Carbon emissions locked - in trade

In recent years there has been a growing concern about the emission trade balance of countries. It is due to the fact that countries with an open economy are active players in the international trade, though trade is not only a major factor in forging a country’s economic structure anymore, but it does contribute to the movement of embodied emissions beyond the country borders. This issue is especially relevant from the carbon accounting policy’s point of view, as it is known that the production-based principle is in effect now in the Kyoto agreement. The study aims at revealing the interdependence of countries on international trade and its environmental impacts, and how the carbon accounting method plays a crucial role in evaluating a country’s environmental performance and its role in the climate mitigation processes. The input-output models are used in the methodology, as they provide an appropriate framework for this kind of environmental accounting; the analysis shows an international comparison of four European countries (Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Hungary) with extended trading activities and carbon emissions. Moving from the production-based approach in the climate policy, to the consumptionperspective principle and allocation [15], it would also help increasing the efficiency of emission reduction targets and the evaluation of the sustainability dimension and its impacts of international trade. The results of the study have shown that there is an importance of distinction between the two emission allocation approaches, both from global and local level point of view

Green multimedia: informing people of their carbon footprint through two simple sensors

In this work we discuss a new, but highly relevant, topic to the multimedia community; systems to inform individuals of their carbon footprint, which could ultimately effect change in community carbon footprint-related activities. The reduction of carbon emissions is now an important policy driver of many governments, and one of the major areas of focus is in reducing the energy demand from the consumers i.e. all of us individually. In terms of CO2 generated from energy consumption, there are three predominant factors, namely electricity usage, thermal related costs, and transport usage. Standard home electricity and heating sensors can be used to measure the former two aspects, and in this paper we evaluate a novel technique to estimate an individual's transport-related carbon emissions through the use of a simple wearable accelerometer. We investigate how providing this novel estimation of transport-related carbon emissions through an interactive web site and mobile phone app engages a set of users in becoming more aware of their carbon emissions. Our evaluations involve a group of 6 users collecting 25 million accelerometer readings and 12.5 million power readings vs. a control group of 16 users collecting 29.7 million power readings

China's Carbon Emissions 1971-2003

A number of previous studies on China's carbon emissions have mainly focused on two facts: 1) the continuous growth in emissions up till the middle of the 1990s; 2) the recent stability of emissions from 1996 to 2001. Decomposition analysis has been widely used to explore the driving forces behind these phenomena. However, since 2002, China's carbon emissions have resumed their growth at an even greater rate. This paper investigates China's carbon emissions during 1971-2003, with particular focus on the role of biomass, and, the fall and resurgence in emissions since the mid-1990s. We use an extended Kaya identity and the well-established logarithmic mean Divisia index (LMDI I) method. Carbon emissions are decomposed into effects of various driving forces. We find that: (1) A shift from biomass to commercial energy increases carbon emissions by a magnitude comparable to that of the increase in emissions due to population growth; (2) The technological effect and scale effect due to per capita GDP growth are different in the pre-reform period versus the post-reform period; (3) The positive effect of population growth has been decreasing over the entire period; (4) The fall in emissions in the late 1990s and resurgence in the early 2000s may be overstated due to inaccurate statistics. The rapid growth since the early 2000s, therefore, may not indicate a "new trend"; (5) Carbon emissions exhibit a correlation of 0.99 with coal consumption, which points to explicit policy suggestions.

Investigating the effectiveness of UK energy policy in promoting renewable investments and reducing carbon emissions

The UK developed an energy policy which focused on providing for energy security and cutting carbon emissions. A number of obstacles confronted this policy and slowed down investments in renewable energies. This research aims to investigate the effects of UK energy policy on deriving investments in renewable technologies and reducing carbon emissions, and hence on energy security. The study will try to answer the following question: How successful the UK energy policy has been in promoting investments in renewable energy options and in reducing carbon emissions. To answer the above question and achieve the above stipulated research objectives data was collected by means of content analysis from governmental publications and statistics. Our findings suggests that in order for the UK to achieve its policy objectives it needs to stabilise its energy policy and to reduce uncertainties surrounding investments in renewable energies

Seafarers’ current awareness, knowledge, motivation and ideas towards Low Carbon – Energy Efficient operations

Worldwide there is increasing concern regarding green house gases, in particular carbon emissions and their detrimental effects to our earth’s atmosphere; resulting in climate change. International and National pressure requires the shipping industry to play its’ role in reducing the 3.3% of total global carbon emission that it currently emits into the atmosphere. On the 1st January 2013 the IMO are expected to enforce mandatory measures to reduce shipping carbon emissions and these measures will directly and indirectly affect the daily operations of seafarers, onshore performance staff, and managerial personnel with influence over operational procedures. It is therefore imperative that these personnel have the awareness, knowledge, skills, and motivation necessary to successfully implement the operational changes that are needed. A questionnaire has been distributed to investigate seafarers’ and onshore personnels current levels of awareness, knowledge and motivation towards carbon emissions in general and towards shipping carbon emissions. The questionnaire also asked participants to contribute which level of personnel have the most influence over carbon changes and what are the most important operational improvements that can be made. 317 questionnaire responses were collected in total and the analysis of the results is discussed within this paper. The primary benefit of this study has been to support the development of a specific Low Carbon – Energy Efficiency maritime education and training program, by identifying target group needs and attitudes, and key areas for focus

Evaluating the Effectiveness of a School-Based Intervention on Driving-Related Carbon Emissions Using Real-Time Transportation Data

The development of tools that can measure the efficiency of individual driving behaviors offers unique opportunities to encourage drivers towards more efficient driving behaviors. As states make progress towards reducing carbon emissions through the adoption of renewable energy for electricity generation, transportation remains the largest sources of carbon emissions. Although numerous local or regional campaigns have encouraged consumers to conserve energy at home and at work, less interest has been shown in encouraging drivers to adopt more energy efficient driving behaviors. In this study, a smartphone application was used to gather driving data (e.g., hard accelerations, hard braking and time over speed limit) within a university course on climate change to investigate whether environmental appeals could encourage more efficient driving behavior in students. The results show that through this intervention, average student driving scores improved by between 2 and 5% in the classes studied, with larger changes found in students who did not initially identify as having pro-environmental attitudes. These results suggest that educational programs and campaigns using real-time data on driving behavior may provide opportunities to reduce carbon emissions

Estimating the costs of atmospheric carbon reductions in Mexico

Trading in carbon emissions is a means of ensuring that supplies with the lowest marginal costs of emissions reduction are commissioned first. To analyse the potential for Mexican suppliers to participate in an emissions trading market, the relative cost-effectiveness of a carbon sequestration project and carbon abatement project is assessed. The marginal costs of emission reductions for each project are estimated and compared using standardised data. The results show that the carbon sequestration project has lower marginal costs for carbon emissions reductions than the technology-based abatement. Factors such as timescale, discounting implementation costs, transaction costs, and technical assumptions are considered in this comparison. The high transaction costs to set up carbon sequestration projects and weak institutional capacity to monitor and enforce agreements are relevant factors. Even though the carbon sequestration project is more cost-effective than the renewable energy power plant, both projects may allow Mexican suppliers to enter a potential international carbon emissions trading market depending on demand and supply conditions and the rules of the market