decoupling of industrial energy consumption and co2 emissions in energy intensive industries in scandinavia as methodology the ex post analysis deserves more attention as a device to calibrate energy sector models this paper studies the impact of energy prices and taxes on energy efficiency and carbon emissions of ten industrial sectors in the three scandinavian countries a database with sector specific energy prices and taxes has been established which allows the analysis to take various price reductions and tax exemptions better into account a translog factor demand system estimation for a cross industry pooled model is explored and fixed effects across industries and time is estimated the findings here confirm recent analyses which indicate higher long term elasicities for industries than normally assumed in scandinavian energy sector models with the observations on differences in energy intensities among sectors and countries the findings allow for some optimism as to the opportunities for further decoupling between trends in gross value added carbon emissions and energy consumption

decoupling china s carbon emissions increase from economic growth an economic analysis and policy implications as the world s second largest carbon emitter china has long been criticized as a free rider benefiting from other countries efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions but not taking responsibility for its own emissions china has been singled out as one of the major targets at the subsequent negotiations after the kyoto meeting bq analyzing the historical contributions of interfuel switching energy conservation economic growth and population expansion to china s co2 emissions during 1980 97 this article clearly demonstrates that the above criticism is unjustified moreover given the fact that the role of china is an issue of perennial concern at the international climate change negotiations the article envisions some efforts and commitments that could be expected from china until its per capita income catches lip with the level of middle developed countries by emphasizing the it win win strategies these efforts and commitments are unlikely to jeopardize china s economic development and at the same time would give the country more leverage at the international climate change negotiations subsequent to the buenos sires meeting c 2000 elsevier science ltd all rights reserved

what makes basic research economically useful abstract economic analysis has helped us understand the strong economic dimension in the explosive growth of science and more recently the reasons for continuing public subsidies however the growing domination of the market failure approach has led to the analytical neglect of two major questions for policy makers how does science contribute to technology are the technological benefits from science increasingly becoming international on the former too much attention has been devoted to the relatively narrow range of scientific fields producing knowledge with direct technological applications and too little to the much broader range of fields the skills of which contribute to most technologies on the latter national systems of science and of technology remain closely coupled in most major countries in spite of the technological activities of large multinational firms empirical research is needed on concentration scale and efficiency in the performance of basic research where techniques and insights from the applied economics of industrial r d are of considerable relevance there is no convincing evidence so far of unexploited economies of scale in basic research this evidence shows that many policies for greater selectivity and concentration in basic research have been misconceived economists and other social scientists could help by formulating more persuasive justifications for public subsidy for basic research and by making more realistic assumptions about the nature of science and technology

a multi criteria decision analysis model for carbon emission quota allocation in china s east coastal areas efficiency and equity abstract the allocation of carbon emission quotas is recognized as a fundamental and critical step towards the establishment of an effective nationwide carbon emissions trading cet market in china this paper aims to examine the quota allocation pertaining to china s east coastal areas these regions are pioneers in reformation and the domestic heavy emitters in this paper a multi criteria decision analysis model is proposed this model is based on the principles of efficiency and equity in order to reflect the true efficiency of carbon emissions a weighted russell direction distance model is employed three criteria namely capacity responsibility and potential are used to evaluate the degrees of equity furthermore different situations are set to evaluate the related indicators the results indicate the following 1 industrial provinces have less carbon emission quota increments 2 the yangtze river delta economic zone has notably improved energy efficiency and future quota increments correspond with the zone s current carbon emissions 3 circum bohai sea economic zone will be a major buyer of carbon emission quotas while pan pearl river delta economic zone currently receives surplus quota 4 the overall allocation of quotas converts from uneven to even as a result of gdp growth these results provide a reference for collaborative regional reductions in carbon emissions and for the construction of a cet market

policy implications for achieving the carbon emission reduction target by 2030 in japan analysis based on a bilevel equilibrium model abstract in japan the national intended determined contributions indcs towards post 2020 ghg emission reductions indicates a reduction of 26 0 is expected by the fiscal year 2030 however regional emissions allowances have not been fully discussed based on japan s indcs target which considers the regional socio economic features given this this study points out a soft path for a fair and efficient quota allocation by proposing an integrated bilevel equilibrium model within a hierarchical structure consisting of the national government and 47 prefectural governments this proposed model can be changed into a single level solvable equilibrium model which can be solved by particle swarm optimization pso method the major findings show that hokkaido tokyo and osaka were allowed the largest emissions quotas while tottori saga and okinawa had the lowest emissions quotas and the equity is necessary to be considered along with improving the emissions efficiency when reallocating carbon emission quotas otherwise the initiative to reduce emissions will not take place in prefectures with higher efficiency performance based on the findings energy policy implications can be generated based on the above quantitative analysis to form a fair and efficient emission quota system at a sub national level

structural changes in brazil s industrial economy 1960 1980 abstract this paper examines the structural changes in brazil s economy which can be observed through various censuses and input output tables in the period 1960 to 1980 the paper shows how the country s economy became more vertically integrated in those years even though it has become more outward oriented since the early days of import substitution it also considers the relations between the distribution of income and economic structure both at present and in a possible future situation of redistribution

global warming and energy demand list of tables list of figures list of contributors preface 1 global warming and energy elasticities terry barker paul ekins and nick johnstonepart 1 estimating long term energy elasticities 2 alternative approaches to estimating long run energy demand elasticities an application to asian developing countries ron smith and m hashem pesaran 3 a survey of international energy elasticities neil manning and jago atkinson 4 long run demand elasticities for gasoline thomas sterner and mikael franzen 5 responses of energy demand in uk manufacturing to the energy price increases of 1973 and 1979 80 alan ingham 6 elasticities for oecd aggregate final energy demand lakis vouyoukas 7 modelling uk energy demand derek hodgson and keith millerpart ii energy the economy and greenhouse gas abatement 8 endogenous technological progress in fossil fuel demand laurence boone stephen hall david kemball cook and clare smith 9 uk energy price elasticities and their implications for long term co2 abatement terry barker 10 price elasticity and market structure overcoming obstacles to ensure energy efficiency tim jackson 11 rethinking the use of energy elasticities stefan p schleicher 12 revisiting the costs of co2 abatement paul ekins 13 asymmetrical price elasticities of energy demand michael grubb14 conclusions terry barker paul ekins and nick johnstone bibliography index

decoupling between human development and energy consumption within footprint accounts abstract historically the growth of energy consumption has fuelled human development but this approach is no longer socially and environmentally sustainable recent analyses suggest that some individual countries have responded to this issue successfully by decoupling total primary energy supply from human development increase however globalisation and international trade have allowed high income countries to outsource industrial production to lower income countries thereby increasingly relying on foreign energy use to satisfy their own consumption of goods and services accounting for the import of embodied energy in goods and services this study proposes an alternative estimation of the decoupling index based on the total primary energy footprint rather than total primary energy supply an analysis of 126 countries over the years 2000 2014 demonstrates that previous studies based on energy supply highly overestimated decoupling footprint based results on the other hand show an overall decrease of the decoupling index for most countries 93 out of 126 there is a reduction of the number of both absolutely decoupled countries from 40 to 27 and relatively decoupled countries from 29 to 17 and an increase of coupled countries from 55 to 80 furthermore the study shows that decoupling is not a phenomenon characterising only high income countries due to improvements in energy efficiency but is also occurring in countries with low human development index and low energy consumption finally six exemplary countries have been identified which were able to maintain a continuous decoupling trend from these exemplary countries lessons have been identified in order to boost the necessary global decoupling of energy consumption and achieved welfare

