Impact of inter-sectoral trade on national and global CO2 emissions: An empirical analysis of China and US

This paper attempts to discuss the CO₂ emissions embodied in Sino-US international trade using a sector approach. Based on an input–output model established in this study, we quantify the impact of Sino-US international trade on national and global CO₂ emissions. Our initial findings reveal that: In 2005, the US reduced 190.13 Mt CO₂ emissions through the consumption of imported goods from China, while increasing global CO₂ emissions by about 515.25 Mt. Similarly, China reduced 178.62 Mt CO₂ emissions through the consumption of US goods, while reducing global CO₂ emissions by 129.93 Mt. Sino-US international trade increased global CO₂ emissions by 385.32 Mt as a whole, of which the Chemical, Fabricated Metal Products, Non-metallic Mineral Products and Transportation Equipment sectors contributed an 86.71% share. Therefore, we suggest that accelerating the adjustment of China’s trade structure and export of US advanced technologies and experience related to clean production and energy efficiency to China as the way to reduce the negative impact of Sino-US trade on national and global CO₂ emissions. This behavior should take into account the processing and manufacturing industries as a priority, especially the Chemical, Fabricated Metal Products, Non-metallic Mineral Products and Transportation Equipment sectors.     

Examining the driving forces for improving China’s CO2 emission intensity using the decomposing method

This paper examines the driving forces for reducing China’s CO₂ emission intensity between 1998 and 2008, utilizing the logarithmic mean divisia index (LMDI) technique. By first grouping the CO₂ emissions into two categories, those arising from activities related to the electric power industry and those from other sources, emission intensity is further broken down into the effects of the CO₂ emission coefficient, energy intensity of power generation, power generation and consumption ratio, electricity intensity of the gross domestic product (GDP), provincial structural change, and the energy intensity of the GDP for other activities. The decomposition results show that improvements in the energy intensity of power generation, electricity intensity of GDP, and energy intensity of GDP for other activities were mainly responsible for the success in reducing China’s CO₂ emission intensity and that activities related to the electric power industry played a key role. It is also revealed that performance varied significantly at the individual province level. The provinces with higher emission levels contributed the most to China’s improvements in CO₂ emission intensity.     

CO2 emissions and reduction potential in China’s chemical industry

GHG (Increasing greenhouse gas) emissions in China imposes enormous pressure on China’s government and society. The increasing GHG trend is primarily driven by the fast expansion of high energy-intensive sectors including the chemical industry. This study investigates energy consumption and CO₂ emissions in the processes of chemical production in China through calculating the amounts of CO₂ emissions and estimating the reduction potential in the near future. The research is based on a two-level perspective which treats the entire industry as Level one and six key sub-sectors as Level two, including coal-based ammonia, calcium carbide, caustic soda, coal-based methanol, sodium carbonate, and yellow phosphorus. These two levels are used in order to address the complexity caused by the fact that there are more than 40 thousand chemical products in this industry and the performance levels of the technologies employed are extremely uneven. Three scenarios with different technological improvements are defined to estimate the emissions of the six sub-sectors and analyze the implied reduction potential in the near future. The results highlight the pivotal role that regulation and policy administration could play in controlling the CO₂ emissions by promoting average technology performances in this industry.     

China’s regional CO2 emissions: Characteristics,inter-regional transfer and emission reduction policies

This paper analyzes the characteristics of China’s regional CO₂ emissions and effects of economic growth and energy intensity using panel data from 1997 to 2009. The results show that there are remarkable regional disparities among eastern, central and western areas, regional elasticities of per capita GDP and energy intensity on CO₂ emissions, which reflect the regional differences in economic development, economy structure and restraining function of energy intensity decrease on the emission. Energy intensity reducing is more effective to emission abatement for provinces with higher elasticity of energy intensity, but may not be significant for provinces with lower elasticity. The inverse distribution of energy production and consumption, regional unfairness caused by institutional factors like energy price and tax system result in inter-regional CO₂ emission transfer embodied in the power transmission. The calculation indicates that the embodied emission transfer was gradually significant after 2003, from eastern area to the central and western areas, especially energy production provinces in central area, which leads to distortion on the emission and emission intensity. The regional emission reduction targets and supporting policies should be customized and consistent with the actual situations rather than setting the same target for all the provinces.     

