International Carbon Emissions Research Articles

Macroeconomic determinants of non-renewable and renewable energy consumption in India: The roles of international trade, innovative technologies, financial globalization, carbon emissions, financial development, and urbanization

Against scenarios of rising fossil fuel dependence and slow renewable energy adoption rates, this study appraises macroeconomic factors affecting non-renewable and renewable energy consumption in India. Additionally, this study makes a novel attempt to evaluate the determinants of divide between India's non-renewable and renewable energy consumption levels. Overall, the findings are three-fold. Firstly, it is found that in the short-run India's non-renewable energy consumption levels are positively and negatively determined by technological innovation and financial globalization, respectively. Besides, in the long-run, non-renewable energy consumption is positively influenced by international trade, financial globalization, carbon emission, and financial development; conversely, technological innovation reduces non-renewable energy consumption. Secondly, India's renewable energy consumption levels, in the short-run, are positively determined by international trade and technological innovation, while financial development impedes renewable energy consumption. Moreover, in the long-run, renewable energy consumption is positively and negatively impacted by technological innovation and financial globalization, respectively. Thirdly, the results confirm that financial globalization in the short-run and technological innovation in the long-run reduce the divide between India's non-renewable and renewable energy consumption levels. Contrarily, in the long-run, carbon emissions, international trade, financial globalization, and financial development widen this divide. Accordingly, policy suggestions are provided for the Indian government.

International Carbon Emissions: Evolutionary Patterns, Trends, and Influencing Factors

International Carbon Emissions: Evolutionary Patterns, Trends, and Influencing Factors

Study on the Influence of International Economic Law of Carbon Emission Trading on Environmental Sustainable Development

With the continuous development of global economic and trade activities, environmental problems have become an important factor restricting the sustainable development of all countries. How to realize the coordinated development of international trade and environmental protection has become a major issue facing the international community. Since China joined the WTO, its share of international trade has been increasing continuously. In order to deeply analyze the influence of international carbon emission trading policy on domestic carbon emissions, we use an input–output model and a GTAP analysis method to theoretically calculate the carbon emissions of the international trade of various departments in Shandong Province. At the same time, the implicit carbon emission index of various industries in 2022 is calculated through the direct energy consumption coefficient. The results show that there are significant differences in the impact of the carbon tariff system on different industries. In terms of the carbon emission index, the food processing industry showed a decrease of 18.99 Mt, while the implied carbon emission of the tobacco, textile and leather manufacturing industry reached 30.56 Mt due to the continuous expansion of trade scale. In contrast, the implied carbon emission level of the metal product processing industry reached 5.3 Mt, while the carbon emission of traditional trading industries such as coal mining was almost unaffected by international trade, and its carbon emission index reached the highest level of 5.89 in 2020. In terms of trade impact, high-trade industries such as the food processing industry are significantly affected by the carbon tariff policy, and their share has dropped from 5.89% to 3.95% in the past decade. The carbon emissions generated by GDP growth established by the GTAP model are more convincing. This model can directly reflect the energy efficiency of a region from the side. Based on the present situation of international trade, this paper analyzes the inequality of the current carbon tariff system, and puts forward some policies to optimize the energy structure to reduce carbon emissions and expand domestic demand to reduce the dependence on international trade. Through the GTAP model, we put forward policy suggestions to optimize the energy structure to reduce carbon emissions and the dependence on international trade by expanding domestic demand.

Beyond the numbers: unveiling the environmental impacts of international tourism and the role of renewable energy transition

ABSTRACT In pursuit of Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 objectives for a sustainable and low-carbon future, this study examines the intricate dynamics between carbon emissions and key variables crucial to the nation's decarbonisation strategy. Grounded in the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) Theory, the chosen variables – sustainable tourism, renewable energy demand, and natural resource management – take centre stage. Applying Markov switching regime regression to data spanning 1990–2022, our findings reveal a positive association between international tourism and carbon emissions, aligning with the Tourism-induced Environmental Impact theory. Incorporating the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC), our results illustrate a U-shaped relationship. Renewable energy consumption (REC) exhibits a negative impact, supporting EKC's premise that economic development and cleaner energy adoption mitigate environmental degradation. Identified as influential factors affecting carbon emissions, Economic growth and natural resource capital find theoretical backing. The second power of economic expansion positively influences carbon emissions, while the square of natural resources has a negative impact, aligning with resource scarcity theories. Granger causality estimates validate Tourism-led Growth, Resource Capital, and Emissions-led Growth hypotheses. Integrating insights from the Community-Based Tourism (CBT) and stakeholder theory, this study provides actionable insights for policymakers steering Saudi Arabia toward a sustainable, low-carbon future.

