Emission intensity of energy sector in V4 countries – decoupling analysis of GHG emissions and economic growth

Research background: The production and use of energy satisfies human needs, but also gives rise to a host of adverse environmental pressures, such as air pollution and waste generation. The issue of energy efficiency and climate chance resonates in the energy sector as one of the main producers of green-house gas emissions (GHG). While the European Union in general is doing well in reducing emissions and increasing the share of renewables, unfortunately, there are countries that are still far from reaching their goal. Purpose of the article: The paper is focused on the quantitative assessment of the link between the economic growth of the energy sector and the production of GHG emissions by the energy sector in V4 countries during the period 1995?2016. For this purpose, decoupling analysis will be realized. Methods: The decoupling of economic growth and the environmental pressures caused by this growth has a rich tradition within the sustainable development literature. The decoupling method was chosen for its ability to link economic and environmental indicators. Decoupling elasticity will be calculated with the aim of assessing the relationship between the economic growth of the energy sector (measured in GVA) and GHG emissions produced by the energy sector in V4 countries within the research period. Decoupling elasticity indicates different forms of the decoupling and coupling of the two variables. Findings & Value added: The results of the analysis suggest the prevailing strong decoupling of the economic growth of the energy sector and GHG emissions produced by the energy sector, which can be considered a positive trend. The findings of this paper are relevant for the government, state and public institutions and stakeholders in general, who play important roles in the preparation of programs, projects and policies to make energy generation, transport and use more efficient and environmentally sustainable.

Energy-related activities are a major contributor of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. A growing body of knowledge clearly depicts the links between human activities and climate change. Over the last century the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil and other human activities has released carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and other heat-trapping GHG emissions into the atmosphere and thus increased the concentration of atmospheric CO2 emissions. The main human activities that emit CO2 emissions are (1) the combustion of fossil fuels to generate electricity, accounting for about 37% of total U.S. CO2 emissions and 31% of total U.S. GHG emissions in 2013, (2) the combustion of fossil fuels such as gasoline and diesel to transport people and goods, accounting for about 31% of total U.S. CO2 emissions and 26% of total U.S. GHG emissions in 2013, and (3) industrial processes such as the production and consumption of minerals and chemicals, accounting for about 15% of total U.S. CO2 emissions and 12% of total ...

The demands and consumption of energy in the world are increasing, despite major developments towards more efficient energy production and use. Most energy supply still comes from non-renewable sources, and greenhouse gas emissions are constantly increasing, despite the development of various international policies on climate change, such as the Kyoto Protocol or the not yet ratified Paris Agreement. In this study, the potential for enhancing the efficiencies of utility transport and use, as well as cross-sectorial energy integration, are estimated for the current state of energy production, energy conversion, and energy use within and between the main sectors. Improving energy integration between different sectors can lead to significant savings in energy sources, resulting in significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions. Integrating different sectors is not a straightforward task since they use different types and loads of utilities at different levels. The first step toward integration of different energy sectors is to properly assess the primary energy source demand. A methodology for estimating primary energy requirements by tackling different types of and loads on utilities was developed. The results indicate that the primary energy source utilisation can be 2.6 times higher compared to the initial energy consumption in different sectors. The energy consumption should be addressed holistically considering at least three different aspects: i) utility transport efficiency, ii) energy efficiency within the sectors (intensification) and iii) energy integration between different sectors.

GHG Mitigation Potentials of Thailand’s Energy Policies to Achieve INDC Target

Environmental innovations hold promise for cutting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, but most technology investments are made in large technologically leading countries. Thus, emission reductions in small open economies, such as the Nordic countries, depend on not only domestic technological development, but also technology spillovers from foreign countries. The present study analysed how the development of climate change technologies affected the Nordic countries' GHG emissions from the industrial and energy sectors during a particular time frame. Consequently, while controlling for economic growth and population, domestic and foreign technological development's effects on industrial and energy sector GHG emissions were examined from the 1990–2019 period. The results revealed that both domestically developed environmental technologies and technology spillovers from foreign economies mitigated GHG emissions from these nations' energy and industrial sectors, thereby providing an efficient pathway to achieving sectoral environmental sustainability. In particular, domestic environmental technologies were found to be more efficient in driving environmental sustainability in the industrial sector, whereas impacts from domestic and foreign technological development did not differ significantly in the energy sector. Furthermore, given that economic growth plays a vital role in GHG emissions, environmental Kuznets curve (EKC; inverted U-shaped and U-shaped) relationships have been observed in the energy and industrial sectors, respectively. This suggests that the examined countries' industrial sectors have more environmental quality hurdles to overcome.

