Hedging with CO2 allowances: the ECX market

We investigate and empirically estimate optimal hedge ratios, for the first time, in the EU ETS carbon market. Minimum variance hedge ratios are conditionally estimated with multivariate GARCH models, and unconditionally by OLS and the naïve strategy for the European Climate Exchange (ECX) market in the period 2005-2009. Also, utility gains are considered in order to take into account risk-return considerations. Empirical results indicate that dynamic hedging provides superior gains (in reducing the variance portfolio) compared to those obtained from static hedging, when adjustment costs are not taken into account. Moreover, results improve when the leptokurtic characteristics of the data are into consideration through distributions. Results are always compared in and out of sample, suggesting also that utility gains increase with investor's increased preference over risk.CO2 Emission Allowances; Dynamic Hedging; Futures Prices; Risk Management; Spot Prices

CO2 spot and futures price analysis for EEX and ECX

In this work we analyze, explore and measure two of the most important concepts for the theory of storable commodity markets. After analyzing the statistical properties of spot and futures EU ETS allowances for Germany and France, we model and test the risk premium and convenience yield for CO2 contracts accordingly to previous economic theories, for the period 2005-2009. Results indicate that convenience yields are positively related to the spot CO2 return while being negatively influenced by the spot volatility. This negative impact of spot volatility is also verified for the risk premium, with the latter varying positively with time to maturity. Contradicting previous empirical findings, we found only a positive influence of the convenience yield on the risk premium for the ECX French market and for Phase II contracts, leading us to conclude that results are Phase, market and data span dependent. Moreover, results are independent on the volatility forecast used and important for risk management purposes for allowances markets participants. Moreover, day-ahead markets for CO2 are in "normal contango" for the entire data period under analysis, contrary to previous empirical findings for the allowances market.CO2 Emission Allowances; Volatility; Volume; Maturity; Convenience Yield; Risk Premium; Spot Prices; Futures Prices

How to build food-sustainable cities and give health to the ageing urban residents: a tale of two community gardens in Lisbon, Portugal

Following comparative historical analyses undergone over 20 years of research, both in developed and developing countries from Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America, the question is: Can you afford to continue building unsustainable cities, under the current climate change challenges? Green corridors were implemented within the municipality of Lisbon, over the last decade, permitting residents and visitors to stroll, ride a bike, and grow their own food in several parks or community gardens approved by the Municipal Council and Assembly. The paper presents two case studies of community gardens established in the capital city of Portugal where food crops, spices and medicines are produced using organic waste from the gardeners’ kitchens, making their households more resilient to climate change and less vulnerable to supply chains, thus reducing the carbon footprint for Lisbon residents. Hope is to contribute to urban sustainability science with good examples of environmental practices within cities and towns, towards a better future for us all.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Urban agriculture and food sovereignty in Latin America: examples of nutritious diets

This article addresses the issue of food and spices grown and traded in Latin America, mostly in food gardens that are inside cities and metropolitan areas. The research question is: how can nutritious foods be available for consumers? Results from a series of projects about the useful flora consumed in nine countries of the New World, at the beginning of European colonisation and in modern times, using old manuscripts as secondary research source and semi-structured interviews of urban gardeners, farmers, traders, and consumers, as a primary source, have shown that native fresh fruits and vegetables are the option for Latin Americans. A total of 1,724 testimonies were gathered for two decades, from a percentage of 56.34 urban gardeners and farmers, from Cuba and Mexico to Southern Argentina and Chile, giving us a good number of food options that might improve family diets all over the world. Further promotion of urban agriculture and training on food and spice conservation techniques might boost the availability of nutritious diets for all.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Effect of pre-treatments and post-treatments on drying products

