Low-carbon Development Policies Research Articles

The Impact of European Green Deal on Turkey's Iron and Steel Industry: Decomposition Analysis of Energy-Related Sectoral Emissions

The European Union has put forward a vision under the EU Green Deal’s name to take the lead in its priorities, fulfill the Agreement’s criteria, and subsequently accept the first EU climate law on March 5, 2020. The law framework aims to impose tax obligations on consumption goods imported by the EU from abroad, especially on energy-intensive sectors, by applying the carbon border adjustment mechanism. Our main goal is to determine what kind of measures can be taken to ensure that the iron and steel industry is least affected by the EU border carbon regulation. We are an absolute exporter, are least affected by the EU carbon border adjustment. For this reason, the change in energy-related greenhouse gas emissions from the iron and steel industry from 1998 to 2018 was analyzed using the LMDI model to investigate the potential effects of carbon border adjustment in the iron and steel industry. The analyzes were made with five significant factors that determine the change of emissions. These factors are; changes in economic activity, activity mix, energy intensity, energy mix, and emission factors. Analysis has suggested that the economic activity effect has raised CO2 emissions. This method indicates that the energy intensity’s impact could be the first key determinant of GHG emissions. Turkey should attempt to implement low-carbon development policies and reduce energy-related emissions in the iron & steel sector are the least impacted by the EU’s carbon border adjustment.

Developing a low-carbon architecture pedagogy in Bangladesh

Architectural education and training can help ensure low-carbon emission for projects. Despite some broad initiatives to address this, there are still gaps in the curricula, theory and practices. The current pedagogical trends and approaches in Bangladesh are identified and examined for how climate mitigation is addressed in the architecture curriculum. This has revealed a lack of awareness, limited education and training, and inadequate pedagogical (i.e. teaching) approaches for low-carbon education in architecture curricula. A lack of alignment exists between curricula orientation and the national agenda for climate change and low-carbon development. In order to integrate a sustainable low-carbon education in the architecture pedagogy, a set of recommendations for pedagogical approaches, education and training framework is proposed to offer crucial guidance to academia and other relevant stakeholders. Practice relevance Bangladesh is acutely affected by climate vulnerability due to its geographical location in the Ganges Delta. Although mitigation and low-carbon development policies are part of the national agenda, this has not been incorporated into the additional capabilities required by architects to deliver this. Low-carbon design and sustainability issues in architectural curricula are still in the initial phases of development. A lack of awareness, inadequate education and training, and lack of alignment between curricula orientation and the national agenda are identified as important factors. A set of scalable solutions and recommendations for education and training for architectural students is suggested.

The Development of Wind Power Under the Low-Carbon Constraints of Thermal Power in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region

Thermal power has consumed a lot of coal, which causes serious air pollution in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. Previous studies on low-carbon development often separated the three regions, ignoring the coordinated development relationships in the regions. Under the low-carbon development constrictions of thermal power, this paper studied the development of wind power. Firstly, from the integration development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the changes in industrial structure and the total electricity consumption were predicted. Secondly, a comprehensive analysis of the low-carbon development policy for these regions, in accordance with the analytical results, controls the development of thermal power. Finally, a system dynamics model is used to analyse the wind power development from 2018 to 2025 under the influence of development on purchased electricity, the development of thermal and wind power policy. The study found that under the existing policies the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region can achieve the goal of installed wind power capacity in the “13th Five-Year Plan for Electrical Power Development”. And from 2020 to 2025, the installed capacity of wind power significantly increases. Based on sensitivity analysis for wind power development, installed wind power capacity is the most sensitive to the wind power feed-in tariff, followed by thermal power generation capacity and then purchased electricity. To prevent wind power growing too fast, this paper suggests reducing the feed-in tariff of wind power during the “14th Five-Year Plan”.