Executive Summary: The California Climate Action Registry, which was initially established in 2000 and began operation in Fall 2002, is a voluntary registry for recording annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The purpose of the Registry is to assist California businesses and organizations in their efforts to inventory and document emissions in order to establish a baseline and to document early actions to increase energy efficiency and decrease GHG emissions. The State of California has committed to use its ''best efforts'' to ensure that entities that establish GHG emissions baselines and register their emissions will receive ''appropriate consideration under any future international, federal, or state regulatory scheme relating to greenhouse gas emissions.'' Reporting of GHG emissions involves documentation of both ''direct'' emissions from sources that are under the entity's control and indirect emissions controlled by others. Electricity generated by an off-site power source is consider ed to be an indirect GHG emission and is required to be included in the entity's report. Registry participants include businesses, non-profit organizations, municipalities, state agencies, and other entities. Participants are required to register the GHG emissions of all operations in California, and are encouraged to report nationwide. For the first three years of participation, the Registry only requires the reporting of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, although participants are encouraged to report the remaining five Kyoto Protocol GHGs (CH4, N2O, HFCs, PFCs, and SF6). After three years, reporting of all six Kyoto GHG emissions is required. The enabling legislation for the Registry (SB 527) requires total GHG emissions to be registered and requires reporting of ''industry-specific metrics'' once such metrics have been adopted by the Registry. The Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) was asked to provide technical assistance to the California Energy Commission (Energy Commission) related to the Registry in three areas: (1) assessing the availability and usefulness of industry-specific metrics, (2) evaluating various methods for establishing baselines for calculating GHG emissions reductions related to specific actions taken by Registry participants, and (3) establishing methods for calculating electricity CO2 emission factors. The third area of research was completed in 2002 and is documented in Estimating Carbon Dioxide Emissions Factors for the California Electric Power Sector (Marnay et al., 2002). This report documents our findings related to the first areas of research. For the first area of research, the overall objective was to evaluate the metrics, such as emissions per economic unit or emissions per unit of production that can be used to report GHG emissions trends for potential Registry participants. This research began with an effort to identify methodologies, benchmarking programs, inventories, protocols, and registries that u se industry-specific metrics to track trends in energy use or GHG emissions in order to determine what types of metrics have already been developed. The next step in developing industry-specific metrics was to assess the availability of data needed to determine metric development priorities. Berkeley Lab also determined the relative importance of different potential Registry participant categories in order to asses s the availability of sectoral or industry-specific metrics and then identified industry-specific metrics in use around the world. While a plethora of metrics was identified, no one metric that adequately tracks trends in GHG emissions while maintaining confidentiality of data was identified. As a result of this review, Berkeley Lab recommends the development of a GHG intensity index as a new metric for reporting and tracking GHG emissions trends.Such an index could provide an industry-specific metric for reporting and tracking GHG emissions trends to accurately reflect year to year changes while protecting proprietary data. This GHG intensity index changes while protecting proprietary data. This GHG intensity index would provide Registry participants with a means for demonstrating improvements in their energy and GHG emissions per unit of production without divulging specific values. For the second research area, Berkeley Lab evaluated various methods used to calculate baselines for documentation of energy consumption or GHG emissions reductions, noting those that use industry-specific metrics. Accounting for actions to reduce GHGs can be done on a project-by-project basis or on an entity basis. Establishing project-related baselines for mitigation efforts has been widely discussed in the context of two of the so-called ''flexible mechanisms'' of the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (Kyoto Protocol) Joint Implementation (JI) and the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).

This paper analyzes the building process of the main greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (CO2, CH4 and N2O) inventory from the energy sector in Palestine. The paper includes determination tools, i.e., emission factors, to estimate the amounts of national GHG emissions from sub-sectors of energy including energy industries, manufacturing industries and construction, transport and other sectors (households, agriculture and commerce and public services). The results show that the total amount of national GHG emissions from the energy sector in 2016 was 4131 thousand metric tons of CO2-equivalent (TtCO2e), which represented 0.011% of the total global GHG emissions. The average value of GHG emissions per capita from the energy sector was 0.86 tCO2e in Palestine, and its gross domestic product was estimated at 3212$/ton of CO2e. The estimated amounts of CO2, CH4 and N2O emission from the energy sector were 4022, 49 and 60 TtCO2e, respectively. The transport and household sub-sectors dominated the national GHG emissions from the entire energy sector by 58 and 32%, respectively. In general, fuels including diesel, gasoline, wood and charcoal and liquefied petroleum gas made most of the total amount of the national GHG emissions from the energy sector at 50, 18, 18 and 12%, respectively. Finally, the mitigation actions included in the first nationally determined contribution of Palestine and recommendations to help lower the national GHG emissions from the Palestinian energy sector are provided.