The Impact of Import and Export Trade on Carbon Emissions: Based on The Perspective of Belt and Road Countries

In the context of economic globalization, environmental issues have gradually attracted people's attention, and the "Belt and Road" Cooperation Initiative (hereinafter referred to as B&R) proposed by China aims to promote economic development at the same time, the environmental role has become particularly important. This study uses linear regression model, two-stage least square (2SLS) method and event study method to analyze the relationship between international trade and carbon emissions from the perspective of B&R countries. The results are as follows: the influence of import and export trade on carbon emissions is generally positive.; The correlation between industrial structure and carbon emission in the B&R countries is low. Joining the B&R has increased the volume of international trade to certain extent, thus increasing the carbon emissions of B&R countries.

Four-quadrant modelling of carbon inequality in international trade and accounting for carbon compensation

In global trade, there is a phenomenon that the “economic gains” and “ecological damages” of some countries and regions are not consistent. Using the multi-regional input-output model (MRIO), this study measures the transfer of embodied carbon and value-added in trade among 16 countries or regions, including the European Union, the United States and other countries from 1995 to 2022. On this basis, we use the four-quadrant analysis method to classify the carbon inequality in international trade, and construct the carbon inequality index to quantify the carbon inequality situation in bilateral trade. The results indicate that carbon inequality between international trade can be divided into three categories: victims of absolute carbon inequality, relative carbon equality and beneficiaries of absolute carbon inequality. Carbon inequality in bilateral trade exists between developed and developing countries, as well as between developing countries. Finally, a carbon compensation accounting model is constructed to measure the monetary value of cross-regional carbon offset, which provides data support for international carbon emission reduction cooperation. Our study contributes to contemplating the impacts of international trade and provide recommendations for global equity and sustainable development.

A bibliometric and topic analysis of climate justice: Mapping trends, voices, and the way forward

The field of climate justice has been growing in relevance since its conception in 1997. This paper presents a comprehensive bibliometric and topic modelling analyses to examine the evolution and trajectory of the climate justice literature. We analyse 1,683 publications covering the period from 1997 to 2021, highlighting foundational works, influential authors, leading nations and institutions, and prevailing research topics within this field. We employ Latent Dirichlet Allocation to uncover latent research trends in the literature providing a crucial baseline for future scholarly endeavours and policy development in the realm of climate justice.Our results show that the field of climate justice has grown exponentially from less than 5 papers annually between 1997 and 2005, to around 200 papers annually in recent years. This growth has seen a diversification of research themes with an increase in papers around the topics of health, vulnerability and adaptation, and policy and activism. There has been a consistent backdrop of publications around the topics of sustainable development and policy, and international relations and carbon emissions. Other prominent topics in the literature include education and food security, and human rights and Indigenous people. The field has moved from theoretical research to examining actual examples of climate injustices, with an increased diversification of topics.Future research could usefully focus on exploring future generations and more-than-human entities; the integration of climate justice and climate activism with broader struggles for justice; re-thinking climate adaptation “success” and “effectiveness” through the lens of climate justice, and the ramifications of the Global Goal on Adaptation on climate justice led-approaches that are inclusive, build on human rights approaches, and extend the scale of adaptation analysis beyond the local. It is imperative to prioritise addressing the climate justice needs of those most affected by climate change, transcending national borders, generational gaps, cultural differences, and even the well-being of various species. Such a holistic approach will help inform and refine global climate policy and action.

Correlation Between Carbon Emission Treaty and Inequality

The paper discusses the relationship between the imposition of international carbon emission treaties and economic inequality. The paper draws a positive correlation between carbon emission treaties and economic inequality, the matter is most pronounced in developing countries. The substantiation, realization, and understanding of the relationship is crucial in the modern context. Following the pace of globalization, a thorough comprehension of the concept of inequality is quintessential to the resolve of international conflicts and/or affairs. As countries grow increasingly correlated, it is in the stakeholders common interest that historical legacies can be objectively evaluated and thus have the inter-nation historical discrepancies recognized and thereby worked upon; thus, the carbon emission historical discrepancy and the treaties that further inequality across the globe is of utmost importance to be researched, and discussed upon.

