Counting CO2 emissions in a globalised world : Producer versus consumer-oriented methods for CO2 accounting

This paper compares the Kyoto Protocol’s production-based accounting method to calculate a country’s carbon emissions with a consumption-based accounting method that measures the carbon embodied in goods in the country where they are consumed. The choice between the two accounting principles implies an inherent judgment on whether the producer or the consumer is responsible for the CO2 emissions. The comparison raises questions on international environmental justice as well as political implications regarding the responsibility for carbon emissions and climate change. This paper argues that consumption-based accounts are a useful complement to production-based accounts because they provide a basis for sharing environmental responsibilities between producer and consumer countries. Using a multi-regional input output (MRIO) model we find that CO2 emissions embodied in internationally traded goods accounted for 27% of the total energy-related CO2 emissions in 2005, up from 22% in 1995. The G77 countries consume 23% less CO2 emissions than they produce while the countries Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) consume almost 30% more CO2 emissions than they produce. The G77 have a combined CO2 trade deficit of more than 3 billion tonnes and thus deliver almost all the net imports of the OECD countries. The largest net importers of embodied carbon emissions in 2005 were the US (1255 Mt), Japan (380 Mt) and the biggest European economies (France 275 Mt, Germany 257 Mt, and the UK 232 Mt). The largest net exporters were China with 990 Mt (an increase of 63% compared to 1995), the Russian Federation (330 Mt) and India (136 Mt). The highest carbon leakage occurred in the United States (1,250 Mt CO2 from consumption originated from non-Annex I countries). The European Union imported 1,450 Mt CO2 from non- Annex I countries. The paper also raises some pertinent policy implications. Consumption-based carbon accounting puts the credibility of the reduction achievements under Kyoto into a different perspective because it would not allow the reduction of national carbon budgets by substituting domestic production for imports. A consumption-based accounting system might be perceived as fairer than production-based accounting, especially by net-exporting countries. Measuring the CO2 emissions and other environmental outputs of world trade may be useful in revising and finding fair emission targets and may encourage technology transfers and mitigation activities. A consumption- based approach to carbon accounting combined with appropriate policy instruments such as quotas or taxes may help shift comparative advantage away from pure economic measures to a logic that also considers environmental aspects. Finally, the debate on global environmental responsibility should not only focus on CO2 emissions but also consider the effects of other greenhouse gases and the unsustainable use of other resources such as raw materials, land and water

A review and comparative assessment of existing approaches to calculate material footprints

Effective implementation of resource policies requires consistent and robust indicators. An increasing number of national and international strategies focussing on resource efficiency as a means for reaching a green economy call for such indicators. As supply chains of goods and services are increasingly organised on the global level, comprehensive indica-tors taking into account upstream material flows associated with internationally traded products need to be compiled. Particularly in the last few years, the development of con-sumption-based indicators of material use also termed material footprints has made considerable progress. This paper presents a comprehensive review of existing methodol-ogies to calculate material footprint-type indicators. The three prevailing approaches, i.e. environmentally extended input-output analysis (EE-IOA), coefficient approaches based on process analysis data, and hybrid approaches combing elements of EE-IOA and process analysis are presented, existing models using the different approaches discussed, and advantages and disadvantages of each approach identified. We argue that there is still a strong need for improvement of the specific approaches as well as comparability of re-sults, in order to reduce uncertainties. The paper concludes with recommendations for further development covering methodological, data and institutional aspects

Carbon emissions of retail channels: the limits of available policy instruments to achieve absolute reductions

