates real computer services for example grew in excess of 20 per year in 14 out of 35 sectors for 1973 1991 although virtually all sectors are rapidly accumulating computer equipment computers remain small in levels in 1991 for example computer investment was only 10 of private fixed investment so the growth contribution of computers remains small relative to sectoral aggregates of labor and non computer capital the rapid rates of accumulation however are clearly making computers a more important source of growth across sectors with this heavy investment also came the wide spread expectation that computers would fundamentally alter the way firms operate and lead to higher mfp the reality has been very different as the most computer intensive sectors show steep declines in mfp growth after 1973 with three quarters of all computers concentrated in three service sectors trade fire and other services however this finding must be interpreted with caution as griliches 1994 notes output in these sectors is largely unmeasurable and thus mfp growth will be understated nonetheless it is quite reasonable that even computer using sectors where output is easier to measure show no mfp gains computer investment creates a capital input that enters the production function like any other purchased input since constant quality deflators embody productivity improvements in investment the direct impact is seen through the rapid capital accumulation only if the adoption of computers leads to production externalities or spillovers would computer investment also increase mfp growth the data however show no evidence of this ii computers and growth the national statistics most clearly show the computer revolution in the investment data

along the way back from the brink abstract an optimal control model of wildlife management is developed to analyze the transitory dynamics set forth by the reintroduction of animals that provide benefits but can also come into conflict with humans the shadow price of these resources can be positive or negative potentially creating a nonconvexity the conditions under which reintroduction is not desirable are determined and those characterizing the initiation of costly population control are investigated an application to deer management illustrates the relevance of the nonconvexity and the magnitude of losses stemming from delays in implementing optimal management the impact of distributional concerns on efficiency is discussed

influential factors of carbon emissions intensity in oecd countries evidence from symbolic regression abstract carbon emissions intensity is used as a yardstick to evaluate the relative extent of carbon emissions of a country to reduce carbon emissions intensity it is crucial to find out the dominant factors that enhance it and take actions to manage them this study is an attempt to employ symbolic regression method to explore the most influential factors of carbon emissions intensity in 34 oecd member countries using data from 1995 to 2014 rooted in genetic programming symbolic regression method can explore the inherent functional structures amidst the variables and could discover the influential factors robotically the results confirm that the influential factors of carbon emissions intensity vary from country to country gdp is found as the most frequent and important factor of carbon emissions intensity in 17 countries each of industrialization and technological innovation is the prominent factor in every 4 countries and each of urbanization total population and foreign direct investment plays a pro active role in 3 individual nations based on the empirical results some policy implications are also conferred

changes in industrial electricity consumption in china from 1998 to 2007 abstract electricity consumption in the industrial sector experienced a dramatic increase between 1998 and 2007 accounting for approximately 75 of china s total electricity consumption this study analyzes the potential factors influencing the growth of electricity consumption in china s industrial sector over the past decade using a logarithmic mean divisia index i decomposition method results show that activity effect and shift effect caused by the change in the electricity s share of industrial energy use are the major factors responsible for the rise in electricity consumption between 1998 and 2007 it is found that structural change also contributed to the increase in electricity consumption it had only a small effect in contrast the technological effect is responsible for a decrease in electricity consumption during this period the influences of technological effects and shift effects followed approximately an inverse u shaped and u shaped curve respectively furthermore the results show that the main contributors to incremental electricity consumption among industrial subsectors were manufacturing of raw chemical material and products manufacturing of non metal mineral products smelting and pressing of ferrous and non ferrous metals and production and supply of electric power and heat power these sectors should take priority for industrial restructuring in order to implement policies for energy and electricity savings

review on integrated strategies for energy policy planning and evaluation of ghg mitigation alternatives abstract this review paper is devoted to elaborating the status of different energy policy planning studies and the evaluation of various ghg mitigation studies it includes some of the major developments in global energy scenario status of green house gas ghg emissions issues in the implementation of kyoto protocol and ghg mitigation clean development mechanism cdm and energy scenario especially pertaining to the residential industrial and commercial energy sector in the initial sections the later part of this paper highlights the salient contributions in various literatures pertaining to energy demand forecasting in residential commercial and industrial sector ghg estimation methodologies and ghg mitigation studies in various sectors the success and difficulties in implementing various policy planning practices were also discussed in the paper most of the prominent literature in the area of energy demand and consumption analysis towards effective implementation of ghg mitigation is described in the end a comprehensive comments and recommendations based on the study were furnished