decoupling economic growth from carbon dioxide emissions in china a sectoral factor decomposition analysis china is facing the dilemma of how to coordinate economic development and carbon dioxide co2 emissions reduction this paper investigates the decoupling effect of economic growth from co2 emissions in china during the period 1992 2012 using the logarithmic mean divisia index lmdi method we decompose the driving forces of the decoupling of economic growth from co2 emissions in china s five major economic sectors into several factors and measure the contribution of each factor to the decoupling of china s overall economy from co2 emissions the results show that china performed the weak decoupling of economic growth from co2 emissions during 1992 2012 and so did all its five major sectors such a state did not occur smoothly and presented five different stages energy intensity and economic activity level were the most important factors affecting the decoupling in china energy intensity decreased in all sectors indicating a large acceleration for the sectoral decoupling states this finding is applicable to process carbon intensity in industrial sector and energy emission factor in agricultural industrial construction and service sectors in terms of sectoral effects on the decoupling in china industrial sector played a dominant role while construction sector had the most marginal influence the economic activity level and economic share of industrial sector exerted the most negative effects on the decoupling the energy intensity of industrial sector played a key role in promoting the national decoupling state while the energy emission factor of agricultural sector contributed the least

exploring the influencing factors and decoupling state of residential energy consumption in shandong abstract this paper aims at analyzing the current situation of residential energy consumption in shandong identifying the influence factors governing energy consumption based on the lmdi log mean divisia index method and describing the decoupling relationship between residential energy consumption and residential income based on the tapio decoupling method the main results are as follows 1 the residential energy consumption structures of urban and rural have become multilevel furthermore the gap in per capital residential energy consumption between urban and rural regions narrowed 2 the energy intensity had an obvious inhibitory effect on decreasing urban residential energy consumption per capital income and population structure increased the urban residential energy consumption over the study period however per capital income and energy intensity played a more significant role in promoting rural residential energy consumption and the population structure decreased rural residential energy consumption during the study period the contributions from both energy consumption structure and total population effect were negligible 3 since 2000 the decoupling index for both urban and rural resident gradually declined which also shows that residential energy consumption in urban and rural regions was gradually less depend on residential income

decoupling co2 emissions and industrial growth in china over 1993 2013 the role of investment abstract since industrial sector is a leading energy consumer and co 2 emitter in china the degree of the decoupling of co 2 emissions and industrial growth plays a critical role in realizing the energy conservation and emission reduction goals of china this is the first study to present a specific investigation on the decoupling of co 2 emissions and industrial growth in china from 1993 to 2013 using an extended logarithmic mean divisia index lmdi model focusing on both energy related and process related co 2 emissions and introducing three novel investment factors i e investment scale investment share and investment efficiency we highlight and explore the remarkable role of investment in the mitigation and decoupling of co 2 emissions with industrial growth the results show that china s industrial sector experienced the weak decoupling during 1993 2013 the investment scale is the most important factor responsible for the increase in co 2 emissions and the inhibition of the decoupling the investment efficiency effect has a volatile trend and overall it plays the most significant role in reducing co 2 emissions followed by the energy intensity effect and process carbon intensity effect whereas the energy mix carbon coefficient and investment share have marginal effects among 36 industrial sub sectors the seven factors of rcmcp raw chemical materials and chemical products nmp nonmetal mineral products and spfm smelting and pressing of ferrous metals have significant effects on the decoupling thus the three sub sectors should be among the top concerns for abating co 2 emissions finally we provide policy recommendations considering both conventional and investment factors for china s industrial sector to realize emission reduction targets

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

is carbon emission growth decoupled from economic growth in emerging countries new insights from labor and investment effects abstract as emerging countries are both major contributors to global carbon emissions growth and global economic growth the sharp contradiction between economy and carbon emissions has seriously hindered the sustainable development of emerging countries and is not conducive to the realization of global emission reduction targets this work takes brics brazil russia india china and south africa the representatives of emerging countries as an example to investigate the decoupling state between economic growth and carbon emissions and to uncover the driving factors behind these decoupling the results show i russia and south africa have experienced the longest time of strong decoupling indicating that the decoupling in these two countries is better than that in other countries china india and south africa was characterized by expansive coupling weak decoupling and expansive negative decoupling respectively ii the labor effect and investment effect have contributed to the carbon emissions growth in the brics and the reasons for the carbon emissions changes in russia india china and south africa are strongly consistent while brazil has a different performance iii the investment decoupling effect has hindered the decoupling process in russia south africa china and india but has promoted the decoupling process in brazil while the energy intensity effect is the driving force in the decoupling process in most countries finally the policy recommendations for the different decoupling status of each country were put forward

hot air in kyoto cold air in the hague the failure of global climate negotiations abstract why did the climate negotiations in the hague fail our contribution is to argue that the conflict between the european union eu and the united states us stems mainly from disagreement on the cost issue we argue that the three main concerns promoted by the eu in the hague first a 50 national emission ceiling the supplementarity principle second the use of carbon sinks and third an international market control system these issues can be solved by removing all restrictions on free greenhouse gas ghg trade and by establishing the world trade organization as an international authority the us will face considerably higher costs than foreseen at the negotiations in kyoto and will have strong incentives to free ride our main hypothesis is that the eu proposal on supplementarity made the us turn to free riding thus to make the us stay in an international ghg emission trading scheme the eu must reconsider and acknowledge us claims for cheaper reduction options and the right to trade hot air this point is important if the us does not participate the increase in emissions will be much higher than the emission reduction following the eu supplementarity proposal

carbon dioxide emissions allocation a review carbon dioxide co2 emissions allocation plays a fundamental role in determining reduction responsibility at economy level or emission permits at firm level past decades have seen the development and applications of various methods for co2 emissions allocation this paper provides a literature review of co2 emissions allocation with emphasis on the evolution of allocation methods used it begins with a summary of the most popular allocation principles and criteria that lay a foundation for the development of allocation methods we then classify the existing allocation methods into four groups namely indicator optimization game theoretic and hybrid approaches the main features and findings of past studies are identified and summarized while the fairness principle prevails in earlier studies the efficiency principle has been found to receive increasing attention recently we also present a comparison of the empirical results based on ten popular indicator methods to show how indicator choice affects the allocation results issues related to selecting appropriate methods in co2 emissions allocation are finally discussed further research may be carried out to strike a balance between fairness and efficiency so that the allocation results become more widely acceptable and economically feasible

china s changing energy intensity trend a decomposition analysis china experienced a dramatic decline in energy intensity from the onset of economic reform in the late 1970s until 2000 but since then the rate of decline slowed and energy intensity actually increased in 2003 most previous studies found that most of the decline was due to technological change but disagreed on the role of structural change to the best of our knowledge no decomposition study has investigated the role of inter fuel substitution in the decline in energy intensity or the causes of the rise in energy intensity since 2000 in this paper we use logarithmic mean divisia index lmdi techniques to decompose changes in energy intensity in the period 1980 2003 we find that 1 technological change is confirmed as the dominant contributor to the decline in energy intensity 2 structural change at the industry and sector sub industry level actually increased energy intensity over the period of 1980 2003 although the structural change at the industry level was very different in the 1980s and in the post 1990 period 3 structural change involving shifts of production between sub sectors however decreased overall energy intensity 4 the increase in energy intensity since 2000 is explained by negative technological progress 5 inter fuel substitution is found to contribute little to the changes in energy intensity

efficient allocation of co2 emissions in china a zero sum gains data envelopment model abstract the appropriate allocation of co 2 emission quotas can build up a solid foundation for future emissions trading building co 2 emissions allocation mechanism has significant practical implications based on radial zero sum gains data envelopment zsg dea allocation model this paper uses a non radial zsg dea model to allocate co 2 emissions between different chinese provinces unlike previous studies treating co 2 as the input variable we treat co 2 as the undesirable output variable the modified model can better reflect macro production process while earlier relevant models treated co 2 emissions as inputs this paper contributes to the existing resource allocation method and allocates china s provincial co 2 emissions from the view of technical efficiency the results of our paper reveal that 1 between 2006 and 2010 the cumulative optimal amounts of co 2 emissions were higher than the actual amounts in 12 provinces and lower in other 18 provinces 2 several energy abundant provinces such as shanxi and inter mongolia need to take more responsibilities in co 2 emissions reduction 3 after the zsg dea allocation all provinces co 2 emissions are on zsg dea frontier which reflects the overall pareto optimality

