Consumption-Driven Environmental Impact and Age Structure Change in OECD Countries

This paper examines two environmental impacts for which population has a substantial demonstrated influence: transport carbon emissions and residential electricity consumption. It takes as its starting point the STIRPAT framework and disaggregates population into four key age groups: 20-34, 35-49, 50-69, and 70 and older. Population age structure’s influence was significant and varied across cohorts, and its profile was different for two dependent variables. For transport, young adults (20-34) were intensive, whereas the other cohorts had negative coefficients. For residential electricity consumption, age structure had a U-shaped impact: the youngest and oldest had positive coefficients, while the middle cohorts had negative coefficients.demography, environment, FMOLS panel cointegration, GHG emissions projections, IPAT, STIRPAT

Demographic dynamics and per capita environmental impact: using panel regressions and household decompositions to examine population and transport

Demographic variables have tended to be ignored in many environment-development analyses. This paper examines how population changes (in aging, households, and urbanization/density) can help explain changes/differences in personal transport using both macro- and micro- level data. First, panel regressions are performed with IEA-OECD road sector energy use data (spanning 1960-2000) on spatial population measures, average household size, and age structure data. Then US household data is used to determine the extent compositional changes in the nature of households can explain changes in per capita driving. An Environmental Kuznets Curve for per capita road energy use was rejected—the coefficients on the GDP squared terms were insignificant and the implied turning points were well outside the sample range; instead, the relationship between wealth and road energy was found to be monotonic (log-linear). The ideas that more densely populated countries have less personal transport demands, the young drive more, and smaller households mean higher per capita driving were confirmed. The basic result from the household decompositions was that changes in demand were more important than compositional changes, however, during some periods the compositional change component was considerable. A few policy implications can be drawn from these analyses. First, the look at micro data implies that there is much potential for policy to affect transport behavior since the compositional component of change—more difficult for policy to alter—is smaller than the behavioral or demand component. However, the look at the macro data implies that spatial factors, like population density and urbanization—which also can be difficult to alter—are significant in influencing personal transport demand.OECD countries, energy consumption, environmental policy, household size, transport

How Do Recent Population Trends Matter To Climate Change?

Population growth is one of the driving forces behind the growth of greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change, along with economic growth and technological change. Rapid population growth also hinders socioeconomic development and increases human vulnerability to the devastating impacts of climate change. Population Action International's new working paper "How Do Recent Population Trends Matter to Climate Change?" is the first in a three-part series that will deepen understanding of the relationships between population and climate change

Climate change impacts on migration and labour market

Floods, droughts and monsoons have always disturbed human settlements, but there are more settlements now and more people in the world. Therefore, if a natural disaster happens, more will suffer than ever before. Moreover, climate in the past several decades has been greatly degraded by anthropogenic activity. In some cases, the chain of causality of human influence on the climate is direct and unambiguous (e.g. the effects of irrigation on local humidity), though there are instances where it is less clear. Presently, the scientific consensus (IPCC, 2007) on climate change is that human activity is very likely the cause for the rapid increase of global average temperatures, more generally known as global warming

The drivers of Chinese CO2 emissions from 1980 to 2030

China's energy consumption doubled within the first 25 years of economic reforms initiated at the end of the 1970s, and doubled again in the past 5 years. It has resulted of a threefold CO2 emissions increase since early of 1980s. China's heavy reliance on coal will make it the largest emitter of CO2 in the world. By combining structural decomposition and input–output analysis we seek to assess the driving forces of China's CO2 emissions from 1980 to 2030. In our reference scenario, production-related CO2 emissions will increase another three times by 2030. Household consumption, capital investment and growth in exports will largely drive the increase in CO2 emissions. Efficiency gains will be partially offset the projected increases in consumption, but our scenarios show that this will not be sufficient if China's consumption patterns converge to current US levels. Relying on efficiency improvements alone will not stabilize China's future emissions. Our scenarios show that even extremely optimistic assumptions of widespread installation of carbon dioxide capture and storage will only slow the increase in CO2 emissions