As a party to the Paris Agreement Russia pledged not to exceed the net greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions’ level of 70–75% to that existed in 1990. Energy efficiency improvement, structural shifts in production and the increase of Russian forests’ carbon sink capacity were the key contributors to curbing the GHG emissions in Russia during the last 25 years. The decreasing carbon intensity of the GDP was a natural result of economic growth and implementation of voluntary business projects to improve the efficiency of the industrial sector using investments in modernization of the production facilities. Russia disposes significant potential to reduce GHG emissions, but the feasibility and efficiency of respective measures should be evaluated considering the implications to economic growth. Implementation of the socalled aggressive scenario to halt global temperature growth at any cost within 1.5 °C as compared to the pre-industrial era is unacceptable to Russia from socioeconomic perspective given its leading to lowering the average annual GDP growth rate by 1.8 percentage points by 2050. In addition, tough measures to reduce GHG emissions involve energy costs skyrocketing to unprecedented levels – from the current 13% of the GDP to 30% of the GDP by 2040. Such a burden would hardly be compatible with economic growth or, in any case, provide for the economic growth’s providing for improvement of the communities’ standard of living. Russia needs the long-term development strategy with low GHG emissions level focused on improving the quality of living, modernizing and increasing the competitiveness of the national economy. Such a strategy rests on the following principles: 1) Russia has been the world leader in the GHG emissions reduction since 1990, so no solid reason exists for its soonest switching to excessively stringent climate commitments which result in ungrounded additional restrictions to its socio-economic development pace; 2) The core impediment to sustainable development of Russia is not a high level of the GHG emissions, but economic stagnation. Given that the reasonable scenario of the GHG emissions reduction implies the development path that allows the national economy to grow at a rate of 3% average annual GDP as the least; 3) Action priorities in the area of the GHG sinking should involve improvement of the LULUCF sector potential by promoting sound natural resources management policy and voluntary projects to increase carbon sink and reservoir capacity of the forest and wetland ecosystems; 4) Action priorities to reduce GHG emissions assume the imperative and expediency of economic stimulating of the structural change in the energy sector that involves production and technological chains within the country and do not provide for excessive price growth. Such change includes increasing use of natural gas (as the most “clean” fossil fuel) and nuclear energy (given Russia’s leading position in the nuclear technology area), as well as cogeneration of electricity and heat. Pronounced increase in using renewables, energy storage systems and electric vehicles should be acceptable only if production of these is successfully localized and costs are reduced. Sustainable economic growth is a prerequisite for intensifying energy efficiency improvement as it involves modernization of the production facilities and using available and competitive industrial capacities. Specific measures targeted at energy savings will be inefficient given economic stagnation. A reasonable (smart) scenario of the Russia long-term economic development with the low GHG emissions level should comply with the principles above and its driving force propelled by structural and technological modernization of the economy that fully involves economic potential of the energy resource and power sector. The implementation of this development scenario would allow Russia to comply with the Paris Agreement national commitments while ensuring economic growth at the pace not yielding to that of the global average.

Worldwide, the transport sector is a leading contributor to both energy use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It currently accounts for 19 % of global energy use and 23 % of global energy-related CO2 emissions. In China, transport contributed 7–8 % to the nation’s GHG emissions, but this value will increase rapidly in the coming years because China is in a period of significant growth in travel demand and vehicle ownership. Numerous actions have been taken to reduce the energy demand and GHG emissions for the transport sector, such as implementing fuel economy standards, promoting advanced vehicles and alternative fuels, and developing a high-speed railway system. This chapter analyses previous and soon-to-be implemented policies to control energy use and GHG emissions from transport in China, and then discusses the challenges and opportunities for China in building a low-carbon, clean, and sustainable transport system. Currently, technical measures to improve the fuel efficiency of transport dominate Chinese policy solutions, but a long-term strategy to decrease energy use and GHG emissions from China’s transport system will likely rely on improving the railway transport system.