Buying the same product at the neighborhood store or at a shopping mall implies different carbon emissions. This paper quantifies carbon impacts of consumer choices of retail channel and shop location (where to buy), extending footprint assessments of product choices (what to buy). Carbon emissions of shopping situations are shown in the current situation, in a business-as-usual projection in 2020, and in policy scenarios with changed market shares of shopping situations. The analysis covers the product categories: groceries, clothing, and electronics & computers, from the shopping situations: neighborhood store, town center, discount store, shopping mall, and mail order/online selling. Stages of the product life cycle which differ between shopping situations are examined: freight transport, warehousing, store operation, and the last mile of the consumers' trip to the store. Carbon emissions of shopping situations amount to 2.7% of overall Austrian emissions in the base year. Dominant car use on the last mile substantially contributes to the overall footprint. In the business-as-usual scenario, carbon emissions from shopping situations increase by +33% until 2020, corresponding to 4.2% of the overall Austrian emissions target for 2020. Restricting shopping malls or supporting neighborhood stores could limit this increase to +25% and +20%, respectively. Facilitating online selling achieves no notable effects. The study underlines that an absolute reduction in private demand for household goods is necessary, as available policy instruments aiming at shopping situations fail to compensate the steady growth in private consumption

Incorporation of Robustness Properties into the Observer Based Anti-Windup Scheme in the Case of Actuator Uncertainties

Abstract-Saturation is a very common nonlinearity in control systems and may produce serious performance deterioration or even loss of stability. To cope with saturation, several anti-windup (AW) schemes have been developed over a long time. Unfortunately, they are based on the assumption that there is a static nonlinearity between the output of the controller and the plant input, which, in many situations, is not the case, because of an actuator dynamics. Against this background we provide a design procedure for the design of the AW-compensator that guarantee stability of the observer based anti-windup to face unmodeled actuator dynamics and guarantee a certain level of performance. This mixed performance method is later extended for systems with unmeasurable actuator outputs by the use of an unknown input observer (UIO). The effectiveness of the presented algorithm is demonstrated on an engine test-bench simulator. I. INTRODUCTION S result of physical limitations, the output of actuators is always limited in amplitude and rate, such as maximum or minimum torque in an engine or the maximum safe pitch rate in an aircraft. Such limits must be taken in account in the control design, otherwise the controller output will be different from the plant input, leading to wrong update of the controller states and to consequences ranging from performance deterioration over large overshoots and sometimes even to limit cycles or stability loss. Therefore, this phenomenon -usually called "controller windup" -has a paramount practical relevance and therefore many existing techniques address this problem of actuator constraints, e.g. the "Model Predictive Control" (MPC) Among the many contributions to handle input constraints for this class of problems, we recall the recent surveys of Galeani [3], Tarbouriech and Turner [4] about early and recent anti-windup research. The observer-based antiwindup design goes back to the publications of Åström and Hägglund Martin Bruckner and Luigi del Re are with the Institute for Design and Control of Mechatronical Systems (e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]). In the case of actuator or plant uncertainties there are only a few contributions, such as the approach of Teel In this paper based on the Integral-Quadratic-Constraints (IQCs) framework we extend the observer-based antiwindup design procedure to handle actuator uncertainties and present a design procedure that allows tuning the AW for performance requirements. To this end two weighting matrices are introduced in the performance criteria. In addition some nicely interpretable rules are provided for choosing the weighting matrices. In the case, where the true plant input can't be measured the closed-loop system is extended with an unknown input observer (UIO). To the best of our knowledge, we are not aware of any work in the literature dealing with a mixed performance AW-design, jointly tackling both, unmeasurable actuator outputs and dynamic actuator uncertainty. All these algorithms are tested on an engine test-bench simulation example. The paper is structured as follows: first we introduce the observer based anti-windup compensator and present some robust stability considerations in the case of actuator uncertainties based on the IQC-framework. Afterwards an UIO is introduced to keep the performance in the case, when the output of the actuator isn't available for measurement. Finally the method is tested on a test-bench simulator. II. OBSERVER BASED ANTI-WINDUP DESIGN For reasons of global stability, throughout the paper the plant P of order n is assumed to be stable, and that the controller ( , , , ) c c c c A B C D stabilizes the system when the saturation is not active. The plant is described by the standard equations: is the state-space realization of the controller and L is the desired feedback matrix of the antiwindup compensator (se

Our Common Cropland: Quantifying Global Agricultural Land Use from a Consumption Perspective