Implications of process energy efficiency improvements for primary energy consumption and CO2 emissions at the national level

The improvement of energy efficiency is seen as one of the most promising measures for reducing global CO₂ emissions. However, the emission reduction potential may seem different from the industrial plant and policy-maker’s perspectives. This paper evaluates the influences of process heat conservation on CHP electricity production, primary energy consumption and CO₂ emissions from both the mill site and national perspectives. The results indicate that heat conservation in an industrial process may lead to varying results in primary energy consumption and CO₂ emissions, depending on the form of marginal heat production used at the mill site. In the CHP process, reduction of the heat load lowers electricity production, and this reduction may have to be compensated for at the national level. Therefore, the energy conservation potential in industry has to be evaluated by taking into account the connections to the outside society, which means that a wider system boundary than a mill site has to be used. This study demonstrates by theoretical analysis and case mill studies the magnitude of the effects of system boundary definition when evaluating the contribution of an individual energy efficiency investment towards fulfilling the commitment to reduce CO₂ emissions at the national level.     

CO2 emissions of Turkish manufacturing industry: A decomposition analysis

In this study, CO₂ emissions of Turkish manufacturing industry are calculated by using the fuel consumption data at ISIC revision 2, four digit level. Study covers 57 industries, for the 1995–2001 period. Log Mean Divisia Index (LMDI) method is used to decompose the changes in the CO₂ emissions of manufacturing industry into five components; changes in activity, activity structure, sectoral energy intensity, sectoral energy mix and emission factors. Mainly, it is found that changes in total industrial activity and energy intensity are the primary factors determining the changes in CO₂ emissions during the study period. It is also indicated that among the fuels used, coal is the main determining factor and among the sectors, 3710 (iron and steel basic industries) is the dirtiest sector dominating the industrial CO₂ emissions in the Turkish manufacturing industry.     

Decomposition of CO2 emissions change from energy consumption in Brazil: Challenges and policy implications

This study evaluates the changes in CO₂ emissions from energy consumption in Brazil for the period 1970–2009. Emissions are decomposed into production and consumption activities allowing computing the full set of energy sources consumed in the country. This study aims to develop a comprehensive and updated picture of the underlying determinants of emissions change from energy consumption in Brazil along the last four decades, including for the first time the recently released data for 2009. Results demonstrate that economic activity and demographic pressure are the leading forces explaining emission increase. On the other hand, carbon intensity reductions and diversification of energy mix towards cleaner sources are the main factors contributing to emission mitigation, which are also the driving factors responsible for the observed decoupling between CO₂ emissions and economic growth after 2004. The cyclical patterns of energy intensity and economy structure are associated to both increments and mitigation on total emission change depending on the interval. The evidences demonstrate that Brazilian efforts to reduce emissions are concentrated on energy mix diversification and carbon intensity control while technology intensive alternatives like energy intensity has not demonstrated relevant progress. Residential sector displays a marginal weight in the total emission change.     

The impact of household consumption on energy use and CO2 emissions in China

In this paper, the consumer lifestyle approach is applied to analyze the impact of consumption by urban and rural households on energy use and CO₂ emissions for different regions and income levels in China. Grey Model is used to compare the relationship between energy consumption, consumption expenditure and CO₂ emissions for different lifestyles. The results show that direct energy consumption is diverse for urban households and simple for rural households in China. Direct energy consumption and CO₂ emissions are increasing faster for urban than for rural households. Indirect energy consumption and CO₂ emissions for urban households are much greater than the direct consumption values. The total indirect energy consumption and CO₂ emissions differ by regions and the structures are different, but the latter differences are not obvious. The impact of household income is enormous. Indirect energy consumption and CO₂ emissions are higher for high-income than for low-income households. The structural difference for indirect energy consumption and CO₂ emissions for households with different income levels is significant. The higher the income, the more diverse is the energy consumption and CO₂ emission structure. The structures for indirect energy use and CO₂ emissions are diverse for urban households, but simple for rural households.     

