In the literature on the attribution of responsibilities for greenhouse gas emissions, two accounting methods have been widely discussed: production-based accounting (PBA) and consumption-based ...accounting (CBA). It has been argued that an accounting framework for attributing responsibilities should credit actions contributing to reduce global emissions and should penalize actions increasing them. Neither PBA nor CBA satisfy this principle. Adapting classical Ricardian trade theory, we consider ex post measurement and propose a scheme for assigning credits and penalties. Their size is determined by how much CO
emissions are saved globally due to trade. This leads to the emission responsibility allotment (ERA) for assigning responsibilities. We illustrate the differences between ERA and PBA and CBA by comparing their results for 41 countries and regions between 1995-2009. The Paris Agreement (COP21) proposed new market mechanisms; we argue that ERA is well suited to measure and evaluate their overall mitigation impact.
Although the transition to renewable energies will intensify the global competition for land, the potential impacts driven by solar energy remain unexplored. In this work, the potential solar land ...requirements and related land use change emissions are computed for the EU, India, Japan and South Korea. A novel method is developed within an integrated assessment model which links socioeconomic, energy, land and climate systems. At 25-80% penetration in the electricity mix of those regions by 2050, we find that solar energy may occupy 0.5-5% of total land. The resulting land cover changes, including indirect effects, will likely cause a net release of carbon ranging from 0 to 50 gCO
/kWh, depending on the region, scale of expansion, solar technology efficiency and land management practices in solar parks. Hence, a coordinated planning and regulation of new solar energy infrastructures should be enforced to avoid a significant increase in their life cycle emissions through terrestrial carbon losses.
To better anticipate potential impacts of climate change, diverse information about the future is required, including climate, society and economy, and adaptation and mitigation. To address this ...need, a global RCP (Representative Concentration Pathways), SSP (Shared Socio-economic Pathways), and SPA (Shared climate Policy Assumptions) (RCP–SSP–SPA) scenario framework has been developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report (IPCC-AR5). Application of this full global framework at sub-national scales introduces two key challenges: added complexity in capturing the multiple dimensions of change, and issues of scale. Perhaps for this reason, there are few such applications of this new framework. Here, we present an integrated multi-scale hybrid scenario approach that combines both expert-based and participatory methods. The framework has been developed and applied within the DECCMA11DECCMA (DEltas, vulnerability and Climate Change: Migration and Adaptation) project is part of the Collaborative Adaptation Research Initiative in Africa and Asia (CARIAA), with financial support from the UK Government's Department for International Development (DFID) and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada. For more information, visit the project website: http://www.geodata.soton.ac.uk/deccma/. project with the purpose of exploring migration and adaptation in three deltas across West Africa and South Asia: (i) the Volta delta (Ghana), (ii) the Mahanadi delta (India), and (iii) the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM) delta (Bangladesh/India). Using a climate scenario that encompasses a wide range of impacts (RCP8.5) combined with three SSP-based socio-economic scenarios (SSP2, SSP3, SSP5), we generate highly divergent and challenging scenario contexts across multiple scales against which robustness of the human and natural systems within the deltas are tested. In addition, we consider four distinct adaptation policy trajectories: Minimum intervention, Economic capacity expansion, System efficiency enhancement, and System restructuring, which describe alternative future bundles of adaptation actions/measures under different socio-economic trajectories. The paper highlights the importance of multi-scale (combined top-down and bottom-up) and participatory (joint expert-stakeholder) scenario methods for addressing uncertainty in adaptation decision-making. The framework facilitates improved integrated assessments of the potential impacts and plausible adaptation policy choices (including migration) under uncertain future changing conditions. The concept, methods, and processes presented are transferable to other sub-national socio-ecological settings with multi-scale challenges.
An integrated scenario framework for applying the global RCP–SSP–SPA scenario framework at sub-national scale: A multi-scale and participatory approach. The generic framework (left) is applied and demonstrated within the DECCMA project to explore migration and adaptation in deltas (right, showing the various scales of interest and broad workflow). Display omitted
•We develop a framework for applying the global RCP-SSP-SPA scenario framework at sub-national scales.•The framework is applied and tested for deltas to explore migration and adaptation.•We demonstrated the benefits of a multi-dimensional approach to capture different drivers of change.•Highlighted the need to integrate the best science and stakeholder views.•The concept, methods, processes are transferrable to other sub-national settings with multi-scale challenges.
We construct a multiregional input–output model for Spain, in order to evaluate the pressures on the water resources, virtual water flows, and water footprints of the regions, and the water impact of ...trade relationships within Spain and abroad. The study is framed with those interregional input–output models constructed to study water flows and impacts of regions in China, Australia, Mexico, or the UK. To build our database, we reconcile regional IO tables, national and regional accountancy of Spain, trade and water data. Results show an important imbalance between origin of water resources and final destination, with significant water pressures in the South, Mediterranean, and some central regions. The most populated and dynamic regions of Madrid and Barcelona are important drivers of water consumption in Spain. Main virtual water exporters are the South and Central agrarian regions: Andalusia, Castile-La Mancha, Castile-Leon, Aragon, and Extremadura, while the main virtual water importers are the industrialized regions of Madrid, Basque country, and the Mediterranean coast. The paper shows the different location of direct and indirect consumers of water in Spain and how the economic trade and consumption pattern of certain areas has significant impacts on the availability of water resources in other different and often drier regions.