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

economics of academic research and its implications for higher education the principal output of the highereducation system is knowledge the system generates two kinds of knowledge a disembodied form which appears as information in journals and books and an embod ied form in the grey matter of its graduates these outputs are produced by the activities of research and teaching respectively moreover many of the resources used to produce these outputs are used for both albeit in somewhat different proportions this applies to buildings office space laboratories computer rooms libraries etc staff academic and support staff and equipment computers ex perimental machines measuring instruments etc other resources are more specialized devoted ei ther to research alone research assistants or to teaching lecture rooms finally to function at all all higher educational institutions have to provide a range of central services such as maintaining finan cial staff and student records building mainte nance and repairs catering facilities and so on

using an extended lmdi model to explore techno economic drivers of energy related industrial co2 emission changes a case study for shanghai china although investment and r d activities can exert significant effects on energy related industrial co2 emissions eice related factors have not been fairly uncovered in the existing index decomposition studies this paper extends the previous logarithmic mean divisia index lmdi decomposition model by introducing three novel factors r d intensity investment intensity and r d efficiency the extended model not only considers the conventional drivers of eice but also reflects the microeconomic effects of investment and r d behaviors on eice furthermore taking shanghai as an example which is the economic center and leading co2 emitter in china we use the extended model to decompose and explain eice changes also we incorporate renewable energy sources into the proposed model to carry out an alternative decomposition analysis at shanghai s entire industrial level the results show that among conventional macroeconomic factors expanding output scale is mainly responsible for the increase in eice and industrial structure adjustment is the most significant factor in mitigating eice regardless of renewable energy sources the emission reduction effect of energy intensity focused on by the chinese government is less than the expected due to the rebound effect but the introduction of renewable energy sources intensifies its mitigating effect partly resulting from the transmission from the abating effect of industrial structure adjustment the effect of energy structure is the weakest although all the three novel factors exert significant effects on eice they are more sensitive to policy interventions than conventional factors r d intensity presents an obvious mitigating effect while investment intensity and r d efficiency display an overall promotion effect with some volatility the introduction of renewable energy sources intensifies the promotion effect of r d efficiency as a result of the green paradox effect finally we propose that co2 mitigation efforts should be made by considering both macroeconomic and microeconomic factors in order to achieve a desirable emission reduction effect

integrated weighting approach to carbon emission quotas an application case of beijing tianjin hebei region abstract the coordinated development of beijing tianjin hebei region has been included in the chinese 12th five year plan as a national strategy accordingly the cooperation of energy saving and environmental protection is an important part at the present stage establishing carbon emission trading market in china is regarded as an effective measure to reduce and control carbon dioxide emission meanwhile it is an important task for government to allocate carbon emission quotas among regions in order to explore the cross provincial carbon trading market mode of china this paper aims to construct a comprehensive index and use the integrated weighting approach to simulate the carbon quota allocation of beijing tianjin hebei region the results show that firstly the indicator of responsibility which is about 0 56 is given relatively more weight among the three indicators by comparison the weights of capacity and potential are 0 13 and 0 30 secondly the provinces with strong economic ability and lower carbon reduction potential may get fewer proportions of carbon emission quotas such as beijing thirdly since undertaking the function transfer and dispersal of beijing and tianjin hebei should have a relatively high carbon emission quotas in the future carbon trading market these results may provide insightful support for decision makers to promote collaborative carbon reduction and allocate carbon quotas in beijing tianjin hebei region of china

decoupling waste generation from economic growth a cge analysis of the swedish case abstract over the past decades we have seen the quantities of solid waste increase in close relation to economic growth to tackle this problem of continuing waste growth the eu has on its agenda that waste generation should decouple from economic growth within the eu in the future sweden also has stated a target of non increasing future waste quantities the strength of the policy measures needed to attain this target is here illustrated by comparing the waste intensity outcomes in a decoupling scenario and a baseline scenario of the swedish economy 2006 2030 a computable general equilibrium cge model is used for linking waste generation to firms material input firms production and households consumption when projecting future quantities of hazardous and non hazardous waste in sweden we show that to offset the effect of economic growth on waste generation in the decoupling scenario the intensities of material related wastes must decrease at a yearly rate that is about twice the historically estimated reduction rate used in the baseline scenario the reduction in the intensities of waste related to firms production and households consumption must also be substantial compared to historical estimates

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

carbon emissions quotas in the chinese road transport sector a carbon trading perspective abstract in response to the growing need to reduce carbon emissions it is necessary to explore the design of carbon trading mechanisms and discuss allocation options for the transport sector this paper examines the allocation of carbon quotas with the introduction of an emissions trading scheme ets in the chinese road transport sector aiming to simulate the allocation of carbon emissions quotas we forecast vehicle possession using a gray forecast model and trend extrapolation consider the carbon dioxide co2 emissions of the transport sector using a top down approach and design three policy scenarios we provide the following findings first vehicle possession in the road transport sector and carbon emissions both display an increasing trend reaching 180 million units and 6 6 billion tons by 2020 respectively second the road transport sector has the largest carbon quota under the benchmark scenario and the smallest under a low carbon scenario the difference between these two scenarios is 2 7 billion tons of carbon emissions finally we design a carbon emissions trading mechanism for the transport sector based on china s special development period and provide a sensitivity analysis

pareto improvement through a reallocation of carbon emission quotas abstract this article presents a methodology that discusses a reallocation of carbon emission quotas based on the zsg dea model also introduces the process of solving the zsg dea model in extensive detail and derives theorems 1 and 2 theorem 1 shows the equivalence in competition and the cooperation case while theorem 2 indicates the correlation between quota adjustment and efficiency change through this zsg dea model the determination of carbon emission quotas is no longer subjective and reasonable carbon emission quotas among countries can be obtained the reallocation of carbon emission quotas can not only ensure that all countries have 100 efficiencies but also help all countries gain through pareto improvement the conclusions of this paper are that most developed countries should increase their carbon emission quotas and that most less developed countries need to reduce theirs including the two most populous countries of china and india the reallocation process should be paid by selling the quotas of low efficient countries so that they can obtain funds to support their development while at the same time high efficient countries can produce more due to relaxation of environmental constraints thus achieving global pareto improvement

