examining the link between energy consumption carbon dioxide emission and economic growth in latin america and the caribbean abstract this study aims at exploring the bi directional long run relationship between energy consumption carbon dioxide emission and economic growth in the latin american and caribbean countries the canonical cointegrating regression ccr is used to achieve the goal of this study taking the period of 1980 2008 the study arrived at different results while 60 of the countries have a positive bi directional long run relationship between energy consumption carbon dioxide emission and economic growth the others have mixed results the results of the study motivated the researcher to recommend that these countries should increase their energy efficiency increase the share of green energy from their total energy use and increase energy conservation in order to reduce unnecessary waste of energy

the relationship between gdp and electricity consumption in 10 asian countries the purpose of this study is to estimate the relationships between gdp and electricity consumption in 10 newly industrializing and developing asian countries using both single data sets and panel data procedures the empirical results from single data set indicate that the causality directions in the 10 asian countries are mixed while there is a uni directional short run causality running from economic growth to electricity consumption and a bi directional long run causality between electricity consumption and economic growth if the panel data procedure is implemented these empirical findings imply that electricity conservation policies through both rationalizing the electricity supply efficiency improvement to avoid the wastage of electricity and managing demand side to reduce the electricity consumption without affecting the end user benefits could be initiated without adverse effect on economic growth the findings on the long run relationship indicate that a sufficiently large supply of electricity can ensure that a higher level of economic growth

designing payments for environmental services in theory and practice an overview of the issues abstract payments for environmental services pes have attracted increasing interest as a mechanism to translate external non market values of the environment into real financial incentives for local actors to provide environmental services es in this introductory paper we set the stage for the rest of this special issue of ecological economics by reviewing the main issues arising in pes design and implementation and discussing these in the light of environmental economics we start with a discussion of pes definition and scope we proceed to review some of the principal dimensions and design characteristics of pes programs and then analyze how pes compares to alternative policy instruments finally we examine in detail two important aspects of pes programs their effectiveness and their distributional implications pes is not a silver bullet that can be used to address any environmental problem but a tool tailored to address a specific set of problems those in which ecosystems are mismanaged because many of their benefits are externalities from the perspective of ecosystem managers pes is based on the beneficiary pays rather than the polluter pays principle and as such is attractive in settings where es providers are poor marginalized landholders or powerful groups of actors an important distinction within pes is between user financed pes in which the buyers are the users of the es and government financed pes in which the buyers are others typically the government acting on behalf of es users in practice pes programs differ in the type and scale of es demand the payment source the type of activity paid for the performance measure used as well as the payment mode and amount the effectiveness and efficiency of pes depends crucially on program design

the curse of natural resources in fractionalized countries abstract this paper develops a model that can explain why natural resources are a blessing for some countries but a curse for others in this model natural resources cause fighting activities between rivalling groups fighting reduces productive activities and weakens property rights making productive activities even less attractive the aggregate production decrease exceeds the natural resources direct positive income effect if and only if the number of rivalling groups is sufficiently large the model thus predicts that natural resources lower incomes in fractionalized countries but increase incomes in homogenous countries empirical evidence supporting this prediction is provided

economic growth and energy consumption the energy environmental kuznets curve for latin america and the caribbean abstract this paper investigates the relationship between economic growth and energy consumption using the hypothesis postulated for the energy environmental kuznets curve which assumes an inverted u shape relationship between income and energy consumption panel data for 22 latin american and caribbean countries for the period 1990 2011 were used absolute energy consumption was chosen as an environmental pressure indicator because energy consumption is the major contributor of emissions pollutants the results obtained in the estimations show that the hypothesis postulated for the energy environmental kuznets curve is not supported for the region on the contrary the results show an exponential growth as gross value added grows also notable differences are shown between the analyzed economies

