Can Climate Change Mitigation Policy Benefit the Israeli Economy? A Computable General Equilibrium Analysis

The growing attention to global warming due to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the process of fossil fuel--based energy production is expressed in the Kyoto Protocol, which prescribes, on average, a 7 percent reduction in GHG emissions for developed countries. Although Israel was not included in the list of the obligated countries ("Annex A"), it should consider the economic implications of participating in the emission reduction effort, as such a commitment becomes highly feasible following the Bali roadmap which oblige a successor to the Kyoto Protocol to launch negotiations including all parties to the UNFCCC on a future framework, stressing the role of cooperative action and of common though differentiated responsibility. This study aimed to quantify the economy-wide consequences for Israel of meeting the targets of the Kyoto Protocol, employing a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model of the Israeli economy. Initially, to this end, we constructed a social accounting matrix (SAM) to serve as a benchmark by combining physical energy and emission data and economic data from various sources. The efficacy of decentralized economic incentives for CO2 emission reduction, such as carbon taxes on emissions and auctioned emission permits, was assessed in terms of their impact on economic welfare. In addition, we tested for the ensuing so-called double dividend. Two distinct cases were analyzed. In the first one, we tested a revenue-neutral environmental policy which proportionally cut pre-existing taxes. Labour supply was assumed to be exogenously fixed. The results showed that, although significant CO2 emission reduction can be achieved, followed by modest economic cost, no double dividend could be discerned. Next, in order to check for the employment double dividend (lower CO2 emissions and lower unemployment), we introduced labor market imperfections, with the aim of cutting income tax. The results of this case indicate that an employment double dividend is possible under a rather standard set of assumptions. Moreover, for higher substitutability between the energy composite input and the labor-capital one, an even “strong” form of double dividend can be obtained. We performed several sensitivity analyses with respect to the modeled production function, which re-confirmed the finding that higher substitution possibilities lead to lower welfare costs 3 associated with a given emission reduction target. We qualify this general result by also showing that the opposite holds when the emission tax rate is held constant, rather than reduced. It may be concluded on the basis of this analysis that a double dividend may be an achievable goal under a GHG emission reduction policy in the case of economies such as Israel. The CGE approach applied in this research is adopted for the first time to the Israeli economy and should contribute to better informed debate on environmental policy in Israel.Computable General Equilibrium, Climate Change, Environmental Policy, Double Dividend, Israel

comTAR: a web tool for the prediction and characterization of conserved microRNA targets in plants

Motivation: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are major regulators of gene expression in plants and animals. They recognize their target messenger RNAs (mRNAs) by sequence complementarity and guide them to cleavage or translational arrest. So far, the prediction of plant miRNA–target pairs generally relies on the use of empirical parameters deduced from known miRNA–target interactions. Results: We developed comTAR, a web tool for the prediction of miRNA targets that is mainly based on the conservation of the potential regulation in different species. We used data generated from a pipeline applied to transcript datasets of 33 angiosperms that was used to build a database of potential miRNA targets of different plant species. The database contains information describing each miRNA–target pair, their function and evolutionary conservation, while the results are displayed in a user-friendly interface. The tool also allows the search using new miRNAs.Fil: Chorostecki, Uciel Pablo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Rosario. Instituto de Biología Molecular y Celular de Rosario. Universidad Nacional de Rosario. Facultad de Ciencias Bioquímicas y Farmacéuticas. Instituto de Biología Molecular y Celular de Rosario; ArgentinaFil: Palatnik, Javier Fernando. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Rosario. Instituto de Biología Molecular y Celular de Rosario. Universidad Nacional de Rosario. Facultad de Ciencias Bioquímicas y Farmacéuticas. Instituto de Biología Molecular y Celular de Rosario; Argentin

Climate Change Assessment and Agriculture in General Equilibrium Models: Alternative Modeling Strategies

Agricultural sectors play a key role in the economics of climate change. Land as an input to agricultural production is one of the most important links between economy and the biosphere, representing a direct projection of human action on the natural environment. Agricultural management practices and cropping patterns have a vast effect on biogeochemical cycles, freshwater availability and soil quality. Agriculture also plays an important role in emitting and storing greenhouse gases. Thus, to consistently investigate climate policy and future pathways for the economic and natural environment, a realistic representation of agricultural land-use is essential. Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) models have increasingly been used to this purpose. CGE models simulate the simultaneous equilibrium in a set of interdependent markets, and are especially suited to analyze agricultural markets from a global perspective. However, modeling agricultural sectors in CGE models is not a trivial task, mainly because of differences in temporal and geographical aggregation scales. The aim of this study is to overview some proposed modeling strategies, by reviewing the available literature and highlighting the different trade-offs involved in the various approaches.Computable General Equilibrium (CGE), Partial Equilibrium (PE), Agriculture, Land Use, Climate Change

Valuation of Linkages between Climate Change, Biodiversity and Productivity of European Agro-Ecosystems

It is clear that climate change involves changes in temperature and precipitation and therefore directly affects land productivity. However, this is not the only channel for climatic change to affect agro-systems. Biodiversity is subject to climatic fluctuations and in turn may alter land productivity too. Firstly, biodiversity is an input into agro-ecosystems. Secondly, biodiversity supports the functioning of these systems (e.g. the balancing of the nutrient cycle). Thirdly, agro-systems also host important wildlife species which, though not always, play a functional role in land productivity, nonetheless constitute important sources of landscape amenities. The present paper illustrates a unique attempt to economically assess this additional effect climate change may imply on agriculture. We first empirically evaluate changes in land productivity due to climatic change effect on temperature, precipitations and biodiversity. Then we estimate the economic cost of biodiversity impact on agro-systems. Our key finding is that climate-change-induced biodiversity impact on European agro-systems measured in terms of GDP change in year 2050 is sufficiently large to deepen the direct climate-change effect in some regions and to reverse it in others. Different economies show different resilience profiles to deal with this effect.Climate Change, Biodiversity, Agro-Ecosystems

Students’ exploration of tangible geometric models: focus on shifts of attention

This empirical study applies the analytical apparatus of Mason’s shifts of attention theory to investigate why and how using physical models of different scales can facilitate learning of (spatial) geometry. In the presented case study, six high school students learned the properties of icosahedron by constructing and exploring physical models. Shifts in the focus and structures of attention were associated with multimodal perception and collaborative physical actions of students with and through the models. Models of different scales landed students different affordances for exploration, facilitating noticing of invariant scale-free features of a geometric object and influencing the dynamic of student collaboration