the effect of increasing exports on industrial energy intensity in china abstract given china s heavy reliance on fuel energy and the dominance of its industrial sector in the economy improving energy efficiency remains one of the practical means for the country to decrease energy intensity and to fulfill its commitment made at the copenhagen climate change conference to achieve a 40 45 percent reduction in co 2 emission intensity by 2020 this study investigates the impact of exports on industrial energy intensity to explore the possibility of reducing energy intensity through greater exports a panel varying coefficient regression model with a dataset of china s 20 industrial sub sectors over 1999 2007 suggests that in general greater exports aggravate energy intensity of the industrial sector and that great divergences exist in the impact of exports on energy intensity across sub sectors a panel threshold model further estimates the thresholds for the major determinants of energy intensity exports input in technological innovations and foreign direct investment fdi intensity given the great differences in specific sub sector characteristics and the changing roles played by different factors across sub sectors there is no general export policy that would work for all sub sectors in reducing sub sector energy intensity instead policies and measures aiming to encourage more efficient use of energy should take into full consideration the characteristics and situations of individual sub sectors

changes in carbon intensity in china empirical findings from 1980 2003 china experienced sustainable rapid economic growth over the period 1980 2003 but at the same time energy related carbon intensity showed a downward trend it begs the question therefore what factors were driving this decline in carbon intensity and will this decline be maintained in future moreover what measures can be adopted to ensure a continual decline in carbon intensity these questions led to increased research in the factors governing co2 emission in china this paper quantifies the driving force behind china s primary energy related carbon intensity and measures the material production sectors final energy related carbon intensity our results show that the overwhelming contributor to the decline of energy related carbon intensity was the reduction in real energy intensity however policies that focus only on the decline in energy intensity are insufficient to further decrease carbon intensity the change of primary energy mix can improve the decline of carbon intensity this should focus on the material production sectors development strategies and final energy use greater emphasis should be given to secondary industry which needs national and regional governments policy support

ownership and the regulation of wildlife ownership and the regulation of wildlife the use of wildlife resources is governed by a combination of private contracts and public regulations most often private landowners control access rights and government agencies regulate hunting and other uses this paper shows that these institutions depend on wildlife values and the ability of private landowners to control access to species that inhabit their land logit regressions and literary sources are used to test implications about private hunting rights and state regulations the data support the view that private legal and political forces have led to institutions that vary in ways consistent with wealth maximization i introduction most resources are not exclusively private or public but are governed by a mixture of private and public institutions in the united states wildlife populations are no exception state governments usually regulate hunting trapping and fishing federal agencies protect endangered species and private landowners largely control access rights to habitat although it is true that owning deer or elk is different from owning cattle or sheep the facts refute the common assertion that wildlife are unowned or have no value existing laws and regulations define property rights to many dimensions of wildlife and in many areas access rights to wildlife are routinely bought and sold economists typically view private contracts as arrangements that maximize the value of resources governed by the contract on the other hand public institutions are given less credit becker 1983 peltzman 1976 stigler 1971 and others have argued that interest groups can influence political decisions and ultimately distort outcomes from an efficiency viewpoint private and public institutions are distinct barzel 1989 becker and murphy 1988 mcmanus 1975 and wittman 1989 have advanced an alternative view that institutions including government not only reflect the optimizing activity of individuals but also maximize the net value of resources alchian 1950 argued that persistent and surviving institutions are likely efficient because most features of american wildlife institutions have persisted for two centuries the likelihood of efficiency seems high relative to the likelihood of pervasive inefficiency in part i test this efficient organization hypothesis by treating both private and public wildlife institutions as the result of efforts to increase the value of wildlife specifically i argue that the content of private wildlife controls and government regulations depends on the value of wildlife stocks as well as on the ability of landowners to contract with each other and with wildlife users to control wildlife stocks and access to them ii the contracting problem with wildlife it is costly to establish ownership of wildlife stocks because the ownership patterns of land do not always coincide with the populations territories if a stock of wildlife is the only valuable attribute of a parcel of land then the value of the land is maximized when land ownership coincides with the population s territory under these conditions wildlife would be quite similar economically to domestic animals the habitat would still be natural however and the species would still be considered wild below i consider the usual case in which wildlife is not the only valued use of land optimal landownership and wildlife territory assume that a homogeneous tract of land has two potentially valuable attributes agriculture and wildlife next assume that the size of the wildlife stock is not influenced by agriculture finally assume that the stock of wildlife is composed of homogeneous units that is individual animals and that the value of wildlife is tied to the value of the animals and not to the value inherent in the existence of a species 1 if the land is used for agricultural production then the optimal size of the land tract in acres is s