Low carbon scenarios for higher thermal comfort in the residential building sector of South Eastern Europe

The paper presents the residential sector building typology, thermal energy balance, and scenarios prepared at several levels of sector segmentation to assist the design of low-carbon development policies for Albania, Serbia, and Montenegro. The research is breakthrough for developing Europe and could be replicated in its countries. The paper describes methodological steps and selected results. First, representative building types were identified; their energy performances by end-use, retrofit packages, as well as associated costs were assessed. Second, this information was inserted into a bottom-up simulation model prepared in the Long-range Energy Alternatives Planning System (LEAP) software. Using it, sector energy balances, the reference scenario, as well as moderate and advanced low-carbon high-thermal-comfort scenarios were prepared. The low-carbon scenarios assumed ambitious regulatory and financial policies. It was found that due to fuel poverty partial and intermittent heating is a typical situation; therefore, the thermal demand as predicted by the models applied to the different segments of the dwelling stock is much higher than its actual consumption. Also, actual consumption by energy source was found not fitting official energy balances because households use more wood and more heating systems than officially reported. In 2030, the moderate and ambitious scenarios lead to a reduction of CO2 emissions by 23–73% and 16–73% respectively versus the reference, offering however at the same time higher thermal comfort. The priority is to retrofit small buildings constructed after 1991 in Albania and those built in 1971–1990 in Montenegro and Serbia. Assuming the discount rate of 4% and counting saved energy costs as benefits, almost all scenarios are cost-effective as a whole on the country level, however not for many building categories. Therefore, not only saved energy costs but also other benefits should be monetized and compared to the scenario costs that present the next research opportunity.

A consumption-based, regional input-output analysis of greenhouse gas emissions and the carbon regional index

This paper presents a consumption-based method accounting for greenhouse gas emissions at regional level based on a multi-region input-output model. The method is based on regional consumption and includes imports and exports of emissions, factual emission developments, green investments as well as low carbon development policies. We comparatively analyse three regional case studies in Denmark and show how regional initiatives implemented to reduce emissions are translated into easy to access input-output parameter changes and how the method transparently assesses the impact of various long-term regional climate plans on emissions. For the comparative analysis we further develop a carbon regional index (CRI), which delineates five key dimensions that define past, current and planned regional and embedded emissions. The method can form a basis for regional climate policies, promote the export of solutions from one region to another and enable policy-makers to observe good practices and test them at regional level before potential implementation on a larger scale.

A Study on the Low Carbon Development Policies and its Practice

A Study on the Low Carbon Development Policies and its Practice

Life-cycle carbon emission assessment and permit allocation methods: A multi-region case study of China’s construction sector

China is making efforts to reduce carbon emissions from the building industry, and carrying out an allocation and trading system for building emissions. However, to date, methods for using existing statistical data to assess the emissions of the construction sector and to make decisions affecting permit allocation are still unclear. In this context, a process is proposed in this study to calculate the life-cycle emissions of regional construction sectors in China, and a multi-criteria Gini coefficient is introduced as an indicator for emission permit allocation. Statistical data of the construction sector for 2004–2013 were analyzed. The results indicated an overall trend of increased emissions from China’s construction sector, of which the production phase of buildings was shown to be the largest contributor. Various characteristics for different life-cycle sub-processes were also discussed at the provincial level. Finally, a case study of emissions from the construction sector was conducted on the basis of a multi-criteria Gini coefficient. Relevant analyses revealed the major regions in carbon reduction practices from a comprehensive view of efficiency and equality. In addition, suggestions were provided for allocating emissions for regional construction sectors. Overall, the present study would be helpful in the calculation, assessment, and allocation of emissions from China’s construction sector. It should also provide insight into decision-making about low-carbon development policy of the building industry.

China-U.S. cooperation on China's subnational low carbon planning toolkit development and application

In May 2011, the China-based Global Environmental Institute and the US-based Center for Climate Strategies successfully joined the China-U.S. EcoPartnership program. The cooperation aims to adapt a methodology and tools used for making U.S. state climate action plans to China's subnational and municipal contexts, in order to help subnational governments achieve carbon emission targets by making scientific and effective climate and energy policies. To achieve this objective, a China subnational low carbon planning toolkit including a systematic process of selection, design and analysis of climate and energy policies was developed and successfully demonstrated in Chongqing Municipality. Through technical exchange and training, the capabilities of Chinese officials and experts who cooperated with us to quantitatively analyze low carbon development policies have been improved. The cooperation also promoted exchange between Chinese provinces and U.S. states on climate and energy policy.