Understanding teleconnections of regional consumption patterns and global land use supports policy making towards achieving sustainable land use. We present an innovative globally consistent hybrid land-flow accounting method to track biomass flows and embodied land along global supply chains. It uses the large FAOSTAT database, which is, for non-food commodities, complemented with a multi-regional input-output model. We employ the hybrid model globally between 1995 and 2010 and present results for regional markets. Results highlight the growing integration in international markets. In 2010, 31% of cropland cultivation was for export markets compared to 16% in 1995. The higher land demand of livestock-based diets, which account for one third of global cropland use, and differences in land use intensities cause large regional variations in extents and composition of land footprints. The utilization of cropland changed towards a growing importance of the non-food sector accounting for 12% in 2010. Comparing land quality weighted cropland footprints across regions further reveals large differences in the appropriation of available global cropland productivity. Because of large uncertainties and quality differences in the actual use of grassland for feeding ruminants, we propose land quality weighted grassland footprints to discuss the additional land use for ruminant livestock products

The global cropland footprint of the non-food bioeconomy. ZEF - Discussion Papers on Development Policy No. 253

A rapidly growing share of global agricultural areas is devoted to the production of biomass for non - food purposes. The derived products include, for example, biofuels, textiles, detergents or c osmetics. Given the far - reaching global implications of an expanding non - food bioeconomy, an assessment of the bioeconomy's resource use from a footprint perspective is urgently needed. We determine the global cropland footprint of non - food products with a hybrid land flow accounting model combining data from the Food and Agriculture Organization and the multi - regional input - output model EXIOBASE. The globally interlinked model covers all cropland areas used for the production of crop - and animal - based non - food commodities for the years from 1995 to 2010. We analyse global patterns of raw material producers, processers and consumers of bio-based non-food products, with a particular focus on the European Union. Results illustrate that the EU is a major processer and the number one consumer region of non-food cropland, despite being only the fifth largest producing region. Two thirds of the cropland required to satisfy EU non-food consumption are located in other world regions, giving rise to a significant depe ndency on imported products and to potential impacts on distant ecosystems. With almost 29% in 2010, oilseed production, used to produce, for example, biofuels, detergents and polymers, represents the dominant share in the EU's non-food cropland footprint. There is also a significant contribution of more traditional non-food biomass uses such as fibre crops (for textiles) and animal hides and skins (for leather products). Our study emphasises the importance of comprehensively assessing the implications of the non-food bioeconomy expansion as envisaged in various policy strategies, such as the Bioeconomy Strategy of the European Commission

FABIO - The Construction of the Food and Agriculture Biomass Input-Output Model

Primary crops are linked to final consumption by networks of processes and actors that convert and distribute food and non-food goods. Achieving a sustainable metabolism of this bio-economy is an overarching challenge which manifests itself in a number of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Modelling the physical dimensions of biomass conversion and distribution networks is essential to understanding the characteristics, drivers and dynamics of our societies' biomass metabolism. In this paper, we present the Food and Agriculture Biomass Input-Output model (FABIO), a set of multi-regional supply, use and input-output tables in physical units, that document the complex flows of agricultural and food products in the global economy. The model assembles FAOSTAT statistics reporting crop production, trade, and utilisation in physical units, supplemented by data on technical and metabolic conversion efficiencies, into a consistent, balanced, input-output framework. FABIO covers 191 countries and 130 agriculture, food and forestry products from 1986 to 2013. The physical supply-use tables offered by FABIO provide a comprehensive, transparent and flexible structure for organising data representing flows of materials within metabolic networks. They allow tracing biomass flows and embodied environmental pressures along global supply chains at an unprecedented level of product and country detail and can help to answer a range of questions regarding environment, agriculture, and trade.Series: Ecological Economic Paper

The vulnerability of shifting towards a greener world:The impact of the EU's green transition on material demand