the impact of energy consumption and economic development on ecological footprint and co2 emissions evidence from a markov switching equilibrium correction model abstract reducing the impact of air pollution and global environmental degradation on human health and quality of life for qatari citizens represents the most important objective of the qatar national vision 2030 with respect to this vision this study investigates the effects of economic growth energy consumption trade openness urbanization and financial development on environmental degradation by using the markov switching equilibrium correction model with shifts in both the intercept and income per capita slope for the period 1970 2015 unlike existing studies and in addition to the co 2 emissions pollutant this paper uses the total ecological footprint and ecological carbon footprint as new proxies of environmental degradation empirical results show strong evidence for cointegration with markov shifts in particular our results show that the non control for breaks can hide the true relationship among variables the results show also that when controlling for breaks the environment kuznets curve ekc hypothesis holds for the co 2 emissions and ecological carbon footprint pollutants and the u shaped behavior holds for the total ecological footprint moreover the results show that these two behaviors ekc and u shaped are regime dependent regarding the other explanatory variables the results show that trade openness and urbanization worsen ecological footprint however the electricity consumption and financial development are positively related to the ecological footprint and negatively related to ecological carbon footprint and co 2 emissions finally we found evidence for the growth hypothesis for both pollutants based on these results a detailed economic energy and environmental policy is proposed and discussed for the case of qatar

payments for ecosystem services and agricultural intensification evidence from a choice experiment on deforestation in zambia agriculture is considered to be one of the major drivers of deforestation worldwide in developing countries in particular this process is driven by small scale agriculture at the same time many african governments aim to increase agricultural productivity empirical evidence suggests however that win win relationships between agricultural intensification and forest conservation are the exception payments for ecosystem services pes could be linked to agriculture support programmes to simultaneously achieve both goals due to potentially higher profits from intensified agriculture than from pure cash transfers potential payment recipients may prefer in kind over conventional cash payments nevertheless little scientific evidence exists regarding the preferences of potential pes recipients for such instruments we report from a discrete choice experiment in zambia that elicited preferences of smallholder farmers for pes contracts our results suggest that potential pes recipients in zambia value in kind agricultural inputs more highly than cash payments even when the monetary value of the inputs is lower than the cash payment highlighting that pes could potentially succeed in conserving forests and intensifying smallholder agriculture respondents who intended to clear forest within the next three years were found to require higher payments but could be motivated to enrol in appropriately designed pes

heterogeneous users and willingness to pay in an ongoing payment for watershed protection initiative in the colombian andes abstract flat fees in payment for environmental services pes schemes promote administrative ease and are perceived as egalitarian however when environmental service es buyers are heterogeneous in their income and water consumption levels this scheme may not be optimal as total payments might become too low and services under supplied this paper estimates willingness to pay wtp higher fees from hydrological service buyers in an ongoing pes initiative in an andean watershed in colombia where small flat user payments have been introduced es users fall into two highly heterogeneous categories smallholder peasants and recreational house owners we perform a contingent valuation analysis in a representative sample of 218 households for improved water services es buyers on average are willing to pay monthly about us 1 premium over current flat pes rate users heterogeneity however affects significantly this outcome while recreational house owners are willing to pay monthly on average us 1 61 more than the current fee smallholders only us 0 41 spatial variables such as distance to the water distribution point and to the town center importantly influence wtp results may help designing user driven pes schemes in line with efficiency and equity objectives

effect of eco compensation schemes on household income structures and herder satisfaction lessons from the grassland ecosystem subsidy and award scheme in inner mongolia the grassland ecosystem subsidy and award scheme gesas is a key set of policy instruments designed to improve grassland condition and herder livelihoods in china this paper uses a structural equation modelling sem approach to investigate the impacts of gesas on livestock practices herder incomes and employment and overall herder satisfaction in inner mongolia the findings reveal that more intensive use of on farm inputs mediated the effects of lower stocking rate under the scheme on on farm income conversely gesas had a direct and negative impact on off farm income overall the findings do highlight the incentive role of gesas on herder decisions but also indicate a level of dissatisfaction among herders as the level of compensation is insufficient to cover the extra effort expended by herders and does not meet the livelihood expectations of most herders