Study on international carbon emission quota allocation of shipping industry-based on fairness and efficiency

In 2024, the EU intends to include the global shipping industry in the European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS). Shipping companies will have to pay for the carbon emissions of ships over 5,000 GT on routes between EU and non-EU ports. This paper selects typical shipping companies in the world. Based on the principle of fairness, historical method, baseline method and mixed method are adopted to explore their carbon emission quota allocation. The ZSG-DEA efficiency model is used to evaluate the distribution results and verify the optimal efficiency. The research results show that the mixed method has a high efficiency of allocation. The method predicts that the carbon quota of typical shipping companies in the world will reach the Pareto optimal allocation in 2024 and Maersk has the highest carbon emission quota among the eight typical shipping companies, reaching 32,431,800 tons, followed by MSC and EMC, reaching 8,542,400 tons and 6,809,500 tons, respectively. Based on the results, we can obtain a reasonable allocation of carbon allowances in the EU carbon market according to the proportion of business of shipping companies involved in EU routes. The research is still applicable to the allocation of carbon emmissions in future years. Therefore, this paper provides suggestions for the orderly allocation of carbon quota and carbon trading in the global shipping market.

International Trade and Carbon Emissions: Evaluating the Role of Trade Rule Uncertainty

Based on textual data mining methods and global English articles, we develop an index for measuring the uncertainty of international trade rules and evaluating the role of trade rule uncertainty in the relationship between international trade and carbon emissions, via a mediating effect model. The empirical results show that: (1) Increasing trade volume in developing countries contributes to a rise in trade rule uncertainty, which in turn triggers trade conflicts and even trade wars between countries. (2) There are significant correlations between international trade and carbon emissions, and international trade impacts carbon emissions in both direct and indirect ways. (3) Trade rule uncertainty plays a mediating role in the relationship between international trade and carbon emissions. (4) Trade rule uncertainty significantly impacts carbon emissions in most developed and developing countries, but the impact is not significant in the USA. Our work not only contributes to extending measurements of uncertainty but also helps to quantify the impacts of trade rule uncertainty on carbon emissions.

Impacts of the COVID-19 epidemic on carbon emissions from international shipping

The COVID-19 epidemic made the most countries to take strict lockdown measures, what has seriously caused an unprecedented impact in the shipping industries, whereas these measures have also played a significant impact to control carbon emissions from international shipping. Here, we try to use the threshold generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity and the exponential generalized autoregressive heteroscedasticity to investigate whether the fluctuations of the control variable on carbon emissions from international shipping are asymmetric or not. On this basis, the GARCH-MIDAS model is introduced to discuss whether the newly confirmed cases are independent of control variables and have an impact on the fluctuation of carbon emissions. From the results, we find that the information contained in the newly confirmed cases cannot be covered when adding the other control variables. In addition, the newly confirmed cases have a negative impact on the volatility of carbon emissions, while the other control variables significantly increase carbon emissions. This study provides a quantitative research method for the analysis of the volatility and impact factors on international shipping carbon emissions, which helps to formulate more reasonable emission reduction measures and promote the low-carbon transformations of the global shipping industry.

Can China's renewable energy industry policy support the low-carbon energy transition effectively?

To cope with global climate change and energy security, the realization of the low-carbon energy transition has become an inevitable choice for international carbon emission reduction requirements and energy structure adjustment. Vigorously developing renewable energy has become an essential part of energy policies in many countries. Under the incentive and guidance of renewable energy industry policy, China's renewable energy has developed rapidly, and energy structure has been optimized. However, many problems have been exposed. Can China's renewable energy industry policy effectively support low-carbon energy transition? This paper uses the method of theoretical analysis, combining literature analysis and data analysis. Based on the analysis of renewable energy policies in countries with relatively mature energy transitions, it analyzes the status quo, implementation effect, and problems of renewable energy policy in China and proposes policy suggestions. According to the research, the existing problems are as follows: (1) diminishing marginal effect of policies, (2) policy adjustment is not timely and lacks details and operability, (3) coordination conflicts between the old and new policies, (4) unreasonable policy supply structure, and (5) the negative impact of subsidy policy is increasing. Therefore, this paper argues that China's renewable energy industry policy cannot effectively support the low-carbon energy transition.