assessment of china s climate commitment and non fossil energy plan towards 2020 using hybrid aim cge model china made a commitment in copenhagen to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions per unit of gdp from 40 to 45 compared with the 2005 level by 2020 and is determined to vigorously develop non fossil fuels this study analyzes the effects and impacts of policies that could help to achieve china s copenhagen commitments with a hybrid static cge model in which the electricity sector is disaggregated into 12 generation technologies four scenarios are developed including the reference scenario a the reference scenario b and two carbon constraint scenarios the results show that carbon intensity in terms of gdp will fall by 30 97 between 2005 and 2020 in the reference scenario a and will be reduced further by 7 97 if china s targeted non fossil energy development plans can be achieved in the reference scenario b however the rest of the 40 45 target must be realized by other measures such as carbon constraint it is also observed that due to carbon intensity constraints gdp loss would be from 0 032 to 0 24 compared to the reference scenario b and co2 emission reductions are due mainly to decreases in coal consumption in the electricity sector and manufacturing sector

can china afford to commit itself an emissions cap an economic and political analysis as the world s second largest carbon emitter china has long been criticised as a free rider enjoying benefits from other countries efforts to abate greenhouse gas emissions but not taking due responsibilities of its own china has been singled out as one of the major targets at the subsequent negotiations after the kyoto curtain had fallen by analysing the historical contributions of inter fuel switching energy conservation economic growth and population expansion to china s co2 emissions during the period 1980 1997 this article first demonstrates that the above criticism cannot hold its ground next we analyse what the economic effects would be if china s carbon emissions in 2010 were cut by 20 and 30 respectively relative to the baseline we found that china s gnp losses under the two less restrictive carbon limits are in the same range as the often reported estimates for industrialised countries under very restrictive carbon limits then the article envisions some efforts and commitments that could be expected from china until its per capita income catches up with the level of middle developed countries by emphasising the win win strategies these efforts and commitments could be unlikely to severely jeopardise china s economic development and at the same time would give the country more leverage at the post kyoto climate change negotiations finally the article is concluded with the argument that combating global climate change is in china s interest it will be beneficial to a more sustainable development of the chinese economy as well as to the global climate

measuring total factor co2 emission performance and technology gaps using a non radial directional distance function a modified approach implementing the common but differentiated responsibilities principle for co2 mitigation requires an understanding of co2 emission performance and technology gaps in different countries this paper uses a meta frontier and non radial directional distance function to propose an alternative three stage approach to measure total factor co2 emission performance and technology gaps the first stage calculates the co2 emission performance of the group frontier the second stage uses these results to calculate the technology gap ratio the third stage integrates data from the first two stages to calculate co2 emission performance under the meta frontier this approach is easier to apply than other approaches in the literature and effectively avoids the phenomenon of the technology gap ratio being greater than unity the proposed approach can also decompose co2 emission performance loss into two categories management inefficiency and technical gaps to demonstrate the method an empirical analysis using data for 54 countries was conducted the study highlighted three main findings first upper middle income countries did not perform as well as high income countries and lower middle income countries second high income countries generally enjoy optimized production technology whereas the lower middle income countries generally had the lowest technological levels third both management inefficiency and technical gaps negatively impacted co2 emission performance but management inefficiency played a dominant role

banking on extinction endangered species and speculation many wildlife commodities such as tiger bones bear bladders ivory and rhino horn have been stockpiled in large quantities by speculators who expect that future price increases justify forgoing the interest income associated with current sales when supply from private stores competes with supply from wild populations in nature and when speculators are able to collude it may be optimal to coordinate on an extinction strategy we analyse the behaviour of a speculator who has access to a large initial store and finds that it is optimal to deter poachers entry either by depressing prices carefully timing own supply or by depressing wild stocks which strategy maximizes profits critically depends on the initial wildlife stock and initial speculative stores we apply the model to the case of black rhino conservation and conclude it is likely that banking on extinction is profitable if current speculators are able to collude contrary to conventional wisdom we also find that extinction is favoured by such factors as low discount rates or high growth rates

moral hazard externalities and compensation for crop damages from wildlife abstract a principal multiple agent model is used to examine wildlife damage abatement and compensation programs in a setting in which farmers suffer damages and hunters use the wildlife for recreational purposes in addition to externalities inherent in abatement abatement compensation policy confronts the issue of moral hazard by representing the principal as a wildlife management authority who acts on behalf of hunters we investigate contracts in which transfers of more or less severe hunting regulations a public good that aids in dispersing wildlife and monetary payments from hunting license fees can be used to overcome moral hazard