a two tiered attribution structural decomposition analysis to reveal drivers at both sub regional and sectoral levels a case study of energy consumption in the jing jin ji region abstract structural decomposition analysis sda is a very commonly used method for exploring the driving forces of environmental pressure ep enhanced with attribution analysis sda can further decompose the driving forces of ep into economic sectors or sub regions and provide more detailed evidence based policymaking however current studies of sda with attribution analysis have not been sufficiently developed and are only one tiered i e they decompose the driving forces of ep into either a sub regional or an economic sectoral level in this study we introduce a method of sda with a two tiered attribution analysis which is capable of 1 exploring the driving force of environmental pressure at a multi regional level and 2 further decomposing the driving forces of ep into both sub regions and economic sectors based on this method we explore the driving forces for the change of energy consumption in the jing jin ji region during the period of 2007 2012 results of this case study indicate that technological change final demand structure and final demand composition respectively contributed 129 12 and 3 while affluence production structure total population and population structure respectively contributed 129 77 38 and 2 to energy consumption change in the region in terms of sub regional and economic sectoral level contributions hebei province and the chemical and smelting and rolling of metals industries were the most prominent contributors through this case study we situate the strengths and limitations of the two tiered attribution sda method and propose key policy suggestions and future research directions

the gender salary gap in british academia this paper considers salary determination and the gender salary gap in the academic labour market utilizing a particularly detailed data set of academics from five old established universities results reveal an aggregate gender salary differential for academic staff of 15 most of this differential can however be explained by our model evidence suggests a limited opportunity for female academics to combine career and family despite the flexibility of an academic job and emphasizes the importance of mobility to the male career publication record is found to be an important determinant of salary

case study on initial allocation of shanghai carbon emission trading based on shapley value abstract carbon emission trading is an effective measure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions worldwide china has publicized plans to initiate the demonstration of carbon emission trading in seven regions as of 2013 initial allocation is fundamental but it proposes difficulty in the mechanism design of the carbon emission trading system benchmark grandfathering and the shapley value have been employed to simulate a specific case which consists of the initial allocation of carbon emission allowances of three power plants in shanghai china the results of the shapley value are regarded as a theoretical equitable reference the results of benchmark are similar to those of the shapley value however it is apparent that the allocation regarding grandfathering is inequitable considering other factors we proposed the following at the introduction of experimental stage free allocation pertaining to grandfathering can be adopted meanwhile benchmark should be prepared and adopted at the appropriate time furthermore a portion of the initial allowances can be reserved for auction and this portion for auction will escalate to the extent of 100 upon entering the formal stage in addition the tiered price mechanism and the subsidy policy are also suggested

decoupling analysis and environmental kuznets curve modelling of provincial level co2 emissions and economic growth in china a case study abstract guangdong is one of the most representative provinces of china in terms of reflecting how the provincial level co2 emissions dynamically evolve with economic development during the process of industrialisation and urbanisation the present study combines decoupling analysis with environmental kuznets curve ekc modelling to systematically explore the interactions between co2 emissions and economic growth in guangdong from the short to long terms aiming to provide the referential significance of low carbon development to other chinese provinces empirical results indicate that co2 economy interactions in guangdong dynamically changed with time performing an effect of expansive weak decoupling during 1995 2014 and having a potential to achieve a strong decoupling in the long run the decoupling states of various sectors and their contributions to the provincial overall decoupling differed greatly and varied by time and household and service sectors played increasingly important roles overall the decoupling effect of provincial co2 emissions is distinctly affected by the stage of industrialisation and urbanisation renewable energy utilisation as well as low carbon technical progress therefore promoting co2 economy decoupling at the provincial level should be specific to the feature and development reality of various provinces

international equity and differentiation in global warming policy ne of the major obstacles to reaching a comprehensive agreement on global warming is the setting of greenhouse gas emission reduction targets for individual countries long standing tensions between industrialized and developing countries have raised the issue of equity in burden sharing moreover individual industrialized nations have pleaded special circumstances and have sought differentiation in their obligations this paper analyzes alternative rules for distributing tradable carbon dioxide emissions permits a non linear programming model which distinguishes between allocation based and outcome based rules is used to analyze the relative welfare outcomes the model is applied to the world body of nations and yields several important policy implications

a cost effective approach to attracting low income countries to international emissions trading theory and experiments the cost effectiveness of the kyotoprotocol and any similar non global treatywould be enhanced by attracting additionalcountries to international emissions tradingand achieving this as soon as possible incontrast to what is heard in most of thedebate such an enlargement is here taken to beattained with the new participants atleast to begin with being fullycompensated this paper focuses on twoforms of compensation that can be used toattract poor countries to participate inemissions trading the theoretical aswell as experimental evidence suggests that ifpoor countries are more risk averse than richcountries partial compensation in terms offinancial transfers is more cost effective thanrelying solely on compensation in kind emission quotas as has been the case so far using money for partial compensation would alsoreduce the risk for hot air allocations andthe ensuing political obstacles tocost effectiveness that such allocations tendto create

regional allocation of co2 emissions allowance over provinces in china by 2020 the mitigation efforts of china are increasingly important for meeting global climate target since the rapid economic growth of china has led to an increasing share in the world s total co2 emissions this paper sets out to explore the approach for realizing china s national mitigation targets submitted to the unfccc as part of the copenhagen accord that is to reduce the intensity of co2 emissions per unit of gdp by 40 45 by 2020 as well as reducing the energy intensity and increasing the share of non fossil fuel consumption through regional allocation of emission allowance over china s provinces since the realization of china s mitigation target essentially represents a total amount emission allowance allocation problem an improved zero sum gains data envelopment analysis optimization model which could deal with the constant total amount resources allocation is proposed in this study by utilizing this model and based on several scenarios of china s economic growth co2 emissions and energy consumption a new efficient emission allowance allocation scheme on provincial level for china by 2020 is proposed the allocation results indicate that different provinces have to shoulder different mitigation burdens in terms of emission intensity reduction energy intensity reduction and share of non fossil fuels increase

how can china reach its co2 intensity reduction targets by 2020 a regional allocation based on equity and development in late 2009 the chinese government committed to cut its carbon dioxide emissions per unit of gross domestic product gdp by 40 to 45 of 2005 levels by 2020 this has raised the issue of how to allocate the co2 reduction target regionally to meet the national reduction target to meet this objective the following aspects may be taken into consideration equity principles common but differentiated responsibilities intensity reduction target fulfillment and economic difference and reduction potential among provinces this paper selects per capita gdp accumulated fossil fuel related co2 emissions and energy consumption per unit of industrial added value as indicators for emission reduction capacity responsibility and potential respectively based on these three indicators a comprehensive index is developed and an intensity allocation model constructed as decision makers may have different preferences when allocating the reduction burden we allocate different weights to the indicators analyzing the results using cluster analysis the following aspects may also be considered together with the national regional development strategy to determine how to share the burden the reduction potential of various regions implementation potential of the plans and promotion of a highly efficient low carbon economic development model

international emissions trading with endogenous allowance choices abstract this paper compares endogenous choices of tradable and non tradable emission allowances by non cooperative countries i find that the cost savings of trading do not necessarily lead to less pollution in particular environmentally more concerned countries usually choose less allowances if these are tradable but this may be offset by the choice of more allowances on the side of environmentally less concerned countries moreover if the establishment of a trading system requires the unanimous approval of all countries there may be no agreement on trading even if it were to lead to less pollution overall conversely a trading system may find unanimous approval even if it induces more pollution

thin versus thick co2 market abstract the idea that trading is more costly the thinner the market is is common in most studies of market exchange with frictions surprisingly this element is lacking from previous attempts to allow for frictions in pollution permit markets this paper considers a co 2 cap and trade model where trading costs develop endogenously as a function of the market size the pre trade allocation of permits determines whether the market size can be strongly influenced by expectations that have a role because of adjustment costs the pre trade allocation also sets preconditions for endogenously vanishing trading costs and thus has nonstandard effects on long run trading levels and market allocations

