scholarly journals Consolidated Climate Markets Mechanism Analysis—Case Studies of China, Japan, and Taiwan

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (22) ◽  
pp. 6478
Author(s):  
Jules Chuang ◽  
Hsing-Lung Lien ◽  
Akemi Kokubo Roche ◽  
Pei-Hsuan Liao ◽  
Walter Den

The post-Kyoto Protocol era has seen a transition to focus on the development of a renewable energy (RE) market as a primary instrument to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions worldwide. This paper analyses the development of GHG reduction and RE market in China, Japan, and Taiwan that are geographically proximate but socioeconomically diverse, and each plays a different but significant role in the world’s economy. By deploying a consolidated model incorporating the key components of market drivers underlying the goal of achieving GHG reduction, we threaded through the policy- and market-instruments implemented for each of the case studies over the past 20 years using the model. One commonality is that subsidiary schemes in the form of feed-in tariffs have served as an effective policy tool to boost the growth of renewable energy installations, though the worsening financial burden renders this path unsustainable. Over-reliance on feed-in-tariff schemes may have also impeded the liberation of an energy market pivotal to the success of elevating RE portfolio through trading mechanisms. What followed were the implementations of renewable energy certificate (REC) systems that have experienced various roadblocks leading to failures of the certificate market. By understanding the paths engaged in each of the cases, a conceptualized strategy depicted by the consolidated model is proposed to show the links between a renewable market and a carbon market. The framework would expedite the trading of RECs and carbon credits to accelerate the attainment of GHG emission reduction goals.

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (9) ◽  
pp. 3582
Author(s):  
Sungwoo Lee ◽  
Sungho Tae

Multiple nations have implemented policies for greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction since the 21st Conference of Parties (COP 21) at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2015. In this convention, participants voluntarily agreed to a new climate regime that aimed to decrease GHG emissions. Subsequently, a reduction in GHG emissions with specific reduction technologies (renewable energy) to decrease energy consumption has become a necessity and not a choice. With the launch of the Korean Emissions Trading Scheme (K-ETS) in 2015, Korea has certified and financed GHG reduction projects to decrease emissions. To help the user make informed decisions for economic and environmental benefits from the use of renewable energy, an assessment model was developed. This study establishes a simple assessment method (SAM), an assessment database (DB) of 1199 GHG reduction technologies implemented in Korea, and a machine learning-based GHG reduction technology assessment model (GRTM). Additionally, we make suggestions on how to evaluate economic benefits, which can be obtained in conjunction with the environmental benefits of GHG reduction technology. Finally, we validate the applicability of the assessment model on a public building in Korea.


OCL ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 45
Author(s):  
Philippe Dusser

GHG reductions are a major focus of the EU policy. Several regulations have been set in order to meet the EU commitments under the Paris Agreement with an overall reduction of 40% from 1990 level. For the transport sector which is responsible for around 20% of the total GHG emissions, the GHG reductions obligations have been translated by i) reinforced GHG reduction thresholds for biofuels into the recast Renewable Energy Directive RED II; ii) an ambitious target of 30% GHG emission reduction target from 2005 level in the Effort Sharing Regulation (ESR) common to “non-ETS sector” (not covered by the Emission Trading System – ETS) as agriculture, building, waste… and transport. Furthermore, other EU regulations directed to Cars, Vans as well as Heavy Duty Vehicles set GHG emission reduction targets for new vehicle up to 2030. Finally, in its communication “A Clean Planet for All” the EU Commission describes A Strategy for 2050 to achieve a carbon neutral economy. This article addresses also the case of the German “GHG quota” which is a national support system for biofuels and as such is parallel to the European obligations stemming from the RED II renewable energy mandates that are to be met by Germany.


Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 1712 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen Meisel ◽  
Markus Millinger ◽  
Karin Naumann ◽  
Franziska Müller-Langer ◽  
Stefan Majer ◽  
...  

With the Renewable Energy Directive 2018/2001 (RED II), adopted in December 2018, the EU is continuing the political framework for the use of renewable energy sources in the transport sector for the period from 2021 to 2030. At the same time, the German federal government has set a target of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the transport sector by at least 40% to 42% by 2030 compared to the 1990 GHG level. To investigate the possible effects of the European and national requirements on the German GHG quota, cost-optimal fuel mixes were modelled to achieve the GHG targets of 26 fuel options in each of the nine different scenarios. The results show clear differences between the scenarios that implement the RED II targets (including 14% renewables in transport by 2030) and those that implement the climate protection target (40–42% GHG reduction compared to 1990 by 2030). If only the minimum requirements of RED II are met, the German climate protection target is clearly missed without further measures. In order to achieve the climate protection target, a significant reduction in the final energy consumption in transport is required, as well as a very high GHG quota of 34.5%, meaning a high proportion of renewables of ca. 40% and using almost all the fuel options considered.