tinbergen and tipping points could some thresholds be policy induced abstract thresholds and tipping points that are characteristic of dynamic multi stability are increasingly prominent touchstones of the science policy interface prior economic work has shown thresholds arising in convex concave ecological models that exclude humans may disappear in models of coupled economic ecological systems when economic agents are included as part of the system less well understood is how this result may depend on the ability of humans to manage complex systems we examine the role of institutions that condition the available management choices we find institutional restrictions do not generate non convexities when the ecological system is well behaved but that these restrictions may generate non convexities when the ecological system is convex concave these results are tied to the concept of path controllability which is when managers have sufficient controls to guide the system across the state space path controllability is the dynamic version of the tinbergen rule and generally requires separate controls to manage each possible ecological externality we link the concepts of ecosystem externalities thresholds and path controllability to provide new economic insights into problems with the potential for multi stability and we illustrate the importance of institutions for managing convex concave systems

quantifying regional economic impacts of co2 intensity targets in china we acknowledge the support of the ministry of science and technology of china through the institute for energy environment and economy at tsinghua university and the support from graduate school of tsinghua university which is supporting zhang da s doctoral research as a 22 visiting scholar at the massachusetts institute of technology we are also grateful for the support provided by rio tinto china and social science key research program from national social science foundation china of grant no 09 zd029 we further acknowledge the support of eni s p a icf international and shell founding sponsors of the china energy and climate project for supporting this model development work we would further like to thank dr john reilly dr sergey paltsev dr kyung min nam dr henry chen paul kishimoto and tianyu qi at joint program on the science and policy of global change and participants in the annual meeting of china energy and climate project and ecomod 2012 conference for helpful comments and discussion 23

factorial decomposition of co2 emissions a generalized divisia index approach abstract this paper introduces a novel approach to estimating the impact of the major factors driving co 2 emissions gdp energy consumption population their carbon intensities and other related indicators that may be chosen arbitrarily the suggested approach is based on the generalization of the divisia index to interconnected factors the approach also extends the kaya identity by explicitly including gross domestic product and energy consumption a computer program in r language aimed at automating the calculations is supplied factorial analysis of the united states and china s co 2 emissions is provided as an example of application

the abatement of carbon dioxide intensity in china factors decomposition and policy implications to deal with the challenges brought about by climate changes china decided to reduce the carbon dioxide co2 intensity by 40 45 per cent from 2005 to 2020 using the decomposition technique this study finds that energy intensity is the most important force to drive the decline of co2 intensity between 1980 and 2008 followed by structural factors such as the adjustment of energy and industrial structure therefore any environmental policy to promote energy efficiency will play the biggest role in achieving the target of abating co2 intensity in 2020

a multi region multi sector decomposition and attribution analysis of aggregate carbon intensity in china from 2000 to 2015 abstract index decomposition analysis ida has been used to analyze driving forces of aggregate carbon intensity aci however previous studies mostly explained changes in aci from either sectoral or regional perspective but rarely looked into driving forces of aci from both sectoral and regional perspectives under a unified and consistent framework to fill the research gap this study proposed a multi region multi sector decomposition and attribution approach to analyze driving forces of aci from both sectoral and regional perspectives the empirical results in china show that the aci declined by 33 from 2000 to 2015 from the sectoral perspective the decline can be mainly attributed to the significant energy efficiency improvement in six high energy intensive industries however the rapid growth in electricity consumption especially in chemicals and iron and steel and the expansion of iron and steel industry during 2000 2005 greatly offset the negative effect from energy efficiency from the regional perspective the aci decline can be primarily due to an extensive improvement in energy efficiency in most regions on the contrary the increasing dependency on coal particularly in shandong inner mongolia and guangdong and the increased share of carbon intensive industries in some provinces such as guangxi and sichuan markedly increased aci based on the results the effectiveness of underlying sectoral and regional level policies and measures implemented for aci reduction in china were evaluated

decomposition of aggregate carbon intensity for freight trends from 10 oecd countries for the period 1971 1993 abstract historical patterns of aggregate carbon intensity from freight are different than those from other sectors while aggregate carbon intensity declined for all other sectors aggregate carbon intensity for freight increased the adaptive weighted divisia rolling base year index specification is applied to carbon emissions from the freight sector of 10 oecd countries for the period 1970 1993 increases in aggregate carbon intensity for nine of the countries range from less than 20 to over 150 and may be primarily attributed to shifts in modal structure toward more carbon intensive modes these increases in aggregate carbon intensity are driven primarily by an increase in activity which parallels the growth in gdp furthermore changes in fuel price and vehicle purchase taxes do not appear to be effective instruments for reducing energy consumption for this end use alternative policy options including less carbon intensive fuels and technologies and reduced congestion appear to be better choices