analysis of south korea s economic growth carbon dioxide emission and energy consumption using the markov switching model abstract recently many countries have been making an effort to reduce their carbon dioxide co2 emission and as part of such effort the united nations framework convention on climate change unfccc adopted the kyoto protocol in 1997 south korea is very likely to be included in the second batch of countries that must reduce their greenhouse gas emission after the end of the implementation of the kyoto protocol in 2012 reducing the country s co2 emission however can have an impact on the economy therefore in this study the correlations between south korea s economic growth co2 emission and energy consumption were analyzed the analysis period was from q1 1991 to q4 2011 and the analysis methods that were used were regression analysis for the relational analysis among the various overall indices and the markov switching model for a more detailed analysis the results of the analyses showed that south korea s economic growth and co2 emission were coincidental the correlation analysis of the country s economic growth and energy consumption showed a significant correlation between economic growth and fossil fuels which emit co2 such as coal in the industrial sector petroleum products in the industrial and transportation sectors and liquefied natural gas lng in the residential commercial and industrial sectors it is expected that the results of this study will pave the way for the conduct of various researches on controlling the country s co2 emission management and for suggestions for such to be given such as policies for reducing the energy consumption in each sector using the methodology proposed in this study

credit based payments for ecosystem services evidence from a choice experiment in ecuador the original conceptualization of payments for ecosystem services pes promoted direct payments to motivate the provision of environmental public goods but market imperfections and behavioral considerations can mean that pes that reduce market constraints are preferred the main issue with the latter is how to include conditionality we propose credit based pes cb pes as an incentive that links an environmental condition with the reduction of a key market constraint through a choice experiment in ecuador cb pes was found to be a promising form of pes with multiple desirable qualities of an incentive as cited in the behavioral economics and pes literatures

economic growth energy conservation and emissions reduction a comparative analysis based on panel data for 8 asian pacific countries this study was conducted to evaluate the causality between energy consumption gdp growth and carbon emissions for eight asia pacific countries from 1971 to 2005 using the panel data the results indicate that there are long run equilibrium relationships between these variables additionally causality from energy consumption to co2 emissions was observed generally but there were some opposite relationships also parameter estimations of the panel data model indicate that there are great differences in the carbon emissions the efficiencies of energy use carbon emissions of unit gdp and unit energy consumption between developed and developing countries the base carbon emissions per capita energy consumption and efficiency of energy use in developing countries are far lower than in developed countries however the co2 emissions per unit of energy use is higher although developing countries may reduce their co2 emission per unit energy use total energy consumption will rise rapidly with economic development thus developing countries must determine how to undergo economic growth while conserving energy and reducing emissions to respond to global climate change it is necessary to develop innovative technology for energy use transform the energy structure and conduct the clean development mechanism

causal relationship between energy consumption and gdp revisited the case of korea 1970 1999 abstract causal relationship between energy consumption and economic growth is investigated applying a multivariate model of capital labor energy and gdp usual btu energy aggregate is substituted with a divisia aggregate in an attempt to mitigate aggregation bias to test for granger causality in the presence of cointegration among the variables we employ a vector error correction model rather than a vector autoregressive model empirical results for korea over the period 1970 1999 suggest a long run bidirectional causal relationship between energy and gdp and short run unidirectional causality running from energy to gdp the source of causation in the long run is found to be the error correction terms in both directions

co2 emissions energy consumption and economic growth in turkey abstract this paper examines the long run and causal relationship issues between economic growth carbon emissions energy consumption and employment ratio in turkey by using autoregressive distributed lag bounds testing approach of cointegration empirical results for turkey over the period 1968 2005 suggest an evidence of a long run relationship between the variables at 5 significance level in turkey the estimated income elasticity of carbon emissions per capita is 0 606 and the income elasticity of energy consumption per capita is 1 375 results for the existence and direction of granger causality show that neither carbon emissions per capita nor energy consumption per capita cause real gdp per capita but employment ratio causes real gdp per capita in the short run in addition ekc hypothesis at causal framework by using a linear logarithmic model is not valid in turkish case the overall results indicates that energy conservation policies such as rationing energy consumption and controlling carbon dioxide emissions are likely to have no adverse effect on the real output growth of turkey

oil growth and health what does the cross country evidence really show we show that previous results from the body of literature on the resource curse have primarily been driven by the collapse in oil prices during the mid 1980s by exploiting cross country variations in the size of initial oil endowments and the timing of oil discoveries we find that there is a stable positive relationship between oil abundance and long run economic growth using dynamic panel data methods we also find that there is no evidence that higher oil rents hinder growth however to focus on material gain means that the welfare gain from oil is understated because oil rich countries benefit more by the reduction in infant mortality and the gain in longevity interestingly such oil led health improvements are more pronounced in non democratic countries where initial heath conditions were poor and oil wealth is concentrated among the ruling elites