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

tradeable carbon permit auctions how and why to auction not grandfather abstract an auction of carbon permits is the best way to achieve domestic carbon caps designed to limit global climate change to minimize administrative costs permits would be required at the level of oil refineries natural gas pipe lines natural gas liquid sellers and coal processing plants to maximize liquidity in secondary markets permits would be fully tradable and bankable the government would conduct quarterly auctions a standard ascending clock auction in which price is gradually raised until there is no excess demand would provide reliable price discovery an auction is preferred to grandfathering giving companies permits based on historical output or emissions because it allows reduced tax distortions provides more flexibility in distribution of costs provides greater incentives for innovation and reduces the need for politically contentious arguments over the allocation of rents

selecting permit allocation rules for agricultural pollution control a bargaining solution abstract one of the primary justifications for using transferable permits for pollution control is that they achieve a given level of emission reduction at the lowest cost although the initial allocation of pollution permits may have no impact in terms of efficiency it does have a significant impact on equity in this paper we examine a variety of permit allocation rules for a small catchment in south west england an asymmetric nash bargaining framework is employed to characterise agents co operative behaviour and to explain their likely preferences over permit allocation rules the results indicate that the preferred allocation scheme depends upon the relative bargaining power of the agents furthermore some potential links between ex ante and ex post equity criteria were also discussed

information and economic analysis a perspective ten years ago i delivered a paper before this group with the title information and economic analysis i chose the title deliberately i did not call the subject on which i was speaking the economics of information because to do so would have been to suggest that my topic like the economics of agriculture or the economics of industry or the economics of labour represented another branch of specialisation within economics i wanted to suggest that informational considerations were in fact central to the analysis of a wide variety of phenomena that they constituted a central part of the foundations of economic analysis at the time though economists had long paid lip service to the importance of information there was little formal literature the last decade has seen a burgeoning of the literature it has become to the late 7o s and early 8o s what growth theory was to the early 6o s and it has been greeted with some of the same scepticism there seems to be a myriad ofspecial cases and few general principles the little examples are often contrasted unfavourably with the generality of general equilibrium theory what have we learned have diminishing returns set in are there fruitful directions for future research and if so what are they these are the questions which i wish to address here the work of the past decade has made i think a fundamental and lasting contribution to economic analysis the contributions have been both negative and positive we have learned that much of what we believed before is of only limited validity that the traditional competitive equilibrium analysis though having the superficial appearance of generality in terms of superscripts and subscripts is indeed not very general the theory is not robust to slight alterations in the informational assumptions it is but a special and not very plausible example among the possible set of informational assumptions which can be employed to characterise an economy at the same time the theory has been able to provide insights into phenomena about which the traditional model had nothing to say or which seemed inconsistent or inexplicable within the competitive paradigm it has provided some of the micro foundations for macro economics it has provided the basis of a new theory of the firm of a new new welfare economics and of a theory of economic organisation including a comparison of economic

fairness in a tradeable permit treaty for carbon emissions reductions in europe and the former soviet union this paper evaluates the distributional implications of alternative permit allocations in a tradeable permit regime for carbon emissions reductions 20 below baseline in 2010 for a region consisting of europe and the states of the former soviet union fsu participation in such a regime is expected to hinge on the fairness of the distributional consequences we find that initial permit allocations by populationand or gdp are unlikely to induce participation by most countries of eastern europe and fsu because of the net costs involved we identify a set of initial allocations that would at least compensate these countries a fair treatment of the countries in western europe we is here one which equalizes net costs pergdp for a wide set of cost functions for carbon emission reductions the cost gains that we would reap from a tradeable permit system relative to unilateral reductions by we as a group are found to be on the order of 85 percent this would imply among other things a significant increase in we scapacity to make further emissions reductions

does urbanization drive economic growth decoupled from energy consumption in china s logistics abstract logistics has gradually become a major energy consumer in china along with urbanization and e commerce a better understanding of economic growth decoupled from energy consumption in logistics could relieve the pressure of energy supply and environmental pollution a combined model based on the tapio decoupling model kaya identity and log mean divisia index was proposed to decompose the impact of urbanization into 4 related factors comparative analysis was applied to investigate the similarities of and differences in the urbanization related factors affecting the decoupling state of provinces the main results were as follows 1 weak decoupling was the dominant state of logistics in china during 2007 2016 there were weak decoupling and strong decoupling in most of the observation period in the eastern region while there was no strong decoupling in the central and western regions 2 from the national perspective urbanization related factors had very significant but different impacts population quantity spatial structure and spatial expansion were the key inhibitors while population density was the main contributor 3 from the regional perspective the patterns of urbanization related factors in the three regions were similar population density had a positive but decreasing effect on decoupling in the three regions especially the western region population quantity had an increasing negative effect on decoupling in the three regions especially the central and western regions spatial expansion had an increasing negative effect on decoupling in the eastern and western regions but a decreasing negative effect in the central region and spatial structure had a stable negative effect on the three regions finally some policy implications were proposed

carbon quota price and cdm potentials after marrakesh abstract the kyoto protocol sets quantified ghg emission reduction commitments for annex i parties but their emission reduction requirements related to bau projections one of the key factors to effect on future carbon market are uncertain both the decisions made in bonn and marrakesh would have further consequences for how the future carbon market will take shape this paper with application of the carbon emission reduction trading model evaluates future carbon quota price and clean development mechanism cdm potentials under different bau projections and does sensitivity analysis on carry over of aaus cers and erus implementation rate transaction cost holding of cers in non annex i parties etc to assess the impacts of relevant decisions of cop6 bis and cop7 on the carbon market under different bau projections future carbon quota price and cdm potentials could vary widely carry over of aaus cers erus and holding of cers in non annex i parties could raise both quota price and total cdm potentials considerably implementation rate could have big impacts on both carbon quota price and cdm potentials especially for the cases formerly with relatively high cdm potentials and it could also change the regional distribution of cdm potentials transaction cost s effect on the carbon market would be comparatively low but would become unignorable in the market whose quota price is low it would lead to a downward trend in price while upward in cdm potentials when increasing the implementation rate or lowering transaction cost withdrawal of usa would dramatically shrink carbon price and credit amount and large numbers of hot air and sink credits would further greatly crowd out the cdm projects carry over of aaus cers and erus holding of cers in non annex i parties prompt start of cdm projects etc would however enhance the total cdm credits to ensure more investment and technology flow to developing countries to promote their sustainable development

study on decoupling analysis between energy consumption and economic growth in liaoning province abstract since 1978 liaoning province has experienced spectacular economic growth which has led to more energy consumption the purpose of this paper is to explore the decoupling status between energy consumption and economic growth in liaoning province firstly the generalized lmdi method is used to explore the driving forces governing production energy consumption in liaoning province then the combination of tapio decoupling indicator and generalized lmdi method is utilized to study what the decoupling status occurred in liaoning province and why the decoupling status appeared during the study period only four decoupling status occurred expansive negative decoupling expansive coupling weak decoupling and strong decoupling the energy intensity decoupling effect played a positive role in the appearance of decoupling however the economic structure decoupling effect and investment decoupling effect played a negative role in the appearance of decoupling over the study period the energy structure decoupling effect and labour decoupling effect played a relative small role in the appearance of decoupling