The renewable energy,CO2 emissions,and economic growth: VAR model

This paper provides an empirical analysis of CO₂ emissions and economic growth, renewable energy consumption, and energy consumption over the period 1975–2014 in Germany. This paper uses the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach of cointegration test and vector error-correction models. The unit root and cointegration tests show that the long-run relationship between CO₂ emissions and its determinants. The empirical results show that the findings do not support the environmental Kuznets curve between real GDP and CO₂ emissions. To estimate the shocks of renewable energy consumptions, the study applies the dynamic test of Impulse Response Function (IRF) under the VAR method. The increasing portion of renewable energy consumption in electricity generation would have no impacts on the environment. However, the hikes of renewable energy sources would incur more cost to electricity producers and shrivel up the growth of economies through the expansionary effect of industry’s consumption and private capital spending in the Germany’s economy.     

Evaluating carbon dioxide emissions in international trade of China

China is the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide (CO₂). As exports account for about one-third of China's GDP, the CO₂ emissions are related to not only China's own consumption but also external demand. Using the input–output analysis (IOA), we analyze the embodied CO₂ emissions of China's import and export. Our results show that about 3357 million tons CO₂ emissions were embodied in the exports and the emissions avoided by imports (EAI) were 2333 million tons in 2005. The average contribution to embodied emission factors by electricity generation was over 35%. And that by cement production was about 20%. It implies that the production-based emissions of China are more than the consumption-based emissions, which is evidence that carbon leakage occurs under the current climate policies and international trade rules. In addition to the call for a new global framework to allocate emission responsibilities, China should make great efforts to improve its energy efficiency, carry out electricity pricing reforms and increase renewable energy. In particular, to use advanced technology in cement production will be helpful to China's CO₂ abatement.     

Assessment of CO2 emissions and its reduction potential in the Korean petroleum refining industry using energy-environment models

We assessed potential future CO₂ reduction in the Korean petroleum refining industry by investigating five new technologies for energy savings and CO₂ mitigation using a hybrid SD-LEAP model: crude oil distillation units (CDU), vacuum distillation units (VDU), light gas-oil hydro-desulfurization units (LGO HDS), and the vacuum residue hydro-desulfurization (VR HDS) process. The current and future demand for refining industry products in Korea was estimated using the SD model. The required crude oil input amounts are expected to increase from 139 million tons in 2008 to 154 million tons in 2030 in the baseline scenario. The current and future productivity of the petroleum refining industry was predicted, and this prediction was substituted into the LEAP model which analyzed energy consumption and CO₂ emissions from the refining processes in the BAU scenario. We expect that new technology and alternative scenarios will reduce CO₂ emissions by 0.048% and 0.065% in the national and industrial sectors, respectively.     

Driving forces of residential CO2 emissions in urban and rural China: An index decomposition analysis

There exist many differences between urban and rural China among which residential CO₂ emissions arising from energy consumption is a major one. In this paper, we estimate and compare the energy related CO₂ emissions from urban and rural residential energy consumption from 1991 to 2004. The logarithmic mean Divisia index decomposition analysis is then applied to investigate the factors that may affect the changes of the CO₂ emissions. It is found that energy intensity and the income effects, respectively, contributed most to the decline and the increase of residential CO₂ emissions for both urban and rural China. In urban China, the population effect was found to contribute to the increase of residential CO₂ emissions with a rising tendency. However, in rural China, the population effect for residential CO₂ emissions kept decreasing since 1998.     