A Study on Development Policy of Low-Carbon City

In recent years, with the global climate issue and the contradiction between energy environment and economic development becoming increasingly prominent, Shenzhen International Low-carbon City, as the flagship project of China-EU Strategic Cooperation on Sustainable Urbanization, aims at exploring new ways to realize low-carbon development models, while low-carbon development policy is one of the key factors. This paper firstly introduces the background of the Shenzhen International Low-carbon City Project, then summarizes advanced experience and gives experience reference in low-carbon development policy of the developed regions worldwide, and finally puts forward relevant countermeasures and suggestions.

The analysis of CO2 emission reduction using an ExSS model of Guangdong province in China

This paper studied the CO2 emission scenarios of Guangdong province in 2020 and divided the CO2 emission increment and reductions into various departments and driving factors. Based on the Extended Snapshot model, two CO2 emission scenarios, Business as Usual (BaU) and Counter Measure (CM) scenario were constructed. CM scenario was completed by using reduction technical measures to achieve the reduction emission goal. The results showed that the amount of CO2 emission is less 189 million tonne in 2020 CM scenario than BaU scenario. By decomposing the emission reduction measures in CM scenario, it showed that the main means to reduce CO2 emissions were the industrial structure adjustment, the advanced energy efficiency and the power sector structure adjustment, and the emission reduction contribution rates were 36.85%, 34.55% and 21.74%, respectively. The analysis results could be recommended to the government to make the low-carbon development policy and path.

Study on China's Regional Carbon Emission Factors: The case of Chongqing City

Low-carbon development has become a hot issue concerned by the whole world. Governments respectively introduced the country's low-carbon strategy and action. China has put forward a series of obligatory targets and has issued a provincial area “twelfth five-year” carbon intensity reduction target. How to coordinate the contradiction between economic growth and environmental constraints, and formulating corresponding low-carbon development path and the supporting measures, has become one of the problems to be solved. Considering the regional resource endowment, stage of economic development, energy structure, industrial structure, technical development level and other factors, this article constructs the model of regional carbon emission factors, the paper takes Chongqing of China as an example. The research results show that: The major contribution of elements, in turn, is the improvement of technology energy efficiency, the optimization of energy structure, and the adjustment of industrial structure. Based on this, this paper puts forward the corresponding low-carbon development policies according to the results of analysis, from the aspects such as energy structure, industrial structure, and technological progress and so on.

China's role in attaining the global 2°C target

In the recent climate change negotiations it was declared that the increase in global temperature should be kept below 2°C by 2100, relative to pre-industrial levels. China's CO2 emissions from energy and cement processes already account for nearly 24% of global emissions, a trend that is expected to keep increasing. Thus the role of China in global GHG mitigation is crucial. A scenario analysis of China's CO2 emissions is presented here and the feasibility of China reaching a low-carbon scenario is discussed. The results suggest that recent and continued technological progress will make it possible for China to limit its CO2 emissions and for these emissions to peak before 2025 and therefore that the global 2°C target can be achieved. Policy relevance In signing the Copenhagen Accord, China agreed to the global 2°C target. Results from this article could be used to justify low-carbon development policies and negotiations. While many still doubt the feasibility of a low-carbon pathway to support the global 2°C target, the results suggest that such a pathway can be realistically achieved. This conclusion should increase confidence and guide the policy framework further to make possible China's low-carbon development. Related policies and measures, such as renewable energy development, energy efficiency, economic structure optimization, technology innovation, low-carbon investment, and carbon capture and storage (CCS) development, should be further enhanced. Furthermore, China can play a larger role in the international negotiations process. In the global context, the 2°C target could be reaffirmed and a global regime on an emissions mitigation protocol could be framed with countries’ emissions target up to 2050.

Environmental Impact Evaluation for Thermal Power Project Based on Combinational Weight and TOPSIS Method

In electricity production and supply system of China, thermal power continues to dominate a larger proportion. In recent years, be influenced by energy-saving emission reduction and low carbon development policy, the environmental impact issue of thermal power project aroused great attention. This study has established a comprehensive evaluation system by analyzing integrated comprehensive effects of the environment caused by thermal power project. Combining with AHP theory, entropy theory and TOPSIS evaluation ideas, the study created a set of scientific assessment model. The research has verified that the validity of the model through empirical studies. And it provided a good theoretical basis for environmental management comprehensive thermal power project.