does increasing investment in research and development promote economic growth decoupling from carbon emission growth an empirical analysis of brics countries abstract it is generally recognized that increasing research and development investment is an effective measure to promote economic and social progress an open question is if increasing research and development investment help economic growth decoupling from carbon emission this study investigates research and development investment and carbon emission in brics countries by using the fully modified ordinary least squares for empirical estimation from 1996 to 2014 the results show that every 1 increase in research and development investment carbon emissions will be decreased by 0 8122 for the brics as a whole which indicates increasing research and development investment has a positive impact on decoupling economic growth from environmental pressure for individual this impact is most significant in china weak in russia and india however it also should be noted that only increasing research and development investment cannot achieve the decoupling between economic growth and carbon emission because other factors such as economic activity industrialization and urbanization renewable energy also influences the decoupling economic growth from carbon emission the results also show that economic activity industrialization and urbanization pose negative impact on the decoupling whereas renewable energy consumption promote the decoupling

driving forces for aggregate energy consumption a cross country approach abstract although a cornerstone for development past and current energy use has often posed a major challenge for policymakers with respect to planning and management within this context in this paper an updated multi sectorial cross country assessment of energy consumption trends was undertaken aiming at identifying the main drivers of changes in aggregate energy consumption these drivers have been interpreted in the light of the policy measures that have been implemented over the years by different countries to achieve a sustainable development of the energy sector the cross country assessment encompasses a set of developed united kingdom portugal and spain and emerging brazil china and india countries resorting to the logarithmic mean divisia index lmdi decomposition method changes in the aggregate energy consumption were decomposed into three main explanatory effects activity structure and intensity the major findings achieved reflect the relevance of intensity and activity effects in detriment of the structural effect the assessment of energy consumption trends using the lmdi decomposition method provides critical information regarding which is the dominant factor that should be focused in policy design

an analysis of the decoupling relationship between co2 emission in power industry and gdp in china based on lmdi method abstract china predominantly relies on thermal power generation to meet its power requirement which has led to a major increase in total co2 emission and poses a huge threat to the development of power industry in order to reduce co2 emission in power industry and develop economy simultaneously it is necessary to study how to achieve the strong decoupling relationship between co2 emission in power industry and gdp in china however such studies are relatively limited so far thus this paper mainly inquiries the major driving factors on the decoupling during the period of 1985 2016 first the decoupling state in china is quantified by using the tapio decoupling indicator then this paper carries out the decomposition of the decoupling index to explore the driving factors affecting the decoupling by the logarithmic mean divisia index lmdi method and kaya identity equation finally energy consumption in power generation thermal power structure power generation structure transmission and distribution loss electrification energy intensity and economic scale are explored to discuss the decoupling relationship with respect to the co2 emission reduction the results show that the decoupling relationship is in an alternating state between weak decoupling and expansive negative decoupling in 1985 2016 and the influences of seven factors on the decoupling relationship are of difference wherein energy intensity as well as energy consumption in power generation promotes the decoupling while both the economic scale and electrification are the two main factors that inhibit the decoupling the other three factors have relatively weak effects therefore based on the empirical results this paper puts forward some policy suggestions to effectively promote the decoupling between china s electric co2 emission and economic growth

a comparative study on decoupling relationship and influence factors between china s regional economic development and industrial energy related carbon emissions abstract to study the relationship between china s regional economic development and industrial carbon emission reveal the major influencing factors and mechanism of carbon emission change in all regions and provide theoretical evidence for governments to formulate emission reduction strategies and policies big data analysis and the tapio extended model were adopted to quantitatively analyse the decoupling relationship between carbon emission and economic growth in eight major regions of china between 1996 and 2012 logarithmic mean divisia index lmdi was also applied to decompose the main factors affecting carbon emission change in all regions the results show that 1 the proportions of industrial energy related to carbon emissions in central china and the beijing tianjin region decreased year by year while the opposite was the case in coastal areas of northern china furthermore the proportions in other regions basically remained unchanged 2 a weak decoupling relation between industry energy carbon emission and economic growth was found in most regions except in northwest china during the period 1996 2000 southwest china south and north coastal regions during the period 2001 2005 beijing and tianjin during the period 2010 2012 energy consumption decoupling factors exerted a consistent positive effect on industry energy carbon emission decoupling with decoupling impact greater than emission factors 3 the overall level of carbon emission reduction technology in china was low and backwards and limited contributions have been made to economic growth and industry energy carbon emission decoupling development emphases of decoupling should be put on energy saving technology promotion industry structure upgrading and energy structure improvement in the future 4 economic intensity effect has exerted the most powerful positive influence on carbon emissions except in developed areas and the positive effect was weaker than that in other regions

modelling the determination of research output in british universities abstract the paper begins by noting some of the recent proposals for restructuring research activity in british universities mainly through a process of concentration of research resources we then review the available evidence which shows that there is little support for such concentration except in the most resource intensive disciplines since there is little firm information about the shape of research production functions either for institutions or for the system as a whole the core of the paper studies the factors likely to be important in such functions and investigates the consequences of particular functional forms finally it is concluded that more research is needed to gain a better understanding of the research process in universities and that in the meantime it would be unwise to embark on a wholesale restructuring of the system

unilateral regulation of bilateral trade in greenhouse gas emission permits this paper considers the coordination of domestic markets for tradable emission permits where countries determine their own emission reduction targets using a two country model linking such schemes is beneficial to both countries but may cause the exporting country to decrease its emission reduction target and export more permits this in turn would not only reduce the costs for both countries as less emissions have to be reduced but it also lowers the environmental benefits of the importing country one price instrument tariff and two quantity instruments discount quota to prevent the exporting country from issuing more permits are examined each instrument restricts trade and alters the terms of trade for the two countries the importing country and regulator prefers an import tariff and an import quota to a carbon discount if the exporting country releases additional permits the importing country should not try to keep total emissions constant as that would be ineffective and maybe even counterproductive instead the importing country should aim to keep the total import constant this would impose costs on the exporting country that are independent of the policy instrument an import quota would be the cheapest option for the importing country an import quota would also stress the idea of supplementary of the flexible mechanism as it increases the share of emissions reduced domestically compliance and liability issues constrain the market further however both the importing and the exporting country would prefer that the permit seller is liable in case of non compliance as sellers liability would less constrain the market

china s strategy for carbon intensity mitigation pledge for 2020 evidence from a threshold cointegration model combined with monte carlo simulation methods abstract this paper specifies a nonlinear threshold cointegration to analyze the nonlinear relationship between carbon intensity and economic growth in china the tests and estimated results clearly confirm that fast paced economic growth that is the growth rate of gross domestic product gdp is greater than 9 053 impede the reduction of carbon intensity because it weakens the negative effects of tertiary industry development and energy efficiency on carbon intensity while it also increases the positive effect of unclean energy mix on carbon intensity in order to find a moderate range of economic growth rate that is both beneficial for industrial structuring and energy mix transformation and at the same time facilitate reduction in carbon intensity monte carlo simulations are employed the results show when the growth rate of gdp is between 7 and 8 4 it can promote structural bonus of industrial structure and energy consumption structure on carbon intensity and carbon intensity in 2020 would decline by about 40 60 compared to 2005 level these conclusions mean it is necessary for china to carefully set its economic growth target through transformation and optimization of its economic structure and energy mix in order to continuously reduce carbon intensity

decoupling factors on the energy output linkage the spanish case the recent increase of energy intensity in spain and the ratification of the kyoto protocol call for the implementation of energy policies in spain in this paper we investigate the relationship between gross domestic product gdp and energy consumption ec by taking into account several decoupling factors that can affect this linkage specifically we have considered the temporal aggregation of data and its seasonal adjustments the multivariate methodology the substitution between ec and other inputs and the technological changes empirical tests reveal a long run relationship between ec and gdp that can only be established in a complete way with a multivariate cointegration analysis furthermore a short run unidirectional causality from ec to economic growth is found therefore primary ec plays an important role as a limiting factor for economic growth in spain in the short run