Interactions and implications of renewable and climate change policy on UK energy scenarios

As a response to the twin challenges of climate change mitigation and energy security, the UK government has set a groundbreaking target of reducing the UK’s economy-wide carbon emissions by 80% from 1990 levels by 2050. A second key UK energy policy is to increase the share of final energy consumption from renewables sources to 15% by 2020, as part of the wider EU Renewable Directive. The UK’s principle mechanisms to meet this renewable target are the Renewable Obligation (RO) in the electricity sector, the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO), and most recently the Renewable Heat Programme (RHP) for buildings. This study quantifies a range of policies, energy pathways, and sectoral trade-offs when combining mid- and long-term UK renewables and CO₂ reduction policies. Stringent renewable policies are the binding constraints through 2020. Furthermore, the interactions between RO, RTFO, and RHP policies drive trade-offs between low carbon electricity, bio-fuels, high efficiency natural gas, and demand reductions as well as resulting 2020 welfare costs. In the longer term, CO₂ reduction constraints drive the costs and characteristics of the UK energy system through 2050.     

Evaluation of geologic storage options of CO2: Applicability,cost, storage capacity and safety

CO₂ emissions in the atmosphere are increasing continually, which are mainly originated from burning of fossil fuels. The fossil fuels are expected to remain a major component of the world’s energy supply in the near future, because of their inherent advantages. Therefore, various measures have to be considered to reduce anthropogenic CO₂ emissions. Increasing the efficiency of energy usage and/or developing lower carbon or non-carbon energies to replace high carbon fuels may bring the result of the reduction of the accumulation of CO₂ in the atmosphere. The other alternative to reduce CO₂ concentrations in atmosphere include gaseous storage in various deep geological formations, liquid storage in the ocean, and solid storage by reaction of CO₂ with metal oxides to produce stable carbonates. In this article, the geological storage options of CO₂ are examined. They are discussed in terms of applicability, cost, storage capacity and safety.     

Factors influencing CO2 emissions in China based on grey relational analysis

The increase of greenhouse gas emissions, especially CO₂ emissions, have caused the global temperature to rise. As a developing country, China has become the largest CO₂ emitter in the world. It is very important and urgent to cut the CO₂ emissions down. In this article, the driving forces that influenced China’s CO₂ emissions from 1995 to 2010 based on grey relational analysis is investigated. It is found that GDP per capita (G), population (P), coal consumption (C), oil consumption (O), natural gas consumption (N), industrial structure (IS), and urbanization (U) play crucial roles in the increase of CO₂ emissions, though they have different impacts on CO₂ emissions. The sequence of the size of the factors’ influence on China’s CO₂ emissions is C > G > O > N > U > P > IS. Some effective recommendations for improving energy efficiency and reducing the CO₂ emissions intensity are proposed.     

The environmental impact of post-combustion CO2 capture with MEA, with aqueous ammonia, and with an aqueous ammonia-ethanol mixture for a coal-fired power plant

In this paper the authors compare monoethanolamine (MEA) to aqueous ammonia (AA) and a solvent mixture of aqueous ammonia and ethanol (EAA) with respect to their post-combustion CO₂ capture performance and their environmental impact. Simulation of all processes was carried out with Aspen Plus^® and compared to experimental results for CO₂ scrubbing with ammonia. Of special interest was the formation of stable salts, which could be observed in the experimental CO₂ capture with both ammonia solvents. If CO₂ can be captured in the form of ammonium salts, energy requirements are greatly reduced, since no energy is required for solvent regeneration and CO₂ compression. The environmental impact of CO₂ capture was investigated for a 500 MW pulverised coal power plant employing Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) using the software SimaPro^®. For a comprehensive evaluation of this impact, influencing factors such as solvent production and solvent emissions were included. With kinetics taken into account, no salt formation could be observed in CO₂ removal with aqueous ammonia. The necessary reduction of ammonia emissions leads to further energy requirements, and solvent production as well as the remaining ammonia losses to the environment have a more significant environmental impact than CO₂ removal with MEA.     