the influence of real output renewable and non renewable energy trade and financial development on carbon emissions in the top renewable energy countries due to tremendous increase in the level of carbon dioxide co2 emissions in the last several decades a number of studies in the energy growth environment literature have attempted to identify the determinants of co2 emissions a major criticism related to the existing studies we realize is the selection of panel estimation techniques almost all studies use panel methods that ignore the issue of cross sectional dependence even though countries in the panel are most likely heterogeneous and cross sectionally dependent in addition the majority of existing studies use aggregate energy consumption and thus fail to identify the impacts of energy consumption by sources on the environment in order to fulfill the mentioned gaps in the literature this empirical study analyzes the influence of the real income renewable energy consumption non renewable energy consumption trade openness and financial development on co2 emissions in the ekc model for the top countries listed in the renewable energy country attractiveness index by employing heterogeneous panel estimation techniques with cross section dependence we find that the analyzed variables become stationary at their first differences by using the cadf and the cips unit root tests and the analyzed variables are cointegrated by employing the lm bootstrap cointegration test by using the fmols and the dols we also find that increases in renewable energy consumption trade openness and financial development decrease carbon emissions while increases in non renewable energy consumption contribute to the level of emissions and the ekc hypothesis is supported for the top renewable energy countries

an institutional analysis of payments for environmental services abstract in this paper the characteristics and functioning of pes is analyzed from an institutional perspective while in theory pes is seen as a market solution to environmental problems as an alternative to state hierarchical and community governance a review of a large amount of case studies shows that pes in practice depends rather fundamentally on state and or community engagement hence pes are foremost a reconfiguration of the roles of public bodies and communities becoming core intermediaries or buyers first to establish pes rights to the land that delivers the environmental service must be clarified this demands public action second transacting over environmental amenities is very costly creating markets for environmental services depends therefore crucially on state and community facilitation hence buyers are often public agencies high transaction costs also influence price setting payments do not follow the market format as intermediaries frequently are setting the price with users often being unaware even of the fact that they pay finally the distinction between payments as incentives and as fair compensations is emphasized while payments may strengthen community relations and simplify action for environmental care they may also introduce a purely instrumental logic and in some cases worsen the environmental status by crowding out environmental virtues for the future greater awareness of these dynamics is warranted

oil price shocks income and democracy he effect of natural resource wealth and income on political institutions is a central issue at the intersection of economics and political sciences we contribute to this research by examining the effect of international oil price fluctuations on democratic institutions over the 1960 2007 period we also exploit the very persistent response of aggregate income to oil prices to study the effect of persistent oil price driven income shocks on democracy our results indicate that countries with greater net oil exports over gdp see improvements in democratic institutions following upturns in international oil prices for example positive oil price shocks lead to improvements in the polity democracy score as well as the subscores for executive constraints executive recruitment and political competition and a higher probability of a democratic transition we estimate that an oil price driven 1 percentage point increase in per capita gdp growth increases the polity democracy score by around 0 2 percentage points on impact and by around 2 percentage points in the long run the effect on the probability of a democratic transition is around 0 4 percentage points our work relates to the literature on the link between political institutions and natural resource wealth and income an influential early contribution is lipset 1959 who documents that high income countries tend to be more democratic he argues that this positive correlation arises because higher per capita income is a symptom of the modernization of society and that modernization also increases citizens demand for political participation the positive association between income and democracy has also been emphasized by huntington 1991 who holds that higher per capita income was one of the key factors behind the

