Marginal abatement costs of greenhouse gas emissions from European agriculture, cost effectiveness, and the EU non-ETS burden sharing agreement

We propose a quantitative assessment of the marginal abatement costs (MAC) of greenhouse gas emissions from European agriculture and analyze the implications of the non-ETS burden-sharing agreement (BSA) for this sector. This assessment is based on MAC reduced forms, the generic specification of which enables simple parameterization and numerical computations. Such MAC curves are parameterized for each Member State using the outputs of a detailed model of the European agricultural supply. They are then used to compute total and marginal abatement costs involved by the BSA targets, as well as the cost-effective effort sharing, the corresponding emission price and abatement costs. The main findings are: (i) flexibility mechanisms such as a cap-and-trade system for agricultural emissions could reduce the total costs of meeting the 10% EU abatement target by a factor two to three relative to the strict implementation of each country's target, (ii) the corresponding equilibrium emission price is found to be 32-42 €/tCO₂eq depending on the assumption regarding business-as-usual emissions, and (iii) a cap-and-trade system with allowances based on the BSA targets would involve substantial transfers from EU-15 countries to New Member States, an important share of which being made of ‘hot air’.     

气候变化对德国农业的影响与相关对策

本文分析和研究了气候变化对德国农业和林业的正反两方面的影响,肯定了德国农业和林业对气候保护、减少温室气体排放的积极作用。阐述了德国为减少温室气体排放采取的相应措施,如改进传统农业,扩大现代农业,大力生产可再生长原料,促进可再生能源的利用。这些做法对我国发展现代农业,促进农业和林业领域节能减排具有积极的参考作用。     

Future Inequality in CO2 Emissions and the Impact of Abatement Proposals

This paper analyzes future carbon emissions inequality using a group decomposition of the Gini index. Business-as-usual projections to the year 2100 for 135 countries show inequality in per capita emissions declines slowly. Next, the impact on emissions levels and inequality of the Kyoto Protocol and other abatement proposals for Annex II countries in 2010 are measured, with a focus on the gap-narrowing and reranking effects. Substantial reranking of per capita emissions between Annex II and non-Annex II countries will not occur unless the former reduce their emissions by at least 50% (versus 1990 levels) and the latter continue growing unabated.     

欧盟促进农业科技成果转化的做法和经验

促进农业技术推广和成果转化是提高农业创新能力的重要环节。长期以来,欧盟一直在大力扶持农业研发成果的推广、技术转移和转化。一方面,通过实施共同农业政策的价格补贴等措施保护农民利益,鼓励农民采用新技术和新成果,促进成果转化;另一方面,通过欧盟框架研发计划,实施农业技术平台计划、联合项目计划等,建立包括农民和农业企业在内的利益攸关方(Stakeholder)共同体,推进农业技术转移和成果转化。通过对欧盟农业技术平台等促进成果转化的做法进行研究和分析,得到启示:农业科技成果转化,要注重农民的参与,注重发挥农业企业的作用,要强调顺应市场规律。     

Over-Allocation or Abatement? A Preliminary Analysis of the EU ETS Based on the 2005–06 Emissions Data

This paper provides an initial analysis of the EU ETS based on the installation-level data for verified emissions and allowance allocations in the first 2 years of the first trading period. These data reveal that CO₂ emissions were about 3% lower than the allocated allowances. The main objective of the paper is to shed light on the extent to which over-allocation and abatement have taken place in 2005 and 2006, when a significant CO₂ price was observed. We propose a measure by which over-allocation can be judged and provide estimates of abatement based on emissions data and indicators of economic activity as well as trends in energy and carbon intensity. Finally, we discuss the insights and implications that emerge from this tentative assessment. The ideas expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent views of the International Energy Agency or its Member Countries.     

Work Hours and CO2 Emissions: Evidence from U.S. Households

The degrowth movement proposes worktime reduction policies to help high-income countries meet their climate goals while supporting full employment. However, the work hours elasticity of carbon emissions remains uncertain despite a growing number of empirical analyses. This paper estimates the impact of work hours on emissions using household data from the United States. We calculate the carbon intensity of goods using input-output tables from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which we combine with spending data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to estimate carbon footprints for a representative sample of U.S. households. There is strong evidence that households with longer work hours emit more CO₂, but our household-level estimate of the work hours elasticity of carbon emissions is lower than most country-level estimates. Our results suggest that differences in work hours account for a small fraction of differences in per capita carbon footprints across high-income countries.

Highlights

• Households with longer work hours have significantly larger carbon footprints.

• Our estimated household-level work hours elasticity is smaller than most country-level estimates.

• Work hour reduction policies likely generate modest reductions in carbon emissions.