Major US electric utility climate pledges have the potential to collectively reduce power sector emissions by one-third

Emission accounting, sectoral contributions and gridded spatial distribution of greenhouse gases in a typical petrochemical district of Shanghai

China has ambitious goals for economic development, and mustfind ways to power the achievement of those goals that are bothenvironmentally and socially sustainable. Integration into the globaleconomy presents opportunities for technological improvement and accessto energy resources. China also has options for innovative policies andmeasures that could significantly alter the way energy is acquired andused. These opportunities andoptions, along with long-term social,demographic, and economic trends, will shape China s future energysystem, and consequently its contribution to emissions of greenhousegases, particularly carbon dioxide (CO2). In this study, entitled China sSustainable Energy Future: Scenarios of Energy and Carbon Emissions, theEnergy Research Institute (ERI), an independent analytic organizationunder China's Na tional Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), soughtto explore in detail how China could achieve the goals of the TenthFive-Year Plan and its longer term aims through a sustainable developmentstrategy. China's ability to forge a sustainable energy path has globalconsequences. China's annual emissions of greenhouse gases comprisenearly half of those from developing countries, and 12 percent of globalemissions. Most of China's greenhouse gas emissions are in the form ofCO2, 87 percent of which came from energy use in 2000. In that year,China's carbon emissions from energy use and cement production were 760million metric tons (Mt-C), second only to the 1,500 Mt-C emitted by theUS (CDIAC, 2003). As China's energy consumption continues to increase,greenhouse gas emissions are expected to inevitably increase into thefuture. However, the rate at which energy consumption and emissions willincrease can vary significantly depending on whether sustainabledevelopment is recognized as an important policy goal. If the ChineseGovernment chooses to adopt measures to enhance energy efficiency andimprove the overall structure of energy supply, it is possible thatfuture economic growth may be supported by a relatively lower increase inenergy consumption. Over the past 20 years, energy intensity in China hasbeen reduced partly through technological and structural changes; currentannual emissions may be as much as 600 Mt-C lower than they would havebeen without intensity improvements. China must take into account itsunique circumstances in considering how to achieve a sustainabledevelopment path. This study considers the feasibility of such anachievement, while remaining open to exploring avenues of sustainabledevelopment that may be very different from existing models. Threescenarios were prepared to assist the Chinese Government to explore theissues, options and uncertainties that it confronts in shaping asustainable development path compatible with China's uniquecircumstances. The Promoting Sustainability scenario offers a systematicand complete interpretation of the social and economic goals proposed inthe Tenth Five-Year Plan. The possibility that environmentalsustainability would receive low priority is covered in the OrdinaryEffort scenario. Aggressive pursuit of sustainable development measuresalong with rapid economic expansion is featured in the Green Growthscenario. The scenarios differ in the degree to which a common set ofenergy supply and efficiency policies are implemented. In cons ultationwith technology and policy experts domestically and abroad, ERI developedstrategic scenarios and quantified them using an energy accounting model.The scenarios consider, in unprecedented detail, changes in energy demandstructure and technology, as well as energy supply, from 1998 to 2020.The scenarios in this study are an important step in estimating realistictargets for energy efficiency and energy supply development that are inline with a sustainable development strategy. The scenarios also helpanalyze and explore ways in which China might slow growth in greenhousegas emissions. The key results have important policy implications:Depending on how demand for energy services is met, China could quadrupleits gross domestic product between 1998 and 2020 with energy use risingby 70 percent to 130 percent (Figure 1). Continual progress in improvingthe efficiency and structure of industry is crucial to maintainingeconomic growth with minimal growth in energy use. In some industries,output may grow with no rise in energy use at all. Swelling ranks ofmotor vehicles will deepen China's dependence on imported oil up to 320Mt per year by 2020 an amount that global markets can easily supply. Tomoderate growth in transportation energy use, the strong promotion ofconvenient public transport will be needed in addition to tighter fuelefficiency standards and advanced vehicles. Fuel switching, efficientappliances, better heating and cooling systems, and improved buildingenvelope technologies will be needed in the fast-growing buildingssector. By 2020, China will still b

Investigating the effect of renewable energy on the drivers of climate change correctly is significant as it is the basic source of climate change mitigation. In the extant literature, its effect on climate change has been estimated predominantly by regressing aggregate rather than sectoral renewable energy use either on aggregate greenhouse gas emissions or the components of greenhouse gases (GHGs) like carbon dioxide emissions. Against this backdrop, the paper investigates if we should estimate the nexus (i) by the causal effects running from aggregate or sectoral renewable energy use to GHG emissions and (ii) by the causal effects running from renewable energy consumption to aggregate GHG emissions or to its components like carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. To this end, the paper introduces negative and positive (functional) complementarity between sectoral renewable energy consumptions in reducing or increasing GHG emissions, takes 20 OECD countries from 1990 to 2019, and uses augmented and non-augmented auto-regressive distributed lag approach and vector error correction mechanism. The study finds substantial differences among the results coming out of (i) regressing aggregate and sectoral renewable energy consumption on GHG emissions and (ii) regressing renewable energy consumption on aggregate GHG emissions and on CO2 emissions. The paper suggests regressing sectoral rather than aggregate renewable energy consumption on the components of aggregate GHG emissions like CO2 emissions rather than on aggregate GHG emissions to produce workable, specific, and conclusive policy alternatives.