economic growth energy consumption financial development international trade and co2 emissions in indonesia this study examines the linkages among economic growth energy consumption financial development trade openness and co2 emissions over the period of 1975q1 2011q4 in the case of indonesia the stationary analysis is performed by using zivot andrews structural break unit root test and the ardl bounds testing approach for a long run relationship between the series in the presence of structural breaks the causal relation between the concerned variable is examined by the vecm granger causality technique and robustness of causal analysis is tested by innovative accounting approach iaa our results confirm that the variables are cointegrated it means that the long run relationship exists in the presence of structural break stemming in the series the empirical findings indicate that economic growth and energy consumption increases co2 emissions while financial development and trade openness compact it the vecm causality analysis has shown the feedback hypothesis between energy consumption and co2 emissions economic growth and co2 emissions are also interrelated i e bidirectional causality financial development granger causes co2 emissions the study opens up a new policy insights to control the environment from degradation by using energy efficient technologies financial development and trade openness can also play their role in improving the environmental quality

effects of financial development indicators on energy consumption and co2 emission of european east asian and oceania countries the financial crisis is considered a major economic issue and energy consumption and pollution are believed to be one of the most important environmental concerns in the new millennium the review on investigation of the nexus among energy consumption gdp growth financial development and co2 emission has shown no definitive conclusion apart from that the effects of financial development on energy consumption are not yet understood properly thus this article investigates the effects of financial indicator shocks i e credit market and stock market shocks on energy consumption and carbon dioxide co2 emissions and vice versa panel vector auto regression pvar models were employed to investigate the relationships in 13 european and 12 east asia and oceania countries from 1989 to 2011 findings emphasize the important role of co2 emission and energy consumption on explaining each other s deviation with only the degree of effect differing although energy consumption and co2 emission shocks on financial indicators such as private sector credit is not very pronounced in both groups of countries but the strength of energy consumption shock on stock return rate in european countries is greater than east asian and oceania countries conversely shocks to stock return rate influence energy consumption especially in long horizon in case of east asia and oceania countries

institutions and the resource curse countries rich in natural resources constitute both growth losers and growth winners we claim that the main reason for these diverging experiences is differences in the quality of institutions more natural resources push aggregate income down when institutions are grabber friendly while more resources raise income when institutions are producer friendly we test this theory building on sachs and warner s influential works on the resource curse our main hypothesis that institutions are decisive for the resource curse is confirmed our results contrast the claims of sachs and warner that institutions do not play a role

can payments for environmental services help reduce poverty an exploration of the issues and the evidence to date from latin america summary this paper examines the main ways in which payments for environmental services pes might affect poverty pes may reduce poverty mainly by making payments to poor natural resource managers in upper watersheds the extent of the impact depends on how many pes participants are in fact poor on the poors ability to participate and on the amounts paid although pes programs are not designed for poverty reduction there can be important synergies when program design is well thought out and local conditions are favorable possible adverse effects can occur where property rights are insecure or if pes programs encourage less labor intensive practices 2004 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

electricity consumption and economic growth evidence from korea abstract this paper investigates the short and long run causality issues between electricity consumption and economic growth in korea by using the co integration and error correction models it employs annual data covering the period 1970 2002 the overall results show that there exists bi directional causality between electricity consumption and economic growth this means that an increase in electricity consumption directly affects economic growth and that economic growth also stimulates further electricity consumption

decentralized payments for environmental services the cases of pimampiro and profafor in ecuador abstract few payment for environmental services pes schemes in developing countries operate outside of the central state s umbrella and are at the same time old enough to allow for a meaningful evaluation ecuador has two such decentralised consolidated experiences the five year old pimampiro municipal watershed protection scheme and the twelve year old profafor carbon sequestration programme we describe and compare the two cases using a common pes definition and methodology drawing on both primary interview based information and secondary data we find that both schemes have been relatively effective in reaching their environmental objectives in terms of having probably high additionality levels and low leakage effects a strong focus on the targeted environmental service and a strong degree of conditionality seem to be two key factors explaining these achievements although neither scheme has targeted poverty alleviation or other side objectives both are likely to have improved pes recipients welfare mostly through higher incomes we highlight several observations with more generalised relevance and lessons for the design of pes schemes