Research on extreme risk measurement in the international carbon emission futures market, based on a two-component Beta-Skew-t-EGARCH-POT model

ABSTRACT The European Union Allowance (EUA)-driven carbon emissions trading market is selected as a research object. First, the one-component and two-component Beta-Skew-t-EGARCH models are used to depict the characteristics of the return series, considering return series features such as volatility clustering and asymmetry. Moreover, the extreme VaR risk value is directly estimated. Then, the POT method of extreme value theory is applied to describe the extreme tail characteristics of the return series, and the one-component and two-component Beta-Skew-t-EGARCH-POT models constructed, to estimate the extreme VaR risk value, once again. Finally, the performance of each model in extreme VaR risk measurement is tested using six indicators that include the relative error rate, independence test, and dynamic quantile test. The empirical results show that the two-component Beta-Skew-t-EGARCH-POT model performs better in extreme risk measurement, inferring that this model is better suited to describing risk in the carbon market.

The impacts of carbon tariffs on international trade flows and carbon emissions: An analysis integrating trade elasticities with an application to US-China trade

Carbon tariffs have been widely studied as a prominent climate policy in terms of their influences on the economy and the environment. However, previous studies of their effectiveness did not incorporate into the analysis of some key factors, including, notably, trade elasticities. This paper aims at reducing the gap between trade economics and environment studies by integrating trade elasticities into the analysis of carbon tariffs' impacts on trade flows and carbon emissions embodied in exports. We start by adopting the gravity trade model and constructing a panel data set of 63 countries from 2005 to 2015 to calculate the trade elasticities across 13 industries. With a simple model that translates carbon tariffs into tariffs, we evaluate the cross-country and cross-industry impacts of carbon tariffs. A model to forecast the effect of carbon tariffs on China-US trade under different scenarios is also provided. We discover that industries' trade elasticities and carbon intensities play an essential role in determining carbon tariffs' impacts. Furthermore, our estimations show the threshold carbon tariffs for the 13 industries with an average of $42/tCO2. We found out that if the U.S. stopped importing from China by replacing all Chinese exports with its domestic productions, it would emit 88.8% fewer carbon emissions than China does, which would contribute to a 0.65% decrease in world carbon emissions. Other scenarios of replacing all Chinese exports with Canadian, Japanese, or Mexican exports show similar results. This paper illuminates the critical importance of incorporating trade elasticities when designing carbon tariffs.

Carbon inequality in China: Novel drivers and policy driven scenario analysis

Even though carbon inequality (CI) affects international climate negotiations and regional carbon emission reduction policies, a majority of countries ignore the individual sub-national-level CI and its important drivers (e.g., efficiency, technological change, investment, and industrialization). Thus, there is an urgent need to develop relevant carbon emission reduction policies that can incorporate the effects of these drivers. In this study, we investigated the drivers of CI in China at individual provincial and national levels during 2005–2019, using a newly developed individual Gini decomposition approach and a proposed within-between production-theoretical decomposition-based Theil index; notably, the traditional Theil index approach has not significantly changed for decades, and our study is the first to modify the approach. Our results revealed that the national CI presented a general downward trend from 2005 to 2019, wherein the individual between-group and within-group subcomponents portrayed nearly linear relationships in the west region. Notably, income disparity and energy intensity disparity were the two largest positive drivers, while the between-industrial investment-output share disparity and the investment scale disparity were the most important negative drivers of CI.

Assessing the economic and environmental sustainability of bio-olefins: The case of 1,3-butadiene production from bioethanol

There is a growing interest in the production of biobutadiene from bioethanol, but it is not possible to conclude from the literature which conversion process, either by one or two reaction steps, is preferred since there is a lack of works comparing their economic and environmental performances. The aim of this work is to perform that comparison so it can serve as a guide for decision making by future investors as well as set future research needs that can improve the technology. Assuming production in Brazil from sugarcane ethanol, technoeconomic and lifecycle assessments were performed from process simulations, and the reliability of the results was studied with uncertainty analyses. The comparison reveals that the one-step process should be preferred because of its better economic and environmental performance. Biobutadiene from ethanol is not cost competitive against naphtha-derived butadiene (probability of positive net present value is 11–17% for one-step process scenarios and 5% for the two-step process scenarios) but producing biobutadiene from ethanol in Brazil leads to significant reductions in emissions of CO2 compared to naphtha-derived butadiene (102–103% and 7.6–52.4% for one- and two-step process scenarios, respectively). A critical issue for the cost competitiveness of biobutadiene is that the CO2 saved can be sold in an international carbon emission trading market. In that case, the one-step processes would be much more favored. Future research is needed concerning the development of highly selective two-step catalysts operating in less energy-demanding conditions so that two-step processes can compete with one-step processes.

