Review of Analytical Tools for Assessing Trade and Climaite Change Linkages

In this paper, the authors briefly refer to the essential elements underlying the theoretical linkages between trade, economic development, and climate change and review the analytical tools which are used to describe these linkages.Climate Changes, Trade Linkages, CGE

Impact Assessment of Emissions Stabilization Scenarios with and without Induced Technological Change

The main aim of this paper is to investigate quantitatively the economic impacts of emissions stabilization scenarios with and without the inclusion of induced technological change (ITC). Improved technological innovations are triggered by increased R&D expenditures that advance energy efficiencies. Model results show that induced technological changes due to increased investment in R&D reduce compliance costs. Although R&D expenditures compete with other investment expenditures, we find that increased R&D expenditures improve energy efficiency which substantially lowers abatement costs. Without the inclusion of induced technological change, emissions targets are primarily reached by declines in production, resulting in overall welfare reductions. With the inclusion of induced technological changes, emissions mitigations can result in fewer production and GDP drawbacks.Impact assessment of climate policy; Technological change

WIATEC: A World Integrated Assessment Model of Global Trade Environment and Climate Change

This paper describes the structure of the World Integrated Assessment model of global Trade, Environmental, and Climate change (WIATEC).The model consists of a multi-regional multi-sectoral core CGE model linked to a climate model. The core CGE is based on an existing global trade and environment model called GTAP-E (Truong, 1999; Burniaux and Truong, 2002). A suite of different and interchangeable 'modules' are then built around this 'core' to enable the model to be able to handle a range of different policy issues such as CO2 emissions, abatement, trading, non-CO2 (CH4 and N2O) emissions, land use land use change and forestry (LULUCF) activities, and changing technologies in the electricity generation sector. The approach which uses a core model structure with different additional modules built around this core structure allows the overall model to be flexible and can be adapted to a range of different policy issues. We illustrate the usefulness of this approach in a policy experiment which looks at the interaction between emissions trading scheme and the promotion of renewable energy targets in the European Union climate policy.Integrated Assessment Model, Technological Change, Climate Policy

A Flexible Global Warming Index for Use in an Integrated Approach to Climate Change Assessment

Global Warming Potential (GWP) is an index used to measure the relative accumulated radiative effect of a tonne of greenhouse gas (GHG) compared to that of a 'reference' gas (CO2). Due to the different lifetimes of the GHGs, the GWPs are often measured over a fixed and long period of time (usually 20, 100, or 500 years). The disadvantage of this time-approach is that the index may give a good indication of the relative average effect of each GHG or total radiative forcing over the chosen time horizon, but it may not describe accurately the marginal contribution of each GHG to the overall climate change at a particular point in time, and conditional on a particular climate change policy scenario which is being considered. In this paper, we propose an alternative approach which measures the relative contribution of each GHG to total radiative forcing more accurately and in accordance with the current policy context being considered. We suggest the use of a marginal global warming potential (MGWP) rather than the existing (total or cumulative) GWP index. The MGWP can be calculated accurately and endogenously within a climate model. This is then linked to the marginal abatement cost (MAC) of the gas, estimated within an economic model linked to the climate model. In this way the balancing of the benefits and costs associated with the reduction of a unit of emission of the GHG can be achieved more accurately. We illustrate the use of the new approach in an illustrative experiment, using a multi-sector multi-gas and multi-regional computable general equilibrium economic model (GTAP-E) coupled with a reduced form climate change model (ICLIPS Climate Model, or ICM). The results show that the new approach can significantly improve on the existing method of measuring the trade-offs between different GHGs in their contribution to a climate change objective.

Comprehensive Package of Climate Protection Measures Could Substantially Decrease Cost of Emission Reductions in Germany

Seeking to play a pioneering role in climate protection, the European Union has decided to pursue a reduction of at least 20% in greenhouse-gas emissions (on 1990 levels) by the year 2020. Moreover, Europe has declared its willingness to commit itself to emission reductions of 30% over the same period if other developed countries commit themselves to similar targets and if developing countries also make an appropriate contribution. A fair distribution of the burden of emission reductions in Europe and a comprehensive package of climate protection measures in Germany could substantially reduce the cost of emission reductions for the German economy. If Germany succeeds at European level in pushing through a fair burden-sharing mechanism that takes into account the emission reductions achieved to date in the different member states, and at the same time implements a comprehensive package of climate protection measures at home, then climate protection costs can be kept low. It would be very difficult for Germany to achieve its reduction target only by shutting down nuclear installations. What are also needed, in particular, are increased exploitation of energy efficiency potentials, the further development of renewable energy sources, the improvement of the system of emissions trading, and the promotion of innovative energy technologies. If European burden-sharing were fairly distributed and if Germany were to exploit all its energy efficiency potentials, then, in order to achieve a 20% reduction in current European emissions, Germany's climate protection costs would amount to total of around 1.9 billion euro per annum up to 2020. In this case, Germany would have reduced its emissions by 31% on 1990 levels. If it were not possible to negotiate a fair distribution of the burden, and if Germany were unable to exploit the necessary energy efficiency potentials, then the reduction costs would increase to around 5.7 billion euro per annum.Climate protection, Germany, costs of climate policy