poor household participation in payments for environmental services lessons from the silvopastoral project in quindio colombia as the use of payments for environmental services pes approaches in developing countries has grown concern has arisen over the ability of poorer households to participate this paper uses data from a pes project implemented in quindio colombia to examine the extent to which poorer households that are eligible to participate are in fact able to do so the project provides a strong test of the ability of poorer households to participate in a pes program as it required participants to make substantial and complex land use changes the results show that poorer households are in fact able to participate at levels that are broadly similar to those of better off households moreover their participation was not limited to the simpler least expensive options transaction costs may be greater obstacles to the participation of poorer households than household specific constraints

towards a unified scheme for environmental and social protection learning from pes and cct experiences in developing countries environmental protection and poverty alleviation in the developing world are usually heralded as joint objectives however these two goals are often associated with different sectoral policy instruments while so called payments for environmental services pes are increasingly being promoted for environmental protection poverty alleviation is increasingly addressed by conditional cash transfers cct program these instruments although aimed to achieve distinct objectives have a number of similarities and challenges in their design and implementation phases this paper elaborates on these similarities and develops a unifying generic framework that is used to discuss the extent to which both approaches could be unified

the history of ecosystem services in economic theory and practice from early notions to markets and payment schemes article i nfo this paper reviews the historic development of the conceptualization of ecosystem services and examines critical landmarks in economic theory and practice with regard to the incorporation of ecosystem services into markets and payment schemes the review presented here suggests that the trend towards monetization and commodification of ecosystem services is partly the result of a slow move from the original economic conception of nature s benefits as use values in classical economics to their conceptualization in terms of exchange values in neoclassical economics the theory and practice of current ecosystem services science are examined inthelight ofthis historicaldevelopment from thisreview we conclude thatthefocus onmonetary valuation and payment schemes has contributed to attract political support for conservation but also to commodify a growing number of ecosystem services and to reproduce the neoclassical economics paradigm and the market logic to tackle environmental problems

rational expectations econometric analysis of changes in regime an investigation of the term structure of interest rates abstract this paper is of interest both for its methodological contribution of new tools for analyzing rational expectations models and for its substantive conclusions concerning the term structure of interest rates during the monetary experiment of october 1979 the paper studies systems subject to changes in regime interpreted here as occasional discrete shifts in the parameters governing the time series behavior of exogenous economic variables the specification is shown to be quite tractable both theoretically and empirically the technique is used to analyze yields on three month treasury bills and ten year treasury bonds during 1962 to 1987 a constant parameter linear model for short term rates is shown to be inconsistent both with the univariate time series properties of short rates and with the observed bivariate relation between long and short rates under the expectations hypothesis of the term structure an alternative nonlinear model that admits the possibility of changes in regime affords a much better description of the univariate process for short rates moreover the cross equation restrictions implied by the expectations hypothesis of the term structure are consistent with the nonlinear specification indeed the residuals of the restricted relation have a standard error of only 0 8 basis points this is a third less than that of a completely unrestricted linear regression of long rates on short rates and compares with an unconditional standard deviation of long rates of 142 basis points i conclude that once the recognition by bond traders of changes in regime is taken into account the expectations hypothesis of the term structure of interest rates holds up fairly well for these data

the resource curse exorcised evidence from a panel of countries abstract this paper evaluates the impact of major natural resource discoveries since 1950 on gdp per capita using panel fixed effects estimation and resource discoveries in countries that were not previously resource rich as a plausibly exogenous source of variation i find a positive effect on gdp per capita levels following resource exploitation that persists in the long term results vary significantly between oecd and non oecd treatment countries with effects concentrated within the non oecd group i further test gdp effects with synthetic control analysis on each individual treated country yielding results consistent with the average effects found with the fixed effects model

a model for determining the optimal lease payment in the solar lease business for residences and third party companies with focus on the region and on multi family housing complexes abstract the solar lease business is a recent market trend that has been introduced in many countries an example is the u s solar lease payment lp business which is a payment facility for leasing the solar pv system where the customers pay a certain amount to a third party company in the solar lease business the profit obtained by residences and third party companies depends on the solar lp several impact factors should be simultaneously considered when estimating the solar lp that guarantees the profitability of the business for both sides this study aimed to develop a model for determining the optimal solar lp in the solar lease business for residences and third party companies a genetic algorithm was utilized to solve the trade off problem among the many factors involved the optimal solar lp was provided according to two categories i the electricity generation rate by region and ii the electricity consumption rates of multi family housing complexes in terms of the region the optimal solar lp depended on the electricity generation rate and the difference between the highest and lowest monthly solar lps per unit was us 0 30 in terms of the electricity consumption rate the optimal solar lp depended on the electricity consumption rate and the number of units and the difference between the highest and lowest monthly solar lps per unit was us 3 14 the developed model makes it possible for the government to suggest the optimal solar lp for promoting the solar lease business and to develop a solar pv system