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

china s carbon emissions from urban and rural households during 1992 2007 in china rapid economic growth has stimulated fast urban expansion and rural household income and consumption expenditure in current paper an input output method is used to determine the impact of china s increased urban and rural household consumption on carbon emissions the results shows that the direct and indirect co 2 emission from household consumption accounted for more than 40 of total carbon emissions from primary energy utilization in china in 1992 2007 the population increase expansion of urbanization and the increase of household consumption per capita all contribute to an increase of indirect carbon emissions while carbon intensity decline mitigates the growth of carbon emissions therefore at the domestic level household consumption is of great significance for co 2 emission which could be mitigated through changing the composition of goods and services consumed by households and switching to consumption pattern of less carbon intensive products the government must consider the substantial contribution of household consumption to carbon emissions when china is encouraging consumption in order to address the current global financial crisis c 2011 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

assessing eco efficiency through the dea analysis and decoupling index in the latin america countries abstract this study was developed according to a two step approach in the first step we provide an investigation of the changes in eco efficiency under constant and variable return to scale while on a second step the evaluation of the decoupling elasticity will be given the impacts of energy economic and environmental determinants inputs on the performance indicators of eco efficiency were calculated as the inverse of the carbon intensity ratio of the gdp over the co2 emissions both from the world development indicators database the changes in eco efficiency and the decoupling elasticity between co2 emissions and economic growth changes data was used for 16 latin america countries according to five year periods from 1994 to 2013 for all the five time span considered it is worth noting that the degree of technical efficiency for the latin america countries is lower than the degree of technological efficiency thus indicating that a portion of the overall inefficiency is due to the fact that these countries are producing below the production frontier rather than to an inefficient use of technology on average the results have confirmed that the technological scale change in energy production is the dominant factor influencing the optimal production frontier in the sample of countries under analysis complementarily according to the mixed results from the decoupling analysis we may conclude that the increase decrease of the co2 per capita emissions was due to other economic and environmental factors rather than to a negative positive effect of the gdp growth rate

walking away from a low carbon economy recent and historical trends using a regional decomposition analysis using the latest available data this brief article attempts to provide the first regional decomposition analysis of co2 emissions from fuel combustion covering eight regions of the world determinants are estimated in relative and absolute terms for the period 1971 2010 we take the 2010 global surge in co2 emissions as an entry point for the analysis overall results show that most regions have recently performed worse than their historical trends and lack of meaningful progress is identified whereas specific drivers for certain regions suggest some level of continuous improvement e g reduced energy intensity in asia they are incapable of offsetting the effects of economic growth and energy use with the exception of africa most regions appear to have missed the low carbon economy opportunity provided by the 2008 2009 global financial crisis results suggest a lack of serious environmental effectiveness of regional policy portfolios aiming at reducing co2 emissions highly ambitious energy efficiency and renewable energy policies across all regions are immediately needed additionally absolute reductions in co2 emissions and energy use from fossil fuels are urgently required in rich regions if we are to align production and consumption patterns with maintaining global warming below the 2 c threshold

long term diversification paths and energy transitions in europe the concentration of the energy mixes of eight european countries is measured latecomers historically enjoyed lower levels of concentration in their energy mixes early comers followed an inverted u path of concentration latecomers a u path a time effect and size effect explains the different patterns small energy consuming countries will be able to do faster transitions

the theory of food price stabilisation a small and very volatile fraction of total domestic food production many countries aim at food self sufficiency with the consequence that the country may be an exporter in good years but an importer in bad years international and domestic transport and handling costs are a significant fraction of the average price of cereals so the domestic price fluctuations will tend to be an amplified version of international price fluctuations the difference between the domestic price in exporting and importing years will be twice the transport costs if the world price is unchanged it would require a strong negative correlation between domestic and world supply to offset this additional source of instability 1

energy decomposition analysis iea model versus other methods abstract in energy decomposition analysis the international energy agency iea model which is based on the laspeyres index method is included in a recent international collaborative initiative on energy indicators for sustainable development for possible adoption iaea 2005 energy indicators for sustainable development guidelines and methodology international atomic energy agency vienna www pub iaea org mtcd publications pdf pub1222 web pdf from an empirical analysis using the data of the united states we found that the residual term given by the iea model could be significant and that the estimates of the impacts of structure and intensity changes given by the model could be quite different from those given by other decomposition methods the residual term tends to be large when changes in structure and or energy intensity variables are significant since changes in these variables over time are generally larger in the developing countries than in the iea countries there is the question about whether the iea model is an appropriate decomposition method for the developing countries

decomposition analysis for assessing the progress in decoupling industrial growth from co2 emissions in the eu manufacturing sector decomposition analysis is used in this paper not only to explain changes in industrial co2 emissions but also to comparatively evaluate the progress made in 14 eu countries in decoupling emissions from industrial growth the analysis is performed for the period 1990 2003 by distinguishing two time intervals for assessing progress prior to and following the agreement on the kyoto protocol the refined laspeyres model is used to determine the impact of 5 explanatory factors output energy intensity structure fuel mix and utility mix the obtained results are further elaborated in order to assess the real efforts undertaken in each country and their effectiveness in dissociating the economic and environmental dimensions of development moreover a rescaling procedure is implemented in order to adjust efforts to the average progress in the eu and proceed to a fair comparative evaluation it is found that most eu countries made a considerable but not always sufficient decoupling effort while no significant acceleration is observed in the post kyoto period

efficiency and allocation of emission allowances and energy consumption over more sustainable european economies abstract efficient use of energy reduction in fossil fuel dependence and control of co2 emissions are all fundamental to development of a sustainable economy competitiveness in energy use saves imports of oil and gas increases gross domestic product and creates new jobs in the renewable energy and energy efficiency sectors this study identifies the more or less competitive european union member states in terms of sustainable growth using data envelopment analysis dea model and proposes new allocations of country greenhouse gas limits and energy consumption using a zero sum gains dea model the analysis of european countries fills a gap in the existing literature and contributes to the discussion on the 2020 2030 european strategy proposing an efficiency based indicator which measures country performance in terms of economic social and environmental factors gdp represents the economic factor population represents the social factor and emissions final and renewable energy consumption are the environmental factors the numerical results show that the initial allocations are inefficient applying the modelled reallocation the most efficient countries are rewarded by potential increases in emission and energy consumption while the least efficient countries must bring about decreases to achieve full efficiency

assessing the decoupling of economic growth from environmental impacts in the european union a consumption based approach abstract pursuing a responsible and sustainable development the united nations urged to decouple economic growth from environmental impacts several european union eu policies have been implemented towards such goal although multiple authors have evaluated the decoupling of the economic growth from the resource use or environmental concerns the environmental assessment mostly focused on pressures rather than impacts and used single indicators assumed to be a proxy of the overall effects on the environment furthermore no studies were found using a process based life cycle approach to quantify the environmental impacts of consumption to solve such research gap this paper assesses the decoupling in the eu focusing on potential environmental impacts complementing a production based approach with two options for accounting for the impacts of consumption the aim of this paper is to evaluate the decoupling of the economic growth in terms of gross domestic product from the environmental impacts due to eu 28 consumption assessed by means of life cycle assessment lca the decoupling is then assessed in impact terms rather than limited to pressures by using the environmental footprint ef2017 indicators which allows assessing 16 different impacts the consumption footprint indicator quantified the environmental impacts of eu apparent consumption including the territorial impacts domestic footprint and the embodied impacts in both imports and exports trade footprint the inventory of pressures for the trade component is compiled either with a bottom up approach process based lca of representative traded goods or a top down approach input output based lca methodological aspects influencing the decoupling assessment and the resulting outputs are presented and discussed according to the results the environmental impacts of eu 28 consumption showed decoupling during the last decades 2005 2014 between relative to absolute decoupling depending on the inventory modeling approach taken some countries showed higher decoupling levels than others displaying a heterogeneous map of eu 28 decoupling which was led by acidification particulate matter land use and eutrophication impacts notwithstanding current limitations the assessment of decoupling using consumption based environmental indicators is very promising for supporting policy making towards addressing the actual impacts driven by the eu production and consumption system