The food, energy, and water (FEW) nexus has gained increased attention, resulting in numerous studies on management approaches. Themes of resource use, and their subsequent scarcity and economic ...rents, which are within the application domain of the World Trade Model, are ripe for study, with the continuing development of forward- and backward-facing economic data. Scenarios of future food and energy demand, relating to supply chains, as well as direct and indirect resource uses, are modelled in this paper. While it is possible to generate a substantial number of economic and environmental scenarios, our focus is on the development of an overarching approach involving a range of scenarios. We intend to establish a benchmark of possibilities in the context of the debates surrounding the Paris Climate Agreement (COP21) and the Green New Deal. Our approach draws heavily from the existing literature on international agreements and targets, notably that of COP21, whose application we associate with the Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP). Relevant factor uses and scarcity rent increases are found and localized, e.g., on the optimal qualities of water, minerals, and land. A clear policy implication is that, in all scenarios, processes of energy transition, raw material use reduction, and recycling must be strengthened.
In this article, we offer an analysis of point-source water pollution governance in the European agri-food sector. Specifically, we tackle the case study of the wine industry in Aragon (Spain) ...through the lenses of the networks of action situations approach. We unveil key strategic decisions of wine producers in relation to compliance with water discharge regulations and explore the feasibility and effectiveness of potential solutions. According to our quantitative and qualitative analyses, the problem of peak load discharges in the sector can be explained by the strategic behavior of wine producers in the context of enforcement deficits, as well as by particularities of the wine production process, and controversies around the construction and management of public treatment plants. Coordination among wine producers and public treatment plant managers to invest in in-house treatment infrastructure or to smooth discharges out so they fit the capacity of treatment plants would be a promising solution; however, economic incentives and tightened enforcement of discharge regulations would also be necessary.
Graphical abstract
This article originates from the theoretical and empirical characterization of factors in the World Trade Model (WTM). It first illustrates the usefulness of this type of model for water research to ...address policy questions related to virtual water trade, water constraints and water scarcity. It also illustrates the importance of certain key decisions regarding the heterogeneity of water and its relation to the technologies being employed and the prices obtained. With regard to WTM, the global economic input–output model in which multiple technologies can produce a “homogeneous output”, it was recently shown that two different mechanisms should be distinguished by which multiple technologies can arise, i.e., from “technology-specific” or from “shared” factors, which implies a mechanism-specific set of prices, quantities and rents. We discuss and extend these characterizations, notably in relation to the real-world characterization of water as a factor (for which we use the terms technology specific, fully shared and “mixed”). We propose that the presence of these separate mechanisms results in the models being sensitive to relatively small variations in specific numerical values. To address this sensitivity, we suggest a specific role for specific (sub)models or key choices to counter unrealistic model outcomes. To support our proposal we present a selection of simulations for aggregated world regions, and show how key results concerning quantities, prices and rents can be subject to considerable change depending on the precise definitions of resource endowments and the technology-specificity of the factors. For instance, depending on the adopted water heterogeneity level, outcomes can vary from relatively low-cost solutions to higher cost ones and can even reach infeasibility. In the main model discussed here (WTM) factor prices are exogenous, which also contributes to the overall numerical sensitivity of the model. All this affects to a large extent our interpretation of the water challenges, which preferably need to be assessed in integrated frameworks, to account for the main socioeconomic variables, technologies and resources.
Migration and environmental change are deeply interconnected processes, intimately linked to development pathways. The gender dimension of these complex interactions is often overlooked. Yet there ...are profound linkages and implications. This paper focuses on the gender division of labour to investigate how migration and environmental change relate to gender equality and sustainability. The study draws on research conducted in the Mahanadi delta, in the eastern Indian state of Odisha. In the Mahanadi delta labour migration is largely male dominated. Women remain behind in vulnerable environments facing social and economic challenges having impacts on their empowerment and wellbeing. The findings show shifts in work burden, as women often engage in new activities alongside the traditional domestic and social reproductive work but highlight differences across age and household headship. Firstly, this paper identifies the connections between gender, sustainability and care –conceptually and empirically. Secondly, it explores the gender division of labour in the study area by discussing its structural causes. Thirdly, it provides insights into migration dynamics and examines how they feed back into gender equality and sustainability. Finally, it argues for the need of integrated analytical approaches that reflect ecological and social-equity challenges.
•This study traces interlinkages between migration, sustainability and gender with a focus on care work.•The Mahanadi delta in India constitutes the case study which is interesting to understand these complex interrelations.•Consequences of male-out migration are quite negative and clear-cut for the women who are left-behind.•Improving women well-being is important, but enhancing agency is just as critical (e.g., control over remittances).•Furthermore, the cited out-migration challenges natural resource management and risks of environmental degradation.
Summary
Making the link between the different economic scales—local, regional, and global—and the impacts associated with more global behavior is a natural extension of traditional environmentally ...extended input‐output (I‐O) modeling. In this article, we highlight the capabilities of combining the meso level (i.e., regional) I‐O models with geographical information systems (GIS) and micro data to lower the spatial scale. This methodology lets us provide information to municipalities (what we call the micro scale) on their water footprints (WFs) at a lower spatial level than that of Spanish regions (what we call meso scale), at which economic I‐O data are available. Based on a multiregional I‐O model for the Spanish regions, we analyze the local water impacts of tourism activity in Spain. We focus on the explicit spatial identification of areas of strong final demand (normally the most populated) tracking back the associated footprints to the original hotspots or vulnerable areas (micro scale), where most water withdrawal had taken place. The spatial divergence between the production and the consumption responsibilities arise because consumers and producers usually have very different characteristics, particularly with respect to tourism. We find highest geographic dispersion of WFs of consumption arising from domestic tourism, followed by domestic household consumption, and finally foreign tourism WF. Foreign tourism WF is more concentrated in time and space. Foreign tourism in Andalusia requires directly and indirectly (WF) 617 cubic hectometers (hm3) and in Madrid 440 hm3, indicating that such tourism in both regions accounts for some of the highest water intensities per euro (€) spent by a foreign tourist, around 0.1 cubic meters/€.
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