Environmentally compatible energy resource production—consumption pattern (case study: Iran)

Iran as a rapidly developing country, whose economy is enriched by oil and gas exports, has to integrate Green Economy concept into its energy sector. In order to integrate environmental concerns into energy sector, an Energy-Environment Review (EER) was considered as the mainstreaming tool capable of examining the interface between energy and the environment. The results of the EER should be interpreted, in the light of the objective of the Five-Year Development Plan in Iran, to achieve fast and sustainable green growth and accelerate the transition to a market economy. The proposed actions will promote economic efficiency, use of energy resources through a proper allocation of scarce resources, including environmental resources, so as to achieve economic efficiency and environmental and social protection. This article updates trends in Iran and provides: to be stated continuously (i) an analysis of the current situation with regards to energy production and consumption; (ii) an evaluation of the growth prospects; (iii) the identification of environmental issues induced by the generation and use of energy and estimation of the associated costs of damages; (iv) the evaluation of the extent of contribution to the climate change phenomenon through emission of greenhouse gases; (v) the evaluation of the proposed mitigation measures for the previously identified environmental problems; and (vi) conclusions and recommendations. It is assessed that the total health damage from air pollution in 2010 at about to be converted to dollars 160 × 10¹²Rials (US$ fifteen billion); equivalent to 1.55% of nominal GDP. The damage cost to the global environment from the flaring of natural gas, assessed on the basis of a carbon price of US$ 17/ton CO₂, is found to be approximately US$1.02billion per year.

Environmental damage costs in Iran by the energy sector

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 production and use of energy satisfies human needs, but also gives rise to a host of adverse environmental pressures, such as air pollution or waste generation. The issue of energy efficiency and climate chance resonates in energy sector as one of the main producer of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. While the Union as a whole is doing well in reducing emissions as well as in increasing the share of renewables, unfortunately, there are countries still far from their goal. The aim of this paper is to quantitatively assess the relationship between economic growth of energy sector and production of GHG emissions by energy sector in the V4 countries using decoupling method. The paper focuses on the case of V4 countries in the period of 1995 – 2016. Throughout the more than 20 years examined, the countries spread out into many different forms of decoupling. The results of analysis suggest that in most observed partial variables occurs the strong decoupling of economic growth of energy sector (measured in GVA) and GHG emissions produced by energy sector, what can be considered as positive trend. Findings of the paper are relevant for government, state and public institutions as well as stakeholders in general who play important role in preparation of programs, projects and initiatives to make energy appliances, buildings, transport and energy generation more efficient, and introduces stringent new energy efficiency standards and financing mechanisms to support more energy efficient products.

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.

Meeting the energy and climate challenge for transportation in the United States

Climate change is one of the major issues in the current world. Such climate change-related problems have not only problematic for the environment, but also a major issue for the world as a whole. Orderly and properly analysis made in such regards is the need of the time. And in no cases, there is any time left to ignore such necessary steps for mitigating the negative impacts of climate change on our environment. Climate change-related mitigation is all about reducing the overall release of greenhouse gas emissions that are ultimately heating up our world. Mitigation strategies consist of analyzing and taking necessary steps to make the utilization of natural resources more energy efficient. It includes helping cities in creating more feasible transportation systems, such as increasing the uses of electric vehicles and biofuels in place of crude oils; enhancing the utilization of renewable energy sources such as solar power plants, wind energy-related equipment, and small and large hydropower plants for generating the electricity. Mitigation measures include all such functioning that is undertaken to decrease and control the greenhouse emissions outflows. Adaptations of all such measures can support the reduction in the vulnerability factors which have adverse impacts on global climate and results in climate changes. When we considered the transportation sector of the country India, which heavily depends upon fossil fuel usages. And such led to challenges relating to air pollution, energy security, and greenhouse gas emissions, which directly related to the increase in the demand for taking some concrete and mitigation steps by making transportation and energy sectors much more effective and efficient. Petrol and diesel fuel accounts for more than 90% of India's transportation sector's energy utilization. The transportation sector is India's one of the fastest-growing as well as highly energy consuming sector with a growth rate of 6.8 %. Because of such huge demand in the transportation sector, the utilization of petroleum related product increased significantly. As a result of which 7 of the top 10 polluted cities in the whole world are belonging to country India. According to the world air quality report 2018. For instance, in Delhi, vehicle emissions have been considered as the major contributor to rising air pollution compared to all other sources including manufacturing sectors, households, thermal power plants, and the agricultural sector. In India, 2018 alone estimated death of 1.25 million people due to air pollution is about 12.5% of the total deaths. The Government of India has emphasized the target of making the country's energy sector more reliable, secure, and consistent & for achieving the above targets the government had decided to reduce the overall consumption of fossil fuel by 10% by the year 2022.