Eigenfilters: A new approach to least-squares FIR filter design and applications including Nyquist filters

A new method of designing linear-phase FIR filters is proposed by minimizing a quadratic measure of the error in the passband and stopband. The method is based on the computation of an eigenvector of an appropriate real, symmetric, and positive-definite matrix. The proposed design procedure is general enough to incorporate both time- and frequency-domain constraints. For example, Nyquist filters can be easily designed using this approach. The design time for the new method is comparable to that of Remez exchange techniques. The passband and stopband errors in the frequency domain can be made equiripple by an iterative process, which involves feeding back the approximation error at each iteration. Several numerical design examples and comparisons to existing methods are presented, which demonstrate the usefulness of the present approach

GTAP-E: An Energy-Environmental Version of the GTAP Model with Emission Trading

Energy is an important commodity in many economic activities. Its usage affects the environment via CO2 emissions and the Greenhouse Effect. Modeling the energy-economy-environment-trade linkages is an important objective in applied economic policy analysis. Previously, however, the modeling of these linkages in GTAP has been incomplete. This is because energy substitution, a key factor in this chain of linkages, is absent from the standard model specification. This technical paper remedies this deficiency by incorporating energy substitution into the standard GTAP model. It begins by first reviewing some of the existing approaches to this problem in contemporary CGE models. It then suggests an approach for GTAP which incorporates some of these desirable features of energy substitution. The approach is implemented as an extended version of the GTAP model called GTAP-E. In addition, GTAP-E incorporates carbon emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels and this revised version of GTAP-E provides for a mechanism to trade these emissions internationally as well as domestically. The policy relevance of GTAP-E in the context of the existing debate about climate change is illustrated by some illustrative simulations of the implementation the European emissions trading scheme in 2005. It is hoped that the proposed model will be used by individuals in the GTAP network who may not be themselves energy modelers, but who require a better representation of the energy-economy-environmental linkages than is currently offered in the standard GTAP model.

A 'trick' for the design of FIR half-band filters

Based on a well-known property of FIR half-band filters, this correspondence shows how the design time for equiripple half-band filters can be reduced by a considerable amount. The observation which leads up to this improved procedure also places in evidence new implementation schemes, which simultaneously ensure low passband and stopband sensitivities. Extension of the method to Mth-band filter design is also outlined

Acoustic, Morphological, and Functional Aspects of `yeah/ja' in Dutch, English and German

We explore different forms and functions of one of the most common feedback expressions in Dutch, English, and German, namely `yeah/ja' which is known for its multi-functionality and ambiguous usage in dialog. For example, it can be used as a yes-answer, or as a pure continuer, or as a way to show agreement. In addition, `yeah/ja' can be used in its single form, but it can also be combined with other particles, forming multi-word expressions, especially in Dutch and German. We have found substantial differences on the morpho-lexical level between the three related languages which enhances the ambiguous character of `yeah/ja'. An explorative analysis of the prosodic features of `yeah/ja' has shown that mainly a higher intensity is used to signal speaker incipiency across the inspected languages

On the acoustics of overlapping laughter in conversational speech

The social nature of laughter invites people to laugh together. This joint vocal action often results in overlapping laughter. In this paper, we show that the acoustics of overlapping laughs are different from non-overlapping laughs. We found that overlapping laughs are stronger prosodically marked than non-overlapping ones, in terms of higher values for duration, mean F0, mean and maximum intensity, and the amount of voicing. This effect is intensified by the number of people joining in the laughter event, which suggests that entrainment is at work. We also found that group size affects the number of overlapping laughs which illustrates the contagious nature of laughter. Finally, people appear to join laughter simultaneously at a delay of approximately 500 ms; a delay that must be considered when developing spoken dialogue systems that are able to respond to users’ laughs