Exploring the determinants of methane emissions from a worldwide perspective using panel data and machine learning analyses

: This article contributes to the scant literature exploring the determinants of methane emissions. A lot is explored considering CO2 emissions, but fewer studies concentrate on the other most long-lived greenhouse gas (GHG), methane which contributes largely to climate change. For the empirical analysis, a large dataset is used considering 192 countries with data ranging from 1960 up to 2022 and considering a wide set of determinants (total central government debt, domestic credit to the private sector, exports of goods and services, GDP per capita, total unemployment, renewable energy consumption, urban population, Gini Index, and Voice and Accountability). Panel Quantile Regression (PQR) estimates show a non-negligible statistical effect of all the selected variables (except for the Gini Index) over the distribution's quantiles. Moreover, the Simple Regression Tree (SRT) model allows us to observe that the losing countries, located in the poorest world regions, abundant in natural resources, are those expected to curb methane emissions. For that, public interventions like digitalization, green education, green financing, ensuring the increase in Voice and Accountability, and green jobs, would lead losers to be positioned in the winner's rankings and would ensure an effective fight against climate change

The countryside in urbanized Flanders: towards a flexible definition for a dynamic policy

The countryside, the rural area, the open space, … many definitions are used for rural Flanders. Everyone makes its own interpretation of the countryside, considering it as a place for living, working or recreating. The countryside is more than just a geographical area: it is an aggregate of physical, social, economic and cultural functions, strongly interrelated with each other. According to international and European definitions of rural areas there would be almost no rural area in Flanders. These international definitions are all developed to be used for analysis and policy within their specific context. They are not really applicable to Flanders because of the historical specificity of its spatial structure. Flanders is characterized by a giant urbanization pressure on its countryside while internationally rural depopulation is a point of interest. To date, for every single rural policy initiative – like the implementation of the European Rural Development Policy – Flanders used a specifically adapted definition, based on existing data or previously made delineations. To overcome this oversupply of definitions and delineations, the Flemish government funded a research project to obtain a clear and flexible definition of the Flemish countryside and a dynamic method to support Flemish rural policy aims. First, an analysis of the currently used definitions of the countryside in Flanders was made. It is clear that, depending on the perspective or the policy context, another definition of the countryside comes into view. The comparative study showed that, according to the used criteria, the area percentage of Flanders that is rural, varies between 9 and 93 per cent. Second, dynamic sets of criteria were developed, facilitating a flexible definition of the countryside, according to the policy aims concerned. This research part was focused on 6 policy themes, like ‘construction, maintenance and management of local (transport) infrastructures’ and ‘provision of (minimum) services (education, culture, health care, …)’. For each theme a dynamic set of criteria or indicators was constructed. These indicators make it possible to show where a policy theme manifests itself and/or where policy interventions are possible or needed. In this way every set of criteria makes up a new definition of rural Flanders. This method is dynamic; new data or insights can easily be incorporated and new criteria sets can be developed if other policy aims come into view. The developed method can contribute to a more region-oriented and theme-specific rural policy and funding mechanism

On International Equity Weights and National Decision Making on Climate Change

Estimates of the marginal damage costs of carbon dioxide emissions require the aggregation of monetised impacts of climate change over people with different incomes and in different jurisdictions. Implicitly or explicitly, such estimates assume a social welfare function and hence a particular attitude towards equity and justice. We show that previous approaches to equity weighing are inappropriate from a national decision maker’s point of view, because domestic impacts are not valued at domestic values. We propose four alternatives (sovereignty, altruism, good neighbour, and compensation) with different views on concern for and liability towards foreigners. The four alternatives imply radically estimates of the social cost of carbon and hence the optimal intensity of climate policy.Domestic Climate Policy, Social Cost of Carbon, Equity Weights