     

国际气候谈判中欧美分歧探析

国际合作是人类应对全球气候变化的必然选择。由于利益诉求的差异,各国(国家集团)在国际气候谈判中产生了激烈的矛盾碰撞,导致谈判进程举步维艰。欧美在国际气候谈判中的矛盾是制约谈判进程的关键障碍之一。欧美为维护国家(集团)竞争力和争夺气候谈判领导权,在对待气候变化问题的态度、温室气体减排和构建后京都时代国际气候机制等重大问题上存在着深刻的分歧。     

The transmission of business cycles: Lessons from the 2004 enlargement of the EU and the adoption of the euro

This paper evaluates the macroeconomic interdependencies of seven Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs) with the Euro Area (EA) through trade relationship. We estimate a near‐VAR model and simulate the responses of activity in those CEECs to output shocks for 12 former members of the EA before and after the 2004 enlargement of the European Union. During both periods, empirical results show that spillover effects come through the main economies of the EA: Germany, France and Italy. Furthermore, CEECs were more responsive to output shocks in the EA after 2004 than before (3.3 times more on average). Increases in spillover effects are larger for the three CEECs that adopted the Euro early (Slovenia, Slovakia and Estonia) than the other CEECs but without higher trade intensity with the EA. Our results show that trade effects are positive inside the same currency area but negative for the CEECs without the euro.     

The opportunity cost of land use and the global potential for greenhouse gas mitigation in agriculture and forestry

This paper analyses the role of global land management alternatives in determining potential greenhouse gas mitigation by land-based activities in agriculture and forestry. Land-based activities are responsible for over a third of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet the economics of land-use decisions have not been explicitly modeled in global mitigation studies. In this paper, we develop a new, general equilibrium framework which effectively captures the opportunity costs of land-use decisions in agriculture and forestry, thereby allowing us to analyse competition for heterogeneous land types across and within sectors, as well as input substitution between land and other factors of production. When land-using sectors are confronted with a tax on greenhouse gas emissions, we find significant changes in the global pattern of comparative advantage across sectors, regions, and land types. Globally, we find that forest carbon sequestration is the dominant strategy for GHG emissions mitigation, while agricultural-related mitigation comes predominantly from reduced methane emissions in the ruminant livestock sector, followed by fertilizer and methane emissions from paddy rice. Regionally, agricultural mitigation is a larger share of total land-use emissions abatement in the USA and China, compared to the rest of the world, and, within agriculture, disproportionately from reductions in fertilizer-related emissions. The results also show how analyses that only consider regional mitigation, may bias mitigation potential by ignoring global market interactions. For example, USA-specific analyses likely over-estimate the potential for abatement in agriculture. Finally, we note that this general equilibrium framework provides the research community with a practical methodology for explicit modeling of global land competition and land-based mitigation in comprehensive assessments of greenhouse gas mitigation options.     

International Emissions Trading and Induced Carbon-Saving Technological Change: Effects of Restricting the Trade in Carbon Rights

This paper examines the implications of restricting the tradability of carbon rights in the presence of induced technological change. Unlike earlier approaches aimed at exploring the tradability-technology linkage, we focus on climate-relevant “carbon-saving” technological change. This is achieved by incorporating endogenous investment in carbon productivity into the RICE-99 integrated assessment model of Nordhaus and Boyer (2000). Simulation analysis of various emission reduction scenarios with several restrictions on emissions trading reveals a pronounced dichotomy of effects across regions: Restrictions to trading raise the investments in carbon productivity in permit demanding regions while reducing them in permit supplying regions. In terms of per capita consumption, permit demanding regions lose and permit supplying regions gain from restrictions. In scenarios that involve “hot air,” restrictions to trade lower overall emissions, which results in reduced climate damage for most regions. Reduced damage, in turn, reduces the incentive to invest in carbon productivity.     

Heterogeneity and Spatial Dependence of Regional Growth in the EU: A Recursive Partitioning Approach

We use model‐based recursive partitioning to assess heterogeneity of growth and convergence processes based on economic growth regressions for 255 European Union NUTS2 regions from 1995 to 2005. Spatial dependencies are taken into account by augmenting the model‐based regression tree with a spatial lag. The starting point of the analysis is a human‐capital‐augmented Solow‐type growth equation similar in spirit to Mankiw et al. (1992, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 107, 407–437). Initial GDP and the share of highly educated in the working age population are found to be important for explaining economic growth, whereas the investment share in physical capital is only significant for coastal regions in the PIIGS countries. For all considered spatial weight matrices recursive partitioning leads to a regression tree with four terminal nodes with partitioning according to (i) capital regions, (ii) non‐capital regions in or outside the so‐called PIIGS countries and (iii) inside the respective PIIGS regions furthermore between coastal and non‐coastal regions. The choice of the spatial weight matrix clearly influences the spatial lag parameter while the estimated slope parameters are very robust to it. This indicates that accounting for heterogeneity is an important aspect of modeling regional economic growth and convergence.     

财政支农支出总量及结构与农业经济增长的关系——基于1980—2005年中国数据的实证分析

本文在C-D生产函数的框架下,利用1980—2005年我国政府财政支农支出和农业GDP的相关数据,对财政支农支出的总量和结构对农业经济增长的关系进行了实证分析。结果表明:政府财政支农支出总量对农业经济增长具有显著的正效应,即财政支农支出总量每增长1个百分点,农业GDP将增长0.3087个百分点;目前我国财政支农支出与农业经济增长之间存在一定的结构性偏差。因此,政府应在增加财政支农支出总量的同时,不断优化财政支农支出结构,以提高农业经济增长效率。