The green transition from fossil fuels to renewables requires acquisition of rare earth minerals and other materials for construction of renewable energy technologies and may lead to new dependencies through imports potentially causing immense pressure on global supply chains. This study investigates the material vulnerability of sectors and countries in the EU. Vulnerability maps are created for the EU's material demands by combining three analyses: input-output analysis, forward linkage analysis and network analysis. The approach reveals the relative importance of individual sectors and their vulnerability given increasing demand. As such, the analyses help to identify which sectors, based on their current implementation of renewable energy sources, could put a country and the EU at risk of not meeting their mitigation targets by 2050. The analysis concludes that Austria, Germany, the Czech Republic, Denmark and Slovakia will experience particularly large material vulnerabilities in several of the materials investigated. Hence, such findings can provide early warnings to sectors and countries about potential implications in their supply chains along with potential mitigation measures such as secondary sourcing, material substitution and material diplomacy

Material Footprint Assessment in a Global Input-Output Framework

Material flow-based indicators play an important role in indicator sets related to green and resource-efficient growth. This paper examines the global flows of materials and the amounts of materials directly and indirectly necessary to satisfy domestic final demand in different countries world-wide. We calculate the indicator Raw Material Consumption (RMC), also referred to as Material Footprint (MF), by applying a global, multi-regional input-output (MRIO) model based on the GTAP database and extended by material extraction data. We examine world-wide patterns of material extraction and materials embodied in trade and consumption, investigating changes between 1997 and 2007. We find that flows of materials related to international trade have increased by almost 60% between 1997 and 2007. We show that the differences in Material Footprints per capita are huge, ranging from up to 100 tonnes in the rich, oil-exporting countries to values as low as 1.5 to 2 tonnes in some developing countries. We also quantify the differences between the indicators Domestic Material Consumption (DMC) and RMC, illustrating that net material exporters generally have a DMC larger than RMC, while the reverse is observed for net importers. Finally, we confirm the fact that most countries with stable or declining DMCs actually show increasing RMCs, indicating the occurrence of leakage effects, which are not fully captured by DMC. This challenges the world-wide use of DMC as a headline indicator for national material consumption and calls for the consideration of upstream material requirements of international trade flows

Randomized controlled trial to evaluate the effects of ethyl-2-cyanoacrylate on pain intensity and quality of life in head and neck cancer patients suffering from cetuximab-induced rhagades during radioimmunotherapy: the support trial

Background: Cetuximab is a chimeric monoclonal antibody against the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR). Skin reactions are the most common side effects of cetuximab. Rhagades of the tips of the fingers and toes, the heels and especially the interphalangeal joints are one of the most frightening and painful dermatological side effects that may develop from EGFR-inhibitor therapy. Rhagades are characterized by pain, severe tenderness and poor healing response. They are challenging to treat. Thus, rhagades often poses the most significant threat to the quality of life (QoL) for these patients. Ethyl-2-cyanoacrylate (ECA), an ethyl ester of the 2-cyano-2-propenoic acid, is often used as adhesive in a variety of different work settings in industry, i.e. as a component in nail-care products such as nail glue. In addition, ECA is used for various medical indications, such as for liquid bandages and for suture-less surgery. Wound healing can be accelerated with ECA. The purpose of the SUPPORT trial is to investigate the efficacy of ECA for the treatment of cetuximab-induced rhagades and to assess the clinical usefulness of the SUPO score, a new classification system for rhagades induced by EGFR-inhibitor therapy. Methods/Design: The SUPPORT trial is an open-label, prospective, randomized, national multicenter intervention study to evaluate the effectiveness of ECA versus the standard treatment of each institution on the pain intensity and QoL in patients with locally advanced head and neck cancer suffering from painful cetuximab-induced rhagades during radioimmunotherapy. Primary endpoint is the assessment of the pain intensity 24 hours after application of ECA or the standard treatment quantified by the visual analogue scale (VAS). Secondary endpoints are the evaluation of QoL assessed by the EORTC-QoL-C30 questionnaire and the Dermatological Life Quality Index (DLQI). Discussion: During treatment with EGFR inhibitors it is necessary to recognize and manage side effects promptly to assure better patient QoL. The SUPPORT trial is the first randomized clinical trial evaluating a new treatment option for painful cetuximab-induced rhagades. Furthermore, the new SUPO score will be prospectively assessed in terms of clinical usefulness for classification of EGFR inhibitor-induced rhagades. Trial registration: Current Controlled Trials NCT0169315