2021 ◽  
pp. 0958305X2199229
Author(s):  
Jingyu Qu ◽  
Wooyoung Jeon

Renewable generation sources still have not achieved economic validity in many countries including Korea, and require subsidies to support the transition to a low-carbon economy. An initial Feed-In Tariff (FIT) was adopted to support the deployment of renewable energy in Korea until 2011 and then was switched to the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) to implement more market-oriented mechanisms. However, high volatilities in electricity prices and subsidies under the RPS scheme have weakened investment incentives. In this study we estimate how the multiple price volatilities under the RPS scheme affect the optimal investment decisions of energy storage projects, whose importance is increasing rapidly because they can mitigate the variability and uncertainty of solar and wind generation in the power system. We applied mathematical analysis based on real-option methods to estimate the optimal trigger price for investment in energy-storage projects with and without multiple price volatilities. We found that the optimal trigger price of subsidy called the Renewable Energy Certificate (REC) under multiple price volatilities is 10.5% higher than that under no price volatilities. If the volatility of the REC price gets doubled, the project requires a 26.6% higher optimal investment price to justify the investment against the increased risk. In the end, we propose an auction scheme that has the advantage of both RPS and FIT in order to minimize the financial burden of the subsidy program by eliminating subsidy volatility and find the minimum willingness-to-accept price for investors.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 1611
Author(s):  
Saima Mujeed ◽  
Shuangyan Li ◽  
Musarrat Jabeen ◽  
Abdelmohsen A. Nassani ◽  
Sameh E. Askar ◽  
...  

The role of women in economic development and the global environment is vital for progressing them towards the United Nations sustainable development goal (SDG-5) that emphasized the need to empower women in every walk of life. The study examines women’s autonomy in the sustainable development agenda under China’s open innovation system from 1975 to 2019. The study employed an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model, vector autoregressive (VAR) Granger causality, and innovation accounting matrix to estimate parameters. The existing data are summarized and collated in the context of China to explain as a correlational study. The results show that women’s autonomy moderated with technology spills over to decrease greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and substantiate the hump-shaped relationship between them. The increased spending on research and development (R&D) activities, patent publications, and renewable energy consumption empowers women to be equipped with the latest sustainable technologies to improve environmental quality. The pollution haven hypothesis verifies a given country, where trade liberalization policies tend to increase polluting industries to set up their plants that engaged in dirty production that exacerbate GHG emissions. The causality estimates confirmed that technological innovations and renewable energy consumption leads to women’s autonomy. In contrast, females’ share in the labor force participation rate leads to an increase in renewable energy consumption. Thus, it is evident that there is a positive role of women in the country’s sustainable development.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Agustin del Prado ◽  
Pablo Manzano ◽  
Guillermo Pardo

Abstract Recent calls advocate that a huge reduction in the consumption of animal products (including dairy) is essential to mitigate climate change and stabilise global warming below the 1.5 and 2°C targets. The Paris Agreement states that to stabilise temperatures we must reach a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the second half of this century. Consequently, many countries have adopted overall GHG reduction targets (e.g. EU, at least 40% by 2030 compared to 1990). However, using conventional metric-equivalent emissions (CO2-e GWP100) as the basis to account for emissions does not result in capturing the effect on atmospheric warming of changing emission rates from short-lived GHG (e.g. methane: CH4), which are the main source of GHG emissions by small ruminants. This shortcoming could be solved by using warming-equivalent emissions (CO2-we, GWP*), which can accurately link annual GHG emission rates to its warming effect in the atmosphere. In our study, using this GWP* methodology and different modelling approaches, we first examined the historical (1990–2018) contribution of European dairy small ruminant systems to additional atmosphere warming levels and then studied different emission target scenarios for 2100. These scenarios allow us to envision the necessary reduction of GHG emissions from Europe's dairy small ruminants to achieve a stable impact on global temperatures, i.e. to be climatically neutral. Our analysis showed that, using this type of approach, the whole European sheep and goat dairy sector seems not to have contributed to additional warming in the period 1990–2018. Considering each subsector separately, increases in dairy goat production has led to some level of additional warming into the atmosphere, but these have been compensated by larger emission reductions in the dairy sheep sector. The estimations of warming for future scenarios suggest that to achieve climate neutrality, understood as not adding additional warming to the atmosphere, modest GHG reductions of sheep and goat GHG would be required (e.g. via feed additives). This reduction would be even lower if potential soil organic carbon (SOC) from associated pastures is considered.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (9) ◽  
pp. 2363
Author(s):  
Mihaela Simionescu ◽  
Carmen Beatrice Păuna ◽  
Mihaela-Daniela Vornicescu Niculescu

Considering the necessity of achieving economic development by keeping the quality of the environment, the aim of this paper is to study the impact of economic growth on GHG emissions in a sample of Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries (V4 countries, Bulgaria and Romania) in the period of 1996–2019. In the context of dynamic ARDL panel and environmental Kuznets curve (EKC), the relationship between GHG and GDP is N-shaped. A U-shaped relationship was obtained in the renewable Kuznets curve (RKC). Energy consumption, domestic credit to the private sector, and labor productivity contribute to pollution, while renewable energy consumption reduces the GHG emissions. However, more efforts are required for promoting renewable energy in the analyzed countries.


2001 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 953-957 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Benkovic ◽  
Joseph Kruger

The use of emissions trading (cap and trade) is gaining worldwide recognition as an extremely effective policy tool. The U.S. Sulfur Dioxide (SO2) Emissions Trading Program has achieved an unprecedented level of environmental protection in a cost-effective manner. The successful results of the program have led domestic and foreign governments to consider the application of cap and trade to address other air quality issues. Certain analyses are particularly important in determining whether or not cap and trade is an appropriate policy tool. This paper offers a set of questions that can be used as criteria for determining whether or not cap and trade is the preferred policy approach to an environmental problem.


2008 ◽  
Vol 57 (11) ◽  
pp. 1683-1692 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Tilche ◽  
Michele Galatola

Anaerobic digestion is a well known process that (while still capable of showing new features) has experienced several waves of technological development. It was “born” as a wastewater treatment system, in the 1970s showed promise as an alternative energy source (in particular from animal waste), in the 1980s and later it became a standard for treating organic-matter-rich industrial wastewater, and more recently returned to the market for its energy recovery potential, making use of different biomasses, including energy crops. With the growing concern around global warming, this paper looks at the potential of anaerobic digestion in terms of reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The potential contribution of anaerobic digestion to GHG reduction has been computed for the 27 EU countries on the basis of their 2005 Kyoto declarations and using life cycle data. The theoretical potential contribution of anaerobic digestion to Kyoto and EU post-Kyoto targets has been calculated. Two different possible biogas applications have been considered: electricity production from manure waste, and upgraded methane production for light goods vehicles (from landfill biogas and municipal and industrial wastewater treatment sludges). The useful heat that can be produced as by-product from biogas conversion into electricity has not been taken into consideration, as its real exploitation depends on local conditions. Moreover the amount of biogas already produced via dedicated anaerobic digestion processes has also not been included in the calculations. Therefore the overall gains achievable would be even higher than those reported here. This exercise shows that biogas may considerably contribute to GHG emission reductions in particular if used as a biofuel. Results also show that its use as a biofuel may allow for true negative GHG emissions, showing a net advantage with respect to other biofuels. Considering also energy crops that will become available in the next few years as a result of Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reform, this study shows that biogas has the potential of covering almost 50% of the 2020 biofuel target of 10% of all automotive transport fuels, without implying a change in land use. Moreover, considering the achievable GHG reductions, a very large carbon emission trading “value” could support the investment needs. However, those results were obtained through a “qualitative” assessment. In order to produce robust data for decision makers, a quantitative sustainability assessment should be carried out, integrating different methodologies within a life cycle framework. The identification of the most appropriate policy for promoting the best set of options is then discussed.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (13) ◽  
pp. 3732
Author(s):  
Muhammad Heikal Hasan ◽  
Teuku Meurah Indra Mahlia ◽  
M. Mofijur ◽  
I.M. Rizwanul Fattah ◽  
Fitri Handayani ◽  
...  

Global energy sources are being transformed from hydrocarbon-based energy sources to renewable and carbon-free energy sources such as wind, solar and hydrogen. The biggest challenge with hydrogen as a renewable energy carrier is the storage and delivery system’s complexity. Therefore, other media such as ammonia for indirect storage are now being considered. Research has shown that at reasonable pressures, ammonia is easily contained as a liquid. In this form, energy density is approximately half of that of gasoline and ten times more than batteries. Ammonia can provide effective storage of renewable energy through its existing storage and distribution network. In this article, we aimed to analyse