Mitigating climate change and achieving stabilization of greenhouse gas atmospheric concentrations — the objective of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) — will require deep reductions in global Energy-related Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions. G-8 leaders called for a 50% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions before 2050 to avoid the most serious consequences of climate change. Meeting this goal requires transforming the way energy is produced, delivered, and consumed across all sectors of the economy and regions of the world. Energy efficiency offers seemingly glittering promises to all-savings for consumers and utilities, profits for shareholders, improvements in industrial productivity, enhanced international competitiveness and reduced environmental impacts. As global energy demand continues to grow, actions to increase energy efficiency will be essential. The technical opportunities are myriad and potential savings real, but consumers and utilities have so far been slow to invest in the most cost-effective, energy-efficient technologies available. The energy efficiency of buildings, electric equipment, and appliances in use falls far short of what is technically attainable. Energy analysts have attributed this efficiency gap to a variety of market, institutional and technical constraints. Electric utility energy efficiency techniques have great potential to narrow this gap and achieve significant energy savings. This paper provides some of the recent trends in energy efficiency technologies that have been successful and also used widely worldwide. They are: 1) Energy efficient motors 2) Soft starters with energy saver 3) Variable speed drives 4) Energy efficient transformers 5) Electronic ballast 6) Occupancy sensors & Energy efficient lighting controls 7) Energy efficient Lamps This paper presents Case Studies of various energy efficient techniques used in a Steel Plant resulting in considerable Electrical energy savings varying from 10–15%. Electric motors drive both core industrial processes, like presses or roll mills, and auxiliary systems, like compressed air generation, ventilation or water pumping. They are utilized throughout all industrial branches, though the main applications vary. With only some exceptions, electric motors are the main source for the provision of mechanical energy in industry. In recent years, many studies identified large energy efficiency potentials in electric motors and motor systems with many saving options showing very short payback times and high cost-effectiveness. Furthermore, almost all electricity in India is generated by rotating electrical generators, and approximately half of that generated is used to drive electrical motors. Hence, efficiency improvements with electrical machines can have a very large impact on energy consumption. The key challenges to increased efficiency in systems driven by electrical machines lie in three areas: a. To extend the application areas of variable-speed electric drives through reduction of power electronic and control costs b. Secondly, to integrate the drive and the driven load to maximize system efficiency c. Finally, to increase the efficiency of the electrical machine. Lighting is a large and rapidly growing source of energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time the savings potential of lighting energy is high, even with the current technology, and there are new energy efficient lighting technologies coming onto the market. Currently, more than 33 billion lamps operate worldwide, consuming more than 2650 TWh of energy annually, which is approximately 19% of the global electricity consumption. The introduction of more energy efficient lighting products and procedures can at the same time provide better living and working environments and also contribute in a cost-effective manner to the global reduction of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.

The per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of Saudi Arabia were more than three times the global average emissions in 2019. The energy sector is the most dominant GHG-emitting sector in the country; its energy consumption has increased over five times in the last four decades, from over 2000 quadrillion joules in 1981 to around 11,000 quadrillion joules in 2019, while the share of renewable energy in 2019 was only 0.1%. To reduce GHG emissions, the Saudi Arabian government has undertaken initiatives for improving energy efficiency and increasing the production of renewable energies in the country. However, there are few investigative studies into the effectiveness of these initiatives in improving energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This study provides an overview of the various energy efficiency and renewable energy initiatives undertaken in Saudi Arabia. Then, it evaluates the effectiveness of energy-related policies and initiatives using an indicator-based approach. In addition, this study performs temporal and econometrics analyses to understand the trends and the causal relationships among various drivers of energy sector emissions. Energy intensity and efficiency have improved moderately in recent years. This study will support policymakers in identifying significant policy gaps in reducing the emissions from the energy sector; furthermore, this study will provide a reference for tracking the progress of their policy initiatives. In addition, the methodology used in this study could be applied in other studies to evaluate various climate change policies and their progress.