The impact of the rebound effect of the use of first generation biofuels in the EU on greenhouse gas emissions: A critical review

2014 ◽  
Vol 38 ◽  
pp. 393-403 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Smeets ◽  
Andrzej Tabeau ◽  
Siemen van Berkum ◽  
Jamil Moorad ◽  
Hans van Meijl ◽  
...  
2021 ◽  
Vol 70 (3) ◽  
pp. 139-164
Author(s):  
Inna Geibel ◽  
Florian Freund ◽  
Martin Banse

Animal-source foods are a major component of global diets and are increasingly criticised because of their adverse impacts on environment, climate and health. A shift in diets towards plant-based foods is a discussed option to overcome these problems. Much of the scientific emphasis so far has been on estimating the potential of such a dietary change to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve health outcomes while less attention has been attracted on studies analysing the impacts on agricultural markets. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive overview and, therefore, summarizes existing studies on the effects of a reduced consumption of animal-source foods on agricultural markets, greenhouse gas emissions, food security and health. In addition, available studies on the so‑called rebound effect are presented. The identified studies suggest that a reduction in the consumption of meat in the EU or OECD would lead to a 1‑10% decrease in meat world market prices, depending on the magnitude and particularities of the assumed dietary changes. This would translate to a 3‑10% reduction in production. The lower domestic demand for meat could also negatively affect welfare outcomes and GDP. However, it has to be mentioned that these studies do not take into account the consequences of improved environmental and health conditions. In fact, our review indicates that reductions in greenhouse gas emissions could generally be proportional to the magnitude of plant-based diets. The maximum reduction potentials of 60-70% could be found for global vegetarian or vegan diets. However, some studies indicate that a shift in food expenditure towards other resource-intensive goods could lead to a rebound effect. Further, this overview suggests that environmental and public health objectives might be in alignment as all identified studies indicate that a reduction in meat consumption in high‑income countries could be associated with lower rates of mortality and non-communicable diseases. This overview reveals the complex relationships between food demand, agricultural supply, international trade, environment, health and food security.


2008 ◽  
Vol 2008 (6) ◽  
pp. 783-792 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Scanlan ◽  
Holly Elmendorf ◽  
Hari Santha ◽  
James Rowan

2006 ◽  
Vol 19 (13) ◽  
pp. 3055-3069 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter A. Stott ◽  
John F. B. Mitchell ◽  
Myles R. Allen ◽  
Thomas L. Delworth ◽  
Jonathan M. Gregory ◽  
...  

Abstract This paper investigates the impact of aerosol forcing uncertainty on the robustness of estimates of the twentieth-century warming attributable to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Attribution analyses on three coupled climate models with very different sensitivities and aerosol forcing are carried out. The Third Hadley Centre Coupled Ocean–Atmosphere GCM (HadCM3), Parallel Climate Model (PCM), and GFDL R30 models all provide good simulations of twentieth-century global mean temperature changes when they include both anthropogenic and natural forcings. Such good agreement could result from a fortuitous cancellation of errors, for example, by balancing too much (or too little) greenhouse warming by too much (or too little) aerosol cooling. Despite a very large uncertainty for estimates of the possible range of sulfate aerosol forcing obtained from measurement campaigns, results show that the spatial and temporal nature of observed twentieth-century temperature change constrains the component of past warming attributable to anthropogenic greenhouse gases to be significantly greater (at the 5% level) than the observed warming over the twentieth century. The cooling effects of aerosols are detected in all three models. Both spatial and temporal aspects of observed temperature change are responsible for constraining the relative roles of greenhouse warming and sulfate cooling over the twentieth century. This is because there are distinctive temporal structures in differential warming rates between the hemispheres, between land and ocean, and between mid- and low latitudes. As a result, consistent estimates of warming attributable to greenhouse gas emissions are obtained from all three models, and predictions are relatively robust to the use of more or less sensitive models. The transient climate response following a 1% yr−1 increase in CO2 is estimated to lie between 2.2 and 4 K century−1 (5–95 percentiles).


2022 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher M. Wade ◽  
Justin S. Baker ◽  
Jason P. H. Jones ◽  
Kemen G. Austin ◽  
Yongxia Cai ◽  
...  

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