COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF EMISSION REDUCTION TARGETS TOWARD INDC IMPLEMENTATION IN MALAYSIA, INDONESIA AND THAILAND BY 2050

Global warming is becoming increasingly evident as greenhouse gas emissions increase worldwide and affect the environment, health and economy. Many Southeast Asian countries face this reality and hence they are concerned about setting and achieving an effective emission reduction strategy. As such, this study analyzes and compares emission reduction targets on selected Southeast Asian countries, including Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand, by using a long-run Regional Dynamic Integrated Model of the Climate and Economy (RdICME). This study considers the comparative outcomes of BAU (Business as Usual: base case) and INDC (Intended Nationally Determined Contributions) scenarios for the 40-year period from 2010 to 2050. According to BAU scenario, carbon emissions are projected to gradually increase in all countries; however, if Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand apply their INDC targets as agreed upon in the 2015 Paris Agreement, all three countries will experience significant emissions reductions after 2030. Specifically, by 2050, total emissions will be reduced by 33.88%, 42.50% and 41.68% in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand, respectively, if the countries implement their INDCs. According to the INDC targets, all three countries will experience a net reduction of per capita emission intensity by 2030 and onwards; however, Malaysia is projected to face lower marginal damage costs whereas Indonesia and Thailand will face higher marginal damage costs for 2010–2050. This study also finds that the amount of planned investment for INDC emissions reduction is currently insufficient to achieve planned targets. The findings from this study would help country-specific policymakers to oversee the likely gaps to be fulfilled within 2030–2050.

Emissions Sharing Observations from a Diverse Range of Countries

The Paris Agreement is set to come into effect from the year 2020. With this, the issue of emission sharing responsibility has gained momentum. This paper discusses the future emission allowances of various countries based on different sharing principles. Twelve countries from six continents were chosen for observation based on attributes such as past emissions, extent of development, and population. The aim was to find the implication of different sharing principles in future emission quota of a diverse range of countries. Four different budgeting periods were employed for increased certainty. Future cumulative and per capita emission allowances were estimated. The results prove that longer budgeting periods are more advantageous for developed countries while shorter budgeting periods favor developing countries more. The study brings forth some new developments in emission distribution research, primarily concerned with the low emitting countries. Overall, the study contributes to the field of emission sharing science to meet global climate targets.

Does Trade Liberalization Improve the Environment in China? Evidence Form the Dynamic Panel Data of Chinese Prefecture City

This paper employ GMM method introduced in [1] to reevaluate the environment effect of trade liberalization based on the dynamic panel data from Chinese Prefecture City during 1995-2010. We found that trade openness improve the environment quality measured by So2 emissions per capita, emission intensity of so2 and soot while no evidence in Soot emissions per capita. Specifically, even though the effect of import on environment is short-term and unsustainable, the export improve the environment more and more over time. Therefore the environment in China benefit from the trade liberalization regime and export-oriented strategy. In addition, this paper found the evidence of environmental Kuznets Curve and pollution haven hypothesis in some environment index.

Climate Change in China – The Development of China's Climate Policy and Its Integration into a New International Post-Kyoto Climate Regime

According to the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report, global emissions of carbon dioxide have to be reduced by about 80 per cent by 2050 in order to stabilise the increase in global temperature at 2 to 2.4°C by 2100 compared with its pre-industrial level. An increase of only 2°C would bring about “acceptable” negative impacts on the eco-systems and the world economy. Without a reduction in CO2 emissions in China, however, it will be hard to achieve this goal. Currently, China is already responsible for about 50 per cent of the worldwide increase in CO2 emissions recorded over the past ten years. On the other hand, it is the industrialised countries that are mainly responsible for the greenhouse-gas emissions of earlier years. Taking the challenges of China's economic growth, its impact on future CO2 emissions and the development of China's climate policy into account, this article develops a new post-Kyoto regime based on cumulative per-capita emission rights.

The travel-related carbon dioxide emissions of atmospheric researchers

Most atmospheric scientists agree that greenhouse gas emissions have already caused significant changes to the global climate system and that these changes will accelerate in the near future. At the same time, atmospheric scientists who – like other scientists – rely on international collaboration and information exchange travel a lot and, thereby, cause substantial emissions of CO2. In this paper, the CO2 emissions of the employees working at an atmospheric research institute (the Norwegian Institute for Air Research, NILU) caused by all types of business travel (conference visits, workshops, field campaigns, instrument maintainance, etc.) were calculated for the years 2005–2007. It is estimated that more than 90% of the emissions were caused by air travel, 3% by ground travel and 5% by hotel usage. The travel-related annual emissions were between 1.9 and 2.4 t CO2 per employee or between 3.9 and 5.5 t CO2 per scientist. For comparison, the total annual per capita CO2 emissions are 4.5 t worldwide, 1.2 t for India, 3.8 t for China, 5.9 t for Sweden and 19.1 t for Norway. The travel-related CO2 emissions of a NILU scientist, occurring in 24 days of a year on average, exceed the global average annual per capita emission. Norway's per-capita CO2 emissions are among the highest in the world, mostly because of the emissions from the oil industry. If the emissions per NILU scientist derived in this paper are taken as representative for the average Norwegian researcher, travel by Norwegian scientists would nevertheless account for a substantial 0.2% of Norway's total CO2 emissions. Since most of the travel-related emissions are due to air travel, water vapor emissions, ozone production and contrail formation further increase the relative importance of NILU's travel in terms of radiative forcing.

The relationship between air pollution emissions and income: US Data

Considerable interest has focused on the possible existence of an environmental Kuznets curve, whereby pollution first increases but later falls with increasing income. Empirical studies have concentrated on a wide spectrum of countries and run into inevitable problems of data comparability and quality. We avoid these problems by looking at seven types of air emissions across the 50 US states and find all seven pollutants decrease with increasing per capita income. We also find strong evidence of heteroscedasticity with respect to the income–emissions relationship: lower-income states display much greater variability in per capita emission levels than higher-income states. Additionally, we look at the best measured of these emissions, air toxics, for the period 1988–94. Using a simple sign test, we find support for the notion that an increase in income is associated with a decrease in per capita emissions. However, the change in emissions appears to be unrelated to the magnitude of the change in income. We do find, though, that the reduction in per capita emissions is increasing both in terms of the 1988 level of per capita emissions and income. Possible implications of these results for the development process are discussed.