the decomposition of co2 emissions from energy use in greece before and during the economic crisis and their decoupling from economic growth abstract greece recorded a significant decline in co 2 emissions from energy use from 2003 to 2013 accompanied by a reduction in energy consumption particularly during the economic recession this study attempts to identify the driving forces of co 2 emissions related to energy consumption through the use of the complete decomposition technique developed by jw sun the decomposition analysis focuses on the four factors responsible for co 2 emissions the carbon intensity effect the energy intensity effect the structural effect and the economic activity effect the analysis covers all the major productive sectors of the greek economy the study covers the period 2003 2013 and is divided into two subperiods 2003 2008 and 2008 2013 in order to assess changes in the contribution of the examined factors during the economic crisis 2008 2013 the analysis is extended to examine the decoupling relationship between co 2 emissions and economic growth in greece with the use of the decoupling index

decomposing road freight energy use in the united kingdom applying the techniques of decomposition analysis we estimate the relative contribution of ten variables termed key ratios plus gdp to the change in uk road freight energy use over the period 19892004 inclusive the results are best interpreted as an estimate of the percentage growth in energy consumption that would have resulted from the change in the relevant factor e g length of haul had the other factors remained unchanged the results demonstrate that the main factor contributing to the decoupling of uk road freight energy consumption from gdp was the decline in the value of domestically manufactured goods relative to gdp over the period 19892004 this largely offset the effect of increases in gdp on road freight energy consumption while the decline in domestic manufacturing was to some extent displaced by increases in imports the net effect of these supply factors together with shifts in the commodity mix has been to reduce uk road freight energy consumption by 30 1 the net effect on global carbon dioxide co2 emissions is likely to be somewhat less beneficial since many freight movements associated with the manufacture of imported goods have simply been displaced to other countries

decoupling analysis of world economic growth and co2 emissions a study comparing developed and developing countries abstract this study discusses decoupling trends in world economic growth and co2 emissions based on decoupling theories the decoupling trends of economic growth and co2 emissions in typical developed and developing countries in 1965 2015 are compared by using an oecd decoupling factor model and tapio elastic analysis tea method and the igtx decoupling model on this basis this study evaluates correlations of these three decoupling models by employing the spearman s rank correlation coefficient the research indicates that owing to the igtx decoupling model being easily affected by other non environmental factors the shorter the research period of interest the more easily the decoupling indices distort while the accuracy of the tea method is not limited by the length of the research period of interest with respect to the overall decoupling trend the research shows that 1 strong decoupling is found in developed countries and slightly increases in the stabilisation thereof the decoupling state in the united kingdom and germany is more stable than that of the united states and france 2 developing countries demonstrate weak decoupling that fluctuates significantly and lacks regularity the stabilisation and optimisation of china in decoupling process are better than those of brazil and india finally according to research conclusions relevant policies and suggestions are proposed in view of energy savings and emissions reduction in developing countries

correlation analysis of co 2 emissions material stocks and economic growth nexus evidence from chinese provinces abstract a better understanding of the economy material emissions nexus is fundamental in order to reveal the interactions between human development and the natural environment and more importantly to design integrated de carbonization and de materialization policies in this paper we conducted a decoupling analysis of fossil fuel induced co2 emissions and in use material stocks in infrastructure to economic growth at the provincial level in china and investigated the trilateral causal relationships among the three indicators the results show that the average elasticity of co2 emissions and material stocks to economic growth was smaller than 1 representing a status of relative decoupling however in many less developed provinces in central and western china we observed increasing trends of elasticity in the past three decades which suggest their economic growth became more tightly linked to co2 emissions and the accumulation of material stocks granger tests suggest that in the long run there existed a unidirectional causality running from co2 emissions economic growth and urbanization to material stocks in the short run a bi directional causality between co2 emissions and economic growth and a unidirectional causality from material stocks to co2 emissions were detected policy implications for the de carbonization and de materialization transition include enhancing renewable energy utilization upgrading industries to less carbon intensive ones developing compact cities prolonging the lifespan of infrastructure and strengthening the life cycle carbon management of infrastructure

comparisons of decoupling trends of global economic growth and energy consumption between developed and developing countries abstract the development of economy in developing countries is expected to contribute mostly to the growth of world energy consumption using environment impact gdp technology igt decoupling model we carry out a comparative study on the decoupling trends of economic growth and energy consumption for both developed and developing countries in past five decades 1965 2015 the results indicate that the decoupling indices of developed countries are superior to that of developing countries the specific performances are 1 the decoupling indices of developed countries are shown to be stable and tend to approximate absolute decoupling 2 the decoupling indices of developing countries fluctuate in the relative decoupling interval on this basis this research employs grey relational analysis gra to explore the reasons resulting in the difference of decoupling indices from the perspective of technical progress industrial structure and economic growth pattern the findings show that in developed countries technical progress factor exerts greatest influence on decoupling indices followed by industrial structure and economic growth pattern in developing countries industrial structure and economic growth pattern have greater impact on decoupling indices than technical progress based on research conclusion this research offers developing countries relevant policy suggestions for energy saving and emission reduction in the future

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

towards a sustainable growth in latin america a multiregional spatial decomposition analysis of the driving forces behind co2 emissions changes abstract this paper aims to understand the driving forces behind the growth of co2 emissions in latin america as a region by groups of countries according to their behaviour in terms of growth of income and co2 emissions per capita and by countries during 1990 2013 the main drivers for the latin america region are the activity and the population effects followed by the fossil fuel and the carbonisation effects while the intensity effect is revealed as the only inhibitor the lessons from latin america s group of countries are the following first the necessary decoupling between the growth of co2 emissions and the economic activity has not taken place the population growth also being an important driver effect second the groups of countries with the highest co2 emissions growth show the highest population and fossil fuel effects this latter confirms the scant efforts made to reduce the weight of fossil fuels in the total primary energy supply third the energy intensity has become the most important inhibitor of co2 emissions for those countries that are not able to substitute fossil fuels so easily finally the desirable increase of less pollutant fossil fuels or even the increase of renewable energies has not yet been achieved

a more scientific allocation scheme of carbon dioxide emissions allowances the case from china abstract efficient allocation of carbon dioxide co2 emissions allowances is essential to the realization of the emissions reduction goal using china as an example this study applies a zero sum gains data envelopment analysis zsg dea model to translate the country s reduction target into provincial goals based on the chinese government s 2020 reduction goal to evaluate efficiency scores we employ the epsilon based measure model that combines radial and non radial characteristics different from prior studies we emphasize the effect of industrial structure on co2 emissions and calculate a composite gross domestic product gdp index as one of the output variables by utilizing the zsg dea model and based on china s provincial co2 emissions allowances as the input variable the composite gdp index and the population as the output variable we obtain an optimal reallocation scheme after four iterations a comparison between the results and official reduction goals shows that the government should increase co2 emissions allowances appropriately for most provinces with high proportions more than 40 of second industry increment in gdp thereby carrying implications for policymakers with china as an example these findings have global implications as regards developing a more scientific allocation scheme especially for regions with unbalanced industrial structures