the relationship between co2 emissions and economic growth the case of korea with nonlinear evidence abstract using star models we investigate the nonlinear dynamic properties and the interdependence of co2 emissions and economic growth for korea the estimation results indicate that the growth rate of both co2 emissions and industrial production exhibit a significant nonlinear asymmetric dynamics while the linear granger causality test finds no causality in any direction the results of the nonlinear granger causality tests show a two way causality between co2 emissions and economic growth the strong mutual causation between co2 emissions and economic activities indicates that the economic impact from co2 mitigation is expected to be higher in korea this suggests that the appropriate energy and environmental policy be to mitigate co2 emissions while having less impact on the economy

carbon dioxide co2 emissions during urbanization a comparative study between china and japan as the world s largest emitter of co2 china is facing increasing domestic and international pressures on emissions mitigation considering japan s leading position in energy conservation this paper conducts a comparative study between china and japan at the urbanization stages to analyze the similarities as well as differences of influencing factors of co2 emissions results indicate that although co2 emissions in japan and china showed the similar characteristics of rigid growth during the urbanization processes significant differences exist in factors such as co2 emissions per capita energy structure and energy intensity between the two countries which are the determinants for co2 emissions growth a cointegration model is constructed to examine the long run equilibrium relationship between co2 emissions and factors including gdp urbanization level energy intensity and cement manufacture empirical results show that there is a quadratic relationship between income growth and co2 emissions granger causality test is then adopted to explore the causal relationships among the variables the future co2 emissions and emission reduction potentials in china are estimated based on scenario analysis finally japan s valuable experience of reducing energy intensity and optimizing energy structure is concluded to provide important policy implications for china s strategic low carbon planning and low carbon transition

a review on energy systems and ghg emissions reduction plan and policy of the republic of korea past present and future abstract the primary objectives of this study were to understand the energy plans and policies of the republic of korea rok and outline its development in the energy sector both qualitative and quantitative information were gathered and evaluated in the context of the defined objectives the study has outlined that the primary motivational factor for achieving the current improved energy status of the rok was to support the rapid industrial growth and socio economic development of the country the major steps taken were to manage the country s escalating energy demand and to minimize the greenhouse emissions in energy sector along its progressive economic development the economic growth of the country had good correlation with the escalating fossil fuel consumption this is however among the great concerns in the country in today s global agenda of sustainable energy managements the country has been primarily relying on the imported energy sources which averaged to 84 including nuclear generation of the total primary energy supply tpes during the period of 2000 2014 oil has been the main source of energy supply in the country followed by coal and natural gas penetration of renewable energy technologies was primarily motivated to meet the country s strategic goals including the downscaling of ghg emission by 37 by 2030 compared to the business as usual bau situation despite the different initiations in the energy management renewable energy sources covered only 4 5 of the tpes in 2014 in addition the country s urgent need now is also towards the management of the available natural resources to support the growing demand of bio economy at this particular interest the country needs to identify the sustainable availability of resources to balance the multi fold sectors this demands comprehensive energy system analysis along with identifying the avenues of the utilization of biomass resources

taking stock a comparative analysis of payments for environmental services programs in developed and developing countries abstract payments for environmental services pes are an innovative approach to conservation that has been applied increasingly often in both developed and developing countries to date however few efforts have been made to systematically compare pes experiences drawing on the wealth of case studies in this special issue we synthesize the information presented according to case characteristics with respect to design costs environmental effectiveness and other outcomes pes programs often differ substantially one from the other some of the differences reflect adaptation of the basic concept to very different ecological socioeconomic or institutional conditions others reflect poor design due either to mistakes or to the need to accommodate political pressures we find significant differences between user financed pes programs in which funding comes from the users of the es being provided and government financed programs in which funding comes from a third party the user financed programs in our sample were better targeted more closely tailored to local conditions and needs had better monitoring and a greater willingness to enforce conditionality and had far fewer confounding side objectives than government financed programs we finish by outlining some perspectives on how both user and government financed pes programs could be made more effective and cost efficient