Freeze drying technology can give good quality attributes of vegetables and fruits in terms of color, nutrition, volume, rehydration kinetics, stability during storage, among others, when compared with solely air dried ones. However, published scientific works showed that treatments applied before and after air dehydration are effective in food attributes, improving its quality. Therefore, the hypothesis of the present thesis was focus in a vast research of scientific work that showed the possibility to apply a pre-treatment and a post-treatment to food products combined with conventional air drying aiming being close, or even better, to the quality that a freeze dried product can give. Such attributes are the enzymatic inactivation, stability during storage, drying and rehydration kinetics, color, nutrition, volume and texture/structure. With regard to pre-treatments, the ones studied along the present work were: water blanching, steam blanching, ultrasound, freezing, high pressure and osmotic dehydration. High electric pulsed field was also studied but the food attributes were not explained on detailed. Basically, water and steam blanching showed to be adequate to inactivate enzymes in order to prevent enzymatic browning and preserve the product quality during long storage periods. With regard to ultrasound pre-treatment the published results pointed that ultrasound is an effective pre-treatment to reduce further drying times, improve rehydration kinetics and color retention. On the other hand, studies showed that ultrasound allow sugars losses and, in some cases, can lead to cell disruption. For freezing pre-treatment an overall conclusion was difficult to draw for some food attributes, since, each fruit or vegetable is unique and freezing comprises a lot of variables. However, for the studied cases, freezing showed to be a pre-treatment able to enhance rehydration kinetics and color attributes. High pressure pre-treatment showed to inactivate enzymes improving storage stability of food and showed to have a positive performance in terms of rehydration. For other attributes, when high pressure technology was applied, the literature showed divergent results according with the crops used. Finally, osmotic dehydration has been widely used in food processing to incorporate a desired salt or sugar present in aqueous solution into the cellular structure of food matrix (improvement of nutrition attribute). Moreover, osmotic dehydration lead to shorter drying times and the impregnation of solutes during osmose allow cellular strengthens of food. In case of post-treatments, puffing and a new technology denominated as instant controlled pressure drop (DIC) were reported in the literature as treatments able to improve diverse Abstract Effect of Pre-treatments and Post-treatments on Drying Products x food attributes. Basically, both technologies are similar where the product is submitted to a high pressure step and the process can make use of different heating mediums such as CO2, steam, air and N2. However, there exist a significant difference related with the final stage of both which can comprise the quality of the final product. On the other hand, puffing and DIC are used to expand cellular tissues improving the volume of food samples, helping in rehydration kinetics as posterior procedure, among others. The effectiveness of such pre and/or post-treatments is dependent on the state of the vegetables and fruits used which are also dependent of its cellular structure, variety, origin, state (fresh, ripe, raw), harvesting conditions, etc. In conclusion, as it was seen in the open literature, the application of pre-treatments and post-treatments coupled with a conventional air dehydration aim to give dehydrated food products with similar quality of freeze dried ones. Along the present Master thesis the experimental data was removed due to confidential reasons of the company Unilever R&D Vlaardinge

Atmosphere Control of a House

The project consists of the prototype of a house, whose atmosphere is controlled automatically. Specific Aims of learning: studying the Arduíno board and sensors for collecting information, controlling and executing actions, knowing the language of programming needed, searching for solutions to the challenges using technological resources. With this project, the students got toknow better the functioning of some sensors and how to apply them in other contexts. And they realized the importance of home automation in people's lives

Does economic sectorial diversification affect the relationship between carbon emissions, economic growth, energy consumption, coal and gas consumption? Evidence from OPEC countries using panel cointegration analysis

This work aims to investigate a relationship between economic and environmental drivers under the economic diversification condition including seven economic activity sectors for a set of nine OPEC countries during 1974–2016. For validating the two Environmental Kuznets Curve – EKC – equations proposed, a panel data analysis was followed through the long and short-run estimations, including the Pooled Mean Group, Mean Group, and Dynamic Fixed Effect estimators. Results of the cointegration panel estimators show, for some sectors the validity of the EKC in the form of an inverted U shape, alternating with the U-shaped form. Namely, sector 2 of the extractive and manufacturing industries, including the electricity, gas, and water industries, and sector 5, including wholesale, lodging, restoration, and similar activities, validate the EKC hypothesis. However, the validity of the Kuznets curve with the panel data does not make it clear which OPEC countries are in the most favorable conditions to mitigate the polluting effects.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Analysis of the New Kuznets Relationship: Considering Emissions of Carbon, Methanol, and Nitrous Oxide Greenhouse Gases - Evidence from EU Countries

Decreased greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) are urgently needed in view of global health threat represented by climate change. The goal of this paper is to test the validity of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis, considering less common measures of environmental burden. For that, four different estimations are done, one considering total GHG emissions, and three more taking into account, individually, the three main GHG gases—carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrous oxide (N2O), and methane gas (CH4)—considering the oldest and most recent economies adhering to the EU27 (the EU 15 (Old Europe) and the EU 12 (New Europe)) separately. Using panel dynamic fixed effects (DFE), dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS), and fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) techniques, we validate the existence of a U-shaped relationship for all emission proxies considered, and groups of countries in the short-run. Some evidence of this effect also exists in the long-run. However, we were only able to validate the EKC hypothesis for the short-run in EU 12 under DOLS and the short and long-run using FMOLS. Confirmed is the fact that results are sensitive to models and measures adopted. Externalization of problems globally takes a longer period for national policies to correct, turning global measures harder and local environmental proxies more suitable to deeply explore the EKC hypothesis.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio