CBAM and Russian export

The EU is expected to introduce the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) in 2026. The estimates of the resulting Russia’s economic loss, that can be found in the literature, appear to be blown up, static, and not directly related to the change in the incomes of Russian exporters. These estimates are driven by the authors’ speculations, rather than by the CBAM concept as announced by the EU. This paper aims to assess the potential implications of CBAM for the Russian raw materials exports. CBAM will launch a carbon intensity reduction race for industrial products. Those who will not be able to keep abreast of the leaders will be losing their market niches. Because Russia is freezing its current carbon intensity levels, it will see its CBAM exports shrink and, small at the beginning, export incomes reduction may gradually become substantial. At the same time, proactive GHG emission control in the industrial sector can help avoid the loss and even yield additional income.

VLSs: A Local Search Algorithm for Distributed Constraint Optimization Problems

Local search algorithms are widely applied in solving large-scale distributed constraint optimization problem (DCOP). Distributed stochastic algorithm (DSA) is a typical local search algorithm to solve DCOP. However, DSA has some drawbacks including easily falling into local optima and the unfairness of assignment choice. This paper presents a novel local search algorithm named VLSs to solve the issues. In VLSs, sampling according to the probability corresponding to assignment is introduced to enable each agent to choose other promising values. Besides, each agent alternately performs a greedy choice among multiple parallel solutions to reduce the chance of falling into local optima and a variance adjustment mechanism to guide the search into a relatively good initial solution in a periodic manner. We give the proof of variance adjustment mechanism rationality and theoretical explanation of impact of greed among multiple parallel solutions. The experimental results show the superiority of VLSs over state-of-the-art DCOP algorithms.

Impact of the Green Deal on copper imports from Russia to the EU

The article analyzes the prospects for copper imports from the Russian Federation to the EU in the context of the implementation of the plan for decarbonization of the EU economy by 2050. It is noted that green economy is more metal-intensive, but in the medium-run, the impact of the traditional drivers (population growth and rising welfare) on the global copper market will remain significant. Similar trends are shown in the EU copper market: in the current decade, the rapid relative growth of the green sectors of the economy and the demand for copper from them will not lead to fundamental changes in the dynamics and structure of the market. At the same time, the introduction of a cross-border carbon adjustment mechanism (CBAM) could disrupt the sustainability of the established business model in the European copper industry. Eight scenarios of the financial burden for copper imports from the Russian Federation to the EU after the introduction of CBAM are presented, showing that the new EU foreign trade instrument will not have a restrictive effect on copper imports from the Russian Federation. However, the increase in the supply of Russian copper to the growing EU market may be constrained by the geographic remoteness of new copper mining and refining facilities.

Evolutionary Game Analysis of Responding to the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism

The European Union (EU) views the carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) as a measure to tackle carbon leakage, which will have a profound impact on non-EU countries’ exports. Policymakers are faced with the question of how to deal with the CBAM. In contrast to previous studies, we explore the effects of the CBAM on non-EU countries from a dynamic game perspective. This study analyzed the potential effects of the CBAM on China and found that the government and export companies are the two main stakeholders. We found that they can both choose whether to respond actively or passively. Based on their interactive relationship, we adopted an evolutionary game to model the nexus between the government and export companies. We analyzed the evolutionary stable state of each stakeholder and the whole game with the replicator dynamic equation system. To make the system evolve to the optimal state where the government reacts actively and export companies implement low-carbon production, we provide a policy mechanism for how to set key parameters’ values. We used numerical simulation to verify the policy design and to conduct sensitivity analyses of the key parameters. Our results show that, when two stakeholders positively react to the CBAM, it is necessary to increase their profits and to reduce their costs. Therefore, some suggestions are proposed, including optimizing the trade structure, strengthening cooperation with the EU, improving the current carbon market, and adopting carbon tax.