econometric analysis of trade exports imports energy consumption and co2 emission in six regions abstract the aim of this study is to explore the bi directional long run relationship between trade energy consumption trade co 2 emission exports energy consumption exports co 2 emission imports energy consumption and imports co 2 emission 189 countries from six different regions namely asia pacific eastern europe the americas middle east and north africa mena sub saharan africa ssa and western europe were selected the panel fully modified ols fmols was utilized taking the period of 1990 2011 the panel results show that all the regions excluding eastern europe show a long run positive relationship between the trade variables energy consumption and between the trade variable co 2 emission however at the country level the results reveal that the feedback long run positive relationship between the trade variables energy consumption and co 2 emission takes place in most cases when the share of trade of goods and services to gdp is significant and the level of the countries development is high however the negative or the non significant long run relationship between the variables takes place generally in countries when the trade variables do not play a large share in their gdp and when these countries are in early development stages

hidden regimes and the demand for carbon dioxide from motor gasoline abstract perhaps the most tactile source of anthropogenic carbon dioxide co2 emissions stem from vehicle use because consumers are well aware of their price and quantity decisions it is likely that consumer demand for co2 emissions from motor gasoline are quite responsive to the overall state of the economy using a structurally identified markov switching demand model i find that co2 emissions respond asymmetrically to changes in income and the price of gasoline in expansionary and contracting states of the economy the findings of this paper indicate that flexible policy instruments have the potential to mitigate undue burden on consumers and producers compared to their static counterparts

renewable energy policies and contradictions in causality a case of next 11 countries abstract numerous studies on the causal relationship between economic growth energy consumption and carbon dioxide co2 emissions have shown divergence in policy recommendations which arises mainly due to the choice of methodology and the period of study this inconclusiveness in policy prescriptions might turn out to be critical when the renewable energy policies of the developing nations are considered our study analyses the causal relationship between economic growth carbon emissions fossil fuel and renewable energy consumption in next 11 countries during the period of 1990 2016 along with conducting parametric and non parametric causality tests together introducing the geweke 1982 causality test in the literature of energy economics we attempt to establish a wholesome aspect of policy design by comparing and complementing results of different causality analysis and how the causality directions should comply with the context setting our empirical evidence confirms that robust renewable energy policy can be designed by complementing the various causality test results rather than focusing on one particular causality test

assessing sustainable forest management under redd a community based labour perspective abstract reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation plus redd encourages economic support for reducing deforestation and conserving or increasing existing forest carbon stocks the way in which incentives are structured affects trade offs between local livelihoods carbon emission reduction and the cost effectiveness of a redd programme looking at first hand empirical data from 208 farming households in the bolivian amazon from a household economy perspective our study explores two policy options 1 compensated reduction of emissions from old growth forest clearing for agriculture and 2 direct payments for labour input into sustainable forest management combined with a commitment not to clear old growth forest our results indicate that direct payments for sustainable forest management an approach that focuses on valuing farmers labour input can be more cost effective than compensated reduction and in some cases is the most appropriate choice for achieving improved household incomes permanence of changes avoidance of leakages and community based institutional enforcement for sustainable forest management

exploring the links between equity and efficiency in payments for environmental services a conceptual approach this paper addresses the relationship between equity and efficiency in pes schemes from a conceptual point of view emphasis is placed on the role of the institutional setting social perceptions about economic fairness or distributive justice of the payments uncertainty and interactions between agents including power relations we introduce the heuristic concept of the efficiency equity interdependency curve to illustrate potential combinations between equity and efficiency that may be theoretically possible the paper argues that different types of institutional factors determine which equity efficiency combinations may be potentially feasible influence the actual combination that will be achieved on the ground and condition possible changes in that combination due to exogenous factors by stressing the role of institutional aspects in shaping the equity efficiency relationship the paper attempts to go beyond the dominant coasean vision of pes