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.

Triangle of Environment, Water and Energy: A Sociological Appraisal

The development of measures and technologies for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions requires assessing the existing emission sources and obtaining a quantitative estimate of the emissions. A significant contribution to greenhouse gas emissions is made by the energy sector, which includes not only generation facilities that burn fossil fuels to produce heat and electricity but also enterprises engaged in their extraction. As an approach for calculating greenhouse gas emissions from the extraction of fuel and energy resources, the methods developed at the Institute of Global Climate and Ecology named after Yu.A. Israel. These methods for quantifying greenhouse gas emissions are based on the Guidelines of the Interstate Group of Experts on climate change from 2006, supplemented by national methodological developments, taking into account domestic experience in conducting inventories and scientific research. To estimate greenhouse gas emissions, national emission coefficients were used, taking into account the territorial aspect. Such coefficients are developed for different types of fuels based on their physico-chemical properties used in various fields of activity. The calculation of greenhouse gas emissions from the extraction of fuel and energy resources includes an assessment of emissions into the atmosphere directly from the extraction of coal and hydrocarbons, as well as subsequent operations with resources. The calculation of the amount of greenhouse gas emissions (carbon dioxide and methane) during coal mining was carried out taking into account the open and closed production methods. Estimates of greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere during hydrocarbon production take into account certain types of activities: drilling, testing and maintenance of existing oil wells; extraction and primary processing of natural gas; transportation of hydrocarbons; storage of natural gas; gas distribution; flaring of petroleum (associated) gas; gas disposal during oil and gas production; natural gas flaring during gas extraction and primary processing. An assessment of the spatial distribution of greenhouse gas emissions made it possible to identify the main activities that cause greenhouse gas emissions during the extraction of energy resources and to determine which Federal Districts of Russia are the major contributors. As a result, it is obtained that the total estimated greenhouse gas emissions in Russia from the extraction of fuel and energy resources are estimated at 208 million tons of CO2-eq, with a predominant share of 67 % from activities in the field of hydrocarbon production (oil, condensate and natural gas). In spatial distribution the estimations of greenhouse gas emissions from the extraction of fossil energy resources show the significant predominance of the emissions in the Urals and Siberian Federal Districts, which account for 74 % of the Russian indices. That being said, whereas coal-mining emissions prevail in the Siberian Federal District, hydrocarbon production emissions predominate in the Urals Federal District.

Transitioning to Environmentally Sustainable, Climate-Smart Radiation Oncology Care

Energy use and emissions scenarios for transport to gauge progress toward national commitments

Effectively addressing today’s energy challenges requires advanced technologies along with policies that influence economic markets while advancing the public good.

Cropping system diversification can reduce the negative environmental impacts of agricultural production, including soil erosion and nutrient discharge. Less is known about how diversification affects energy use, climate change, and air quality, when considering farm operations and supply chain activities. We conducted a life cycle study using measurements from a nine-year Iowa field experiment to estimate fossil energy (FE) use, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, PM2.5-related emissions, human health impacts, and other agronomic and economic metrics of contrasting crop rotation systems and herbicide regimes. Rotation systems consisted of 2-year corn-soybean, 3-year corn-soybean-oat/clover, and 4-year corn-soybean-oat/alfalfa-alfalfa systems. Each was managed with conventional and low-herbicide treatments. FE consumption was 56% and 64% lower in the 3-year and 4-year rotations than in the 2-year rotation, and GHG emissions were 54% and 64% lower. Diversification reduced combined monetized damages from GHG and PM2.5-related emissions by 42% and 57%. Herbicide treatment had no significant impact on environmental outcomes, while corn and soybean yields and whole-rotation economic returns improved significantly under diversification. Results suggest that diversification via shifting from conventional corn-soybean rotations to longer rotations with small grain and forage crops substantially reduced FE use, GHG emissions, and air quality damages, without compromising economic or agronomic performance.

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.