Over the past decade, carbon trading has emerged as the industrialized world's primary policy response to global climate change despite considerable controversy. With carbon markets worth $144 ...billion in 2009, carbon trading represents the largest manifestation of the trend toward market-based environmental governance. In Carbon Coalitions, Jonas Meckling presents the first comprehensive study on the rise of carbon trading and the role business played in making this policy instrument a central pillar of global climate governance.Meckling explains how a transnational coalition of firms and a few market-oriented environmental groups actively promoted international emissions trading as a compromise policy solution in a situation of political stalemate. The coalition sidelined not only environmental groups that favored taxation and command-and-control regulation but also business interests that rejected any emissions controls. Considering the sources of business influence, Meckling emphasizes the importance of political opportunities (policy crises and norms), coalition resources (funding and legitimacy,) and political strategy (mobilizing state allies and multilevel advocacy).Meckling presents three case studies that represent milestones in the rise of carbon trading: the internationalization of emissions trading in the Kyoto Protocol (1989--2000); the creation of the EU Emissions Trading System (1998--2008); and the reemergence of emissions trading on the U.S. policy agenda (2001--2009). These cases and the theoretical framework that Meckling develops for understanding the influence of transnational business coalitions offer critical insights into the role of business in the emergence of market-based global environmental governance.
This report 'Turning the right corner - ensuring development through a low carbon transport sector' emphasizes that developing countries need to transition to a low carbon transport sector now to ...avoid locking themselves into an unsustainable and costly future. Furthermore, it argues that this transition can be affordable if countries combine policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions with broader sector reforms aimed at reducing local air pollution, road safety risks, and congestion. This report looks at relationships between mobility, low carbon transport and development, drawing attention to the inertia in transport infrastructure. It complements the analysis by reviewing how climate change is likely to affect operations and infrastructure, cost-effective measures for minimizing negative effects, and policies and decision frameworks. It further highlights current and projected research findings and examples from developing countries. And it concludes that new technology is not enough, and that urgent action is needed before economies become locked into high-carbon growth. It discusses how to reconcile development with the need to curb emissions, looking at three sets of instruments and their limitations: new technologies and alternative fuels, supply-side measures, and demand-side policies. This report also looks at both available funding, such as carbon financing and international assistance, and at ways to generate new resources, considering that accounting for negative externalities dramatically alters the economics of transport investment.
Glasgow pact leaves 1.5°C goal on life support O'Grady, Cathleen
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
2021-Nov-19, 2021-11-19, 20211119, Volume:
374, Issue:
6570
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Goal of preventing dangerous warming slipping away, but nations boost emissions cuts
Goal of preventing dangerous warming slipping away, but nations boost emissions cuts
Despite the emergence of regional climate policies, growth in global COâ emissions has remained strong. From 1990 to 2008 COâ emissions in developed countries (defined as countries with ...emission-reduction commitments in the Kyoto Protocol, Annex B) have stabilized, but emissions in developing countries (non-Annex B) have doubled. Some studies suggest that the stabilization of emissions in developed countries was partially because of growing imports from developing countries. To quantify the growth in emission transfers via international trade, we developed a trade-linked global database for COâ emissions covering 113 countries and 57 economic sectors from 1990 to 2008. We find that the emissions from the production of traded goods and services have increased from 4.3 Gt COâ in 1990 (20% of global emissions) to 7.8 Gt COâ in 2008 (26%). Most developed countries have increased their consumption-based emissions faster than their territorial emissions, and non-energy-intensive manufacturing had a key role in the emission transfers. The net emission transfers via international trade from developing to developed countries increased from 0.4 Gt COâ in 1990 to 1.6 Gt COâ in 2008, which exceeds the Kyoto Protocol emission reductions. Our results indicate that international trade is a significant factor in explaining the change in emissions in many countries, from both a production and consumption perspective. We suggest that countries monitor emission transfers via international trade, in addition to territorial emissions, to ensure progress toward stabilization of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Carbon emissions reached an all-time high in 2018, when global carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels increased by about 2.7%, after a 1.6% increase in 2017. Thus, we need to pay special ...attention to carbon emissions and work out possible solutions if we still want to meet the targets of the Paris climate agreement. This Special Issue collects 16 carbon emissions-related papers (including 5 that are carbon tax-related) and 4 energy-related papers using various methods or models, such as the input–output model, decoupling analysis, life cycle impact analysis (LCIA), relational analysis model, generalized Divisia index model (GDIM), forecasting model, three-indicator allocation model, mathematical programming, real options model, multiple linear regression, etc. The research studies come from China, Taiwan, Brazil, Thailand, and United States. These researches involved various industries such as agricultural industry, transportation industry, power industry, tire industry, textile industry, wave energy industry, natural gas industry, and petroleum industry. Although this Special Issue does not fully solve our concerns, it still provides abundant material for implementing energy conservation and carbon emissions reduction. However, there are still many issues regarding the problems caused by global warming that require research.
The EDGARv4.3.1 (Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research) global anthropogenic emissions inventory of gaseous (SO2, NOx, CO, non-methane volatile organic compounds and NH3) and particulate ...(PM10, PM2.5, black and organic carbon) air pollutants for the period 1970–2010 is used to develop retrospective air pollution emissions scenarios to quantify the roles and contributions of changes in energy consumption and efficiency, technology progress and end-of-pipe emission reduction measures and their resulting impact on health and crop yields at European and global scale. The reference EDGARv4.3.1 emissions include observed and reported changes in activity data, fuel consumption and air pollution abatement technologies over the past 4 decades, combined with Tier 1 and region-specific Tier 2 emission factors. Two further retrospective scenarios assess the interplay of policy and industry. The highest emission STAG_TECH scenario assesses the impact of the technology and end-of-pipe reduction measures in the European Union, by considering historical fuel consumption, along with a stagnation of technology with constant emission factors since 1970, and assuming no further abatement measures and improvement imposed by European emission standards. The lowest emission STAG_ENERGY scenario evaluates the impact of increased fuel consumption by considering unchanged energy consumption since the year 1970, but assuming the technological development, end-of-pipe reductions, fuel mix and energy efficiency of 2010. Our scenario analysis focuses on the three most important and most regulated sectors (power generation, manufacturing industry and road transport), which are subject to multi-pollutant European Union Air Quality regulations. Stagnation of technology and air pollution reduction measures at 1970 levels would have led to 129 % (or factor 2.3) higher SO2, 71 % higher NOx and 69 % higher PM2.5 emissions in Europe (EU27), demonstrating the large role that technology has played in reducing emissions in 2010. However, stagnation of energy consumption at 1970 levels, but with 2010 fuel mix and energy efficiency, and assuming current (year 2010) technology and emission control standards, would have lowered today's NOx emissions by ca. 38 %, SO2 by 50 % and PM2.5 by 12 % in Europe. A reduced-form chemical transport model is applied to calculate regional and global levels of aerosol and ozone concentrations and to assess the associated impact of air quality improvements on human health and crop yield loss, showing substantial impacts of EU technologies and standards inside as well as outside Europe. We assess that the interplay of policy and technological advance in Europe had substantial benefits in Europe, but also led to an important improvement of particulate matter air quality in other parts of the world.
China is the largest cement producer and consumer in the world. Cement
manufacturing is highly energy-intensive and is one of the major contributors
to carbon dioxide (CO2) and air pollutant ...emissions, which threatens
climate mitigation and air quality improvement. In this study, we investigated
the decadal changes in carbon dioxide and air pollutant emissions for the
period of 1990–2015 based on intensive unit-based information on activity
rates, production capacity, operation status, and control technologies which
improved the accuracy of the cement emissions in China. We found that, from
1990 to 2015, accompanied by a 10.3-fold increase in cement production,
CO2, SO2, and NOx emissions from China's cement
industry increased by 627 %, 56 %, and 659 %, whereas CO,
PM2.5, and PM10 emissions decreased by 9 %, 63 %,
and 59 %, respectively. In the 1990s, driven by the rapid growth of cement
production, CO2 and air pollutant emissions increased
constantly. Then, the technological innovation in production of replacing
traditional shaft kilns with the new precalciner kilns equipped with
high-efficiency control facilities in the 2000s markedly reduced
SO2, CO, and PM emissions in the cement industry. In 2010,
nationwide, 39 % and 31 % of the nationwide PM2.5 and
NOx emission were produced by 3 % and 15 % of the total capacity
of the production lines, indicating the disproportionately high emissions from a
small number of the super-polluting units. Since 2010, the growing trend of
emissions has been further curbed by a combination of measures, including
promoting large-scale precalciner production lines and phasing out small ones,
upgrading emission standards, installing low NOx burners (LNB), and
selective non-catalytic reduction (SNCR) to reduce NOx emissions, as well
as adopting more advanced particulate matter control technologies. Our study
highlights the effectiveness of advanced technologies on air pollutant
emission control; however, CO2 emissions from China's cement
industry kept growing throughout the period, posing challenges to future
carbon emission mitigation in China.
These days, climate change issues and their impacts on the economy, social and natural system of countries have become the main concern of worldwide, even for those countries that are facing major ...economic problems. These issues arise from the combustion of fossil fuels. One of the major contributors to global CO2 emission is the transport sector. Therefore, in order to identify the trends and characteristics of transport carbon emissions this study reviews the relevant literature significantly; and decomposes carbon emission in this sector in 7 top transport CO2 emitter countries by applying the logarithmic mean Divisia index (LMDI). The results indicated that, during 2000–15, transport carbon emissions increased in the United States, China, India, Canada, Russia, and Brazil whereas decreased in Japan. Hence, in the majority of these countries, energy conservation strategies were not successfully implemented during the study period. In the majority of countries, the main contributor to CO2 emission reductions was carbon intensity, whereas the main drivers of CO2 emission increases were electricity structure and economic output effects. Reductions in carbon emissions could be achieved by further optimizing energy structures, limiting the private vehicle population. A set of policies and regulations, from demand-side and supply-side, must be implemented to be effective in reducing GHGs emissions.
•The study analyzes the patterns of CO2 emissions in 7 top transport carbon emitters.•It uses two methodologies, a review of literature and carbon emission decomposition.•Implementing a set of climate change policies can reduce carbon emission.•The United States and China were the main contributors of transport CO2 emissions.•The main contributor to CO2 emission reductions was carbon intensity.
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