Variables affecting energy efficiency and CO2 emissions in the steel industry

Specific energy consumption (SEC) is an energy efficiency indicator widely used in industry for measuring the energy efficiency of different processes. In this paper, the development of energy efficiency and CO₂ emissions of steelmaking is studied by analysing the energy data from a case mill. First, the specific energy consumption figures were calculated using different system boundaries, such as the process level, mill level and mill site level. Then, an energy efficiency index was developed to evaluate the development of the energy efficiency at the mill site. The effects of different production conditions on specific energy consumption and specific CO₂ emissions were studied by PLS analysis. As theory expects, the production rate of crude steel and the utilisation of recycled steel were shown to affect the development of energy efficiency at the mill site. This study shows that clearly defined system boundaries help to clarify the role of on-site energy conversion and make a difference between the final energy consumption and primary energy consumption of an industrial plant with its own energy production.     

The relationship between CO2 emissions and economic growth: The case of Korea with nonlinear evidence

Using STAR models, we investigate the nonlinear dynamic properties and the interdependence of CO₂ emissions and economic growth for Korea. The estimation results indicate that the growth rate of both CO₂ emissions and industrial production exhibit a significant nonlinear asymmetric dynamics. While the linear Granger causality test finds no causality in any direction, the results of the nonlinear Granger causality tests show a two-way causality between CO₂ emissions and economic growth. The strong mutual causation between CO₂ emissions and economic activities indicates that the economic impact from CO₂ mitigation is expected to be higher in Korea. This suggests that the appropriate energy and environmental policy be to mitigate CO₂ emissions while having less impact on the economy.     

Energy consumption and CO2 emissions of the European glass industry

An in-depth analysis of the energy consumption and CO₂ emissions of the European glass industry is presented. The analysis is based on data of the EU ETS for the period 2005–2007 (Phase I). The scope of this study comprises the European glass industry as a whole and its seven subsectors. The analysis is based on an assignment of the glass installations (ca. 450) within the EU ETS to the corresponding subsectors and an adequate matching of the respective production volumes. A result is the assessment of the overall final energy consumption (fuel, electricity) as well as the overall CO₂ emissions (process, combustion and indirect emissions) of the glass industry and its subsectors in the EU25/27. Moreover, figures on fuel mix as well as fuel intensity and CO₂ emissions intensity (i.e. carbon intensity) are presented for each of the subsectors on aggregated levels and for selected EU Member States separately. The average intensity of fuel consumption and direct CO₂ emissions of the EU25 glass industry decreased from 2005 to 2007 by about 4% and amounted in 2007 to 7.8 GJ and 0.57 _tCO₂${\mathrm{t}}_{{\text{CO}}_{\mathrm{2}}}$ per tonne of saleable product, respectively. The economic energy intensity was evaluated with 0.46 toe/1000€ (EU27).     

Towards a low-carbon future in China's building sector—A review of energy and climate models forecast

This article investigates the potentials of energy saving and greenhouse gases emission mitigation offered by implementation of building energy efficiency policies in China. An overview of existing literature regarding long-term energy-demand and carbon dioxide (CO₂) emission forecast scenarios is presented. Energy consumption in buildings could be reduced by 100–300 million tons of oil equivalent (mtoe) in 2030 compared with the business-as-usual (BAU) scenario, which means that 600–700 million metric tons of CO₂ emissions could be saved by implementing appropriate energy policies within an adapted institutional framework. The main energy-saving potentials in buildings can be achieved by improving a building's thermal performance and district heating system efficiency. The analyses also reveal that the energy interchange systems are effective especially in the early stage of penetration. Our analysis on the reviewed models suggests that more ambitious efficiency improvement policies in both supply- and demand-side as well as the carbon price should be taken into account in the policy scenarios to address drastic reduction of CO₂ emission in the building sector to ensure climate security over the next decades.