Carbon Neutrality, International Trade, and Agricultural Carbon Emission Performance in China

International trade and agricultural development play important roles in carbon neutrality. This study uses the Malmquist index to quantify agricultural carbon emission performance and the panel data regression model to analyze the relationship between international trade and agricultural carbon emission performance. Data from 2005 to 2020 were used. The results show that the agricultural carbon emission of China has increased slowly since 2005. There is still an improvement space for low-carbon agricultural productivity. As for the relationship between agricultural international trade and carbon emission performance, the coefficient of the total trade in agricultural products is 0.0444. Suggestions on agricultural international trade and the development of low-carbon agricultural production are put forward, which will provide technical support for carbon neutrality.

Study on the synergistic effect of foreign trade, technological progress, and carbon emissions

A primary development plan for a country is to attain carbon neutrality and high-quality international commerce development. This study uses panel data from 30 provinces in mainland China to analyze the dynamic interplay between international trade, technological innovation, and carbon emissions. The findings show that foreign trade, technological progress, and carbon emissions all have their own “economic inertia” that can be self-motivated and self-reinforcing. Foreign commerce and carbon emissions are mutually inhibiting, but technical progress and carbon emissions are mutually reinforcing. This illustrates that achieving a positive cycle of international trade, technological improvement, and carbon emissions necessitates a significant baseline need. Overcoming carbon trade barriers is currently the most difficult challenge for Chinese enterprises involved in foreign commerce. Low-carbon technology advancements are a critical part in this process. Our research strengthens the positive connections between international trade and carbon emissions as a result of technological improvement and proposes a feasible plan for international trade to achieve carbon peaking and carbon neutrality.

Eco-friendly technologies, international tourism and carbon emissions: Evidence from the most visited countries

The paper aims to examine the effects of international tourism on carbon emissions in the most visited countries using panel quantile regression for the periods 1995-2018. Since the primary source of carbon emissions from international tourism is transportation, we examine the moderating effect of eco-friendly innovations on the transportation sector for the relationship between international tourism and carbon emissions. Empirical results show that while international tourism led to an increase in carbon emissions between the fifth and ninth quantiles of carbon emissions, eco-friendly innovations for the transportation sector play an essential role in the effect of international tourism on carbon emissions. We find that the impact of improvements in eco-friendly technologies for transportation is significant on carbon emissions at all quantiles and that it eliminates the harmful effect of international tourism on environmental quality. These results are important for policy-makers to reduce carbon emissions from tourism because these countries have committed to reducing their carbon emissions according to the Paris Accord and the Sustainable Development Goals.

Research on a Carbon Emission Calculation Model and Method for an Underground Fully Mechanized Mining Process

With the ratification of the Paris Agreement at the Paris Climate Conference, reducing carbon emissions has become a global interest. Coal is one of the main industries causing carbon emissions; thus, quantifying carbon emissions from coal mining is an important step in reducing these emissions. Firstly, based on the life cycle idea, in this paper, we define the Carbon Emission Boundary of the fully mechanized coal mining method. Secondly, the carbon emission accounting model (B-R model) of fully mechanized coal mining is established, which includes the total amount of carbon emissions and the carbon emissions of each mining link during the mining process. The Fifth-II mining area of the Jinda Coal Mine in Tengzhou City is taken as an example. We collect the relevant data on carbon emissions in the mining process of the Jinda Coal Mine, and the B-R model is used to obtain the carbon emissions in the mining process of this mining area. Finally, the feasibility of the B-R model is further verified according to the international authoritative carbon emission IPCC calculation method and the China Coal Production Enterprises Greenhouse Gas Emissions Accounting Methodology and Reporting Guide. The results show that the B-R model in this paper is feasible and that the greatest amount of carbon emissions arises from the coal breaking link and coal transportation, which provides a basis for other coal mines to calculate carbon emissions. The B-R model lays a foundation for coal mines to formulate a carbon emission reduction system.