Abstract
Global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions can be traced to five economic sectors: energy, industry, buildings, transport and AFOLU (agriculture, forestry and other land uses). In this topical ...review, we synthesise the literature to explain recent trends in global and regional emissions in each of these sectors. To contextualise our review, we present estimates of GHG emissions trends by sector from 1990 to 2018, describing the major sources of emissions growth, stability and decline across ten global regions. Overall, the literature and data emphasise that progress towards reducing GHG emissions has been limited. The prominent global pattern is a continuation of underlying drivers with few signs of emerging limits to demand, nor of a deep shift towards the delivery of low and zero carbon services across sectors. We observe a moderate decarbonisation of energy systems in Europe and North America, driven by fuel switching and the increasing penetration of renewables. By contrast, in rapidly industrialising regions, fossil-based energy systems have continuously expanded, only very recently slowing down in their growth. Strong demand for materials, floor area, energy services and travel have driven emissions growth in the industry, buildings and transport sectors, particularly in Eastern Asia, Southern Asia and South-East Asia. An expansion of agriculture into carbon-dense tropical forest areas has driven recent increases in AFOLU emissions in Latin America, South-East Asia and Africa. Identifying, understanding, and tackling the most persistent and climate-damaging trends across sectors is a fundamental concern for research and policy as humanity treads deeper into the Anthropocene.
Analyzing agro-climatic conditions for the period of 1981–2020 has revealed a tendency for local climate warming under the condition of its aridization in the territory of the Central region of the ...Russian Non-Chernozem zone, and the new northern borders for soybean growing in the region have been marked. The isotherm of the sum of active temperatures has been established to have shifted towards high latitudes by 150–200 km. The values of the sum of active temperatures have increased from 1700–2200 °C to 1950–2400 °C, while the amount of precipitation during the growing season has decreased by 20–40 mm on average, from 270–280 mm to 190–230 mm. Three agro-climatic subzones—northern (NAS), central (CAS) and southern (SAS)—have been identified, each characterized by similar temperature and humidity conditions during the growing season. Thus, in the northern agro-climatic subzone, the sum of temperatures during the growing season is 2000–2200 °C, the HTC (hydrothermal coefficient) is 1.4–1.7, and the sum of precipitation is 285–295 mm; in the central subzone, the sum of temperatures is 2200–2400 °C, the HTC is 1.1–1.4, and the sum of precipitation is 265–285 mm; in the southern one, the sum of temperatures is 2400–2600 °C, the HTC is 0.7–1.1, and the sum of precipitation is 255–265 mm. Along with the northern ecotype varieties recommended for this zone, the vegetation features of early maturing soybean varieties of other ecological types—southern and Far Eastern—were studied. As a result of the agro-ecological analysis of early maturing soybean varieties, it has been found that the soybeans belonging to the group of very early or early maturing with a determinant type of growth are recommended for cultivation in the northern agro-climatic subzone of the Central region of the Non-Chernozem zone; the soybean varieties belonging to the group of very early or early maturing with a determinant or semi-determinant type of growth—in the central zone; the soybean varieties belonging to the group of very early or early maturing with a determinant, semi-determinant, and indeterminant type of growth—in the southern zone. Considering the variety characteristics and the agro-ecological tests conducted, it has been found that the northern ecotype varieties can sustainably ripen in all agro-climatic subzones in the Central region of the Non-Chernozem zone, the southern and the Far Eastern varieties—in the central and the southern zones.
This corrigendum resolves an error in figure 17 and clarifies the scope of the cement sector in figure 2. Figure 17 in the original published manuscript depicts a Kaya identity for the agriculture, ...forestry and other land uses (AFOLU) sector. We unintentionally excluded land-use CO2 emissions from total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in this identity, and depicted only agricultural GHG emissions.
This paper provides empirical evidence and theoretical grounds to support the existence of energy cost constants, i.e., relatively stable energy costs to income ratios, not only country-wide, but ...also in major energy end-use sectors. These ratios are similar across different countries at different stages of economic development, but they also depend on the country-specific economy structure and legacy of previous long-standing energy pricing, taxes, and subsidies policies, which it takes time to shift from. The aggregated country-wide energy costs constant (range) is a linear combination of those for sectors weighted by the contributions of respective sectors’ income indicators to either gross output or GDP. Deviation of energy costs shares from the constrained range is possible but limited. The “rule of gravitation” goes: for the whole cycle real energy prices in each sector may grow only as much as energy intensity declines, and inversely promoting energy efficiency can be viewed as a policy, of which the environmental cobenefits will be undermined by rebound effects, unless it is accompanied by rising energy prices.
The paper formulates and explores a hypothesis on three general energy transition laws: the law of stable long-term energy costs to income ratio; the law of improving energy quality; and the law of ...growing energy productivity. These laws are essential for shaping long-term projections and checking for their consistency. All three are rooted in amazingly stable in time and universal across countries energy costs to income ratios. Limited energy purchasing power sets up thresholds, which, if exceeded, bring asymmetry to energy demand to price elasticity. The author believes, that the theoretical postulate on the substantial substitution among production factors, which is used in the production functions theory, may be incorrect. In reality, innovations mainly lead to the substitution of a low-quality production factor with the same yet of a better-quality. Improving energy quality with stable costs to income ratio is accompanied by growing energy productivity. Energy costs to income thresholds are indicators allowing for better projections of oil prices.
This paper elaborates on the energy costs/income constants and the 'minus one' phenomenon. Like a pendulum driven by some economic 'gravitation', energy costs to income ratio tends to get back to the ...narrow zone of sustainable dynamics. The 'gravitation formula' is as follows: for 25-33-years' cycles real energy prices may grow only as much as energy intensity declines. This appears a most important relationship in energy economics. Energy affordability thresholds are identified in all major final energy use sectors. The aggregated economy-wide threshold is a linear combination of those and shows cyclic evolution for decades or even centuries within a sustainable 4-6% range as a fraction of gross output and 8-12% range as a fraction of GDP. These ranges may drift slightly up or down, driven by the economy structure evolution impacted by the role of industrial and services sectors and embodied energy outsourcing. The energy cost share reaches its maximum, when further price increase cannot generate any additional revenue for energy supplier, and it reaches a minimum when price decline undermines the ability of energy suppliers to meet growing demand. The overall energy price elasticity is a weighted sum of price elasticities specific for each group which by the absolute value positively depend on the share of energy costs. This effect makes price elasticities asymmetric. Carbon pricing trap poses restrictions on the magnitude and dynamics of carbon price keeping energy affordable and preventing global economy from stagnation.
This paper presents a newly developed Russian energy efficiency and energy-related GHG emission accounting system (EE-EGHG-AS) and discusses the results obtained. This system is designed to account ...for the energy efficiency progress as achieved in 12 sectors and 80 economic activities and to capture the impacts of 7 factors with a focus on the technological factor. It helped to reveal that in 2015–2021, the technological factor contributed to the 4.3% decline in GDP energy intensity (whereas the traditionally estimated GDP energy intensity was 3.6% up). If non-energy use is excluded, then energy intensity was 2.8% down, which brings the 2021 energy intensity level 15% below the traditional estimates. For some activities, the EE-EGHG-AS has demonstrated a limited ability to adequately assess the contribution made by the technological factor to crashing into, and recovering from, COVID-19-like crises, because the statistically reported data is scarce. With little progress towards energy efficiency improvements Russia is still one of the most energy-intensive countries in the world. Little progress in energy efficiency over the recent years has created the “super-coupling” effect for Russia in 2020–2021 and it is extremely challenging to attain the country’s carbon neutrality target by 2060.
Decision-makers want to be reliably advised on the implications of the decisions they make. Very sophisticated models, which decision-makers are often unfamiliar with, are typically used to provide ...such assessments for large and complex systems. However, even having access to these models, decision-makers can rarely handle them. A model is best known to its developers, who, therefore, need to be contracted to estimate the effects of the proposed policies. This takes time and money, yet leaves the credibility of the results questionable in countries with a limited culture of cooperation between decision-makers and a modeling community. One possible, yet partial, solution is to use an ensemble of models. Another option is to use a set of compact meta-models to address specific policies and measures; the parameters of such compact models can be assessed using other, large and complex, models. Decision-makers can run these simple compact models on their own to make policy dialogue more operational and to have more confidence in the results. This paper presents one such model, which consists of 95 compact sub-models designed to outline comprehensive energy efficiency programs, along with the results of its pilot application for an illustrative set of policies. This application has shown, that such models may serve as an effective tool for a prompt policy dialogue with all stakeholders in compiling the policy package to untap the most of the available energy efficiency potential to meet sector-specific or economy-wide goals in terms of energy savings or energy intensity reduction.
This paper considers Russian economy-wide energy efficiency potential by sectors and energy carriers. The assessment shows that Russian technical energy efficiency potential exceeds 45% of 2005 ...primary energy consumption or 294 mtoe (excluding associated gas flaring). This is about the annual primary energy consumption in France, the UK, or Ukraine, half of that in Japan, and over 2% of the global primary energy consumption. Related CO
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emission reduction potential is 50% of the Russian 2005 emission. Special attention is given to methodological issues in aggregating potentials identified in final energy use and to the evaluation of indirect energy efficiency gains. This study found that the energy efficiency potential doubles, if associated reduction of energy use, as well as technology progress, in energy production and transformation are accounted for. Cost curves for energy efficiency improvements were developed using the incremental cost approach to identify the cost-effective part of the potential.
This paper was developed to evaluate the effectiveness of energy efficiency policies recently launched in the Russian Federation. Pilot applications in 2011–2013 of the energy efficiency and energy ...savings accounting system in Russia and energy consumption growth decomposition analysis developed in this paper have shown that (1) its creation is possible even when using a noncomprehensive statistical database; (2) its application provides nontrivial results and shows that the impressive GDP energy intensity decline in the period 2000–2012 was mostly (to 64 %) driven by structural and other factors with limited contribution of technological ones failing to bridge the technological gap with advanced economies. Facing slowing economic growth in years to come, the federal policy to improve energy efficiency is to be focused on providing incentives for more dynamic penetration of energy-efficient technologies to improve the Russian economy, competitiveness, and energy security.
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