The impact of institutional factors on corporate mechanism of cash adjustment – New evidence from emerging Asia

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to understand how the business environment of a country has an impact on cash management policies of the firms and also to investigate if there is any asymmetry in cash adjustment dynamics when a firm deviates from its long-term target of cash holdings.Design/methodology/approachUsing a sample of seven emerging Asian countries in the period 2001–2019, the authors investigate the role of country specific variables in the corporate cash holdings and their cash adjustment mechanism. They use the panel data regression method to estimate the results.FindingsThe authors find that the overall financial development of a country has a significant impact on corporate cash holdings and cash adjustment dynamics. When a firm has excess cash, the speed of adjustment towards the target is faster as compared to when it has deficit cash holdings. Further, when a firm holds excess cash, it adjusts towards the target using cash from investments; in case of deficit cash holdings, the adjustment happens via cash from financing activities.Practical implicationsThe results of the study are helpful to corporate managers as these are important references to them to understand and design cash management policies by considering factors that are measured at the country level. It also provides them a clearer understanding about the role of corporate board and information asymmetry in cash holdings.Originality/valueThis is the first study which examines the role of country-specific variables on corporate cash holdings and their adjustment mechanism of firms in emerging Asia. Further, the study extends the literature by providing new evidence that there is asymmetry in cash adjustment dynamics of firms after controlling for the overall financial development of a country.

Design of mechanical devices for the elderly to move and live alone

With the increasing aging of the population, the demand for elderly assistance machinery is increasing. By comparing the advantages and disadvantages of the existing elderly assistance devices and analyzing the daily activities and care needs of the elderly, this paper determines the main functions of the mechanical devices for the elderly to move around alone and proposes a general design scheme. Based on the overall design plan, the main mechanisms such as axillary support mechanism, sitting mechanism, posture adjustment mechanism and wheel mechanism were designed, and the operability and stability of the device were improved through the linkage of the variable cell mechanism. Virtual prototype modeling was carried out by solidworks to verify the rationality of the structure. The device not only has better function, but also has simpler structure and lower maintenance cost, which is more suitable for market demand.

ACHIEVING CARBON NEUTRALITY THROUGH THE INTRODUCTION OF TAXATION TOOLS

The ESG-agenda is becoming more significant, the authorities and large corporations are paying more attention to the greening of business. The issue of decarbonization of the economy has become acute at the international level after the entry into force of the Paris Climate Agreement in 2016. The purpose of the work: to study the proposed initiatives to achieve carbon neutrality and to study the impact of carbon regulation mechanisms on the development of industry in Russia, in accordance with it, the following tasks are formed: to describe the mechanism of cross-border carbon regulation (Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, CBAM), to give an economic assessment of the impact of industrial sectors in Russia, as well as to consider domestic initiatives to create carbon regulation.

EU Carbon Diplomacy: Assessing Hydrogen Security and Policy Impact in Australia and Germany

Hydrogen is fast becoming a new international “super fuel” to accelerate global climate change ambitions. This paper has two inter-weaving themes. Contextually, it focuses on the potential impact of the EU’s new Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) on fossil fuel-generated as opposed to green hydrogen imports. The CBAM, as a transnational carbon adjustment mechanism, has the potential to impact international trade in energy. It seeks both a level playing field between imports and EU internal markets (subject to ambitious EU climate change policies), and to encourage emissions reduction laggards through its “carbon diplomacy”. Countries without a price on carbon will be charged for embodied carbon in their supply chains when they export to the EU. Empirically, we focus on two hydrogen export/import case studies: Australia as a non-EU state with ambitions to export hydrogen, and Germany as an EU Member State reliant on energy imports. Energy security is central to energy trade debates but needs to be conceptualized beyond supply and demand economics to include geopolitics, just transitions and the impacts of border carbon taxes and EU carbon diplomacy. Accordingly, we apply and further develop a seven-dimension energy security-justice framework to the examples of brown, blue and green hydrogen export/import hydrogen operations, with varying carbon-intensity supply chains, in Australia and Germany. Applying the framework, we identify potential impact—risks and opportunities—associated with identified brown, blue and green hydrogen export/import projects in the two countries. This research contributes to the emerging fields of international hydrogen trade, supply chains, and international carbon diplomacy and develops a potentially useful seven-dimension energy security-justice framework for energy researchers and policy analysts.

Adjustment mechanism with sliding mode for adaptive PD controller applied to unmanned fixed-wing MAV altitude

<p>This work presents an adjustment mechanism with the sliding modes technique to design a proportional derivative (PD) controller with adaptive gains. The objective and contribution are to design a robust adjustment mechanism in the presence of unknown and not modeled perturbations in the system; this perturbation can be considered wind gusts. The robust adjustment mechanism is designed with the MIT rule and the gradient method with the sliding mode theory. The adaptive PD obtained is applied to regulate unmanned fixed-wing miniature aerial vehicle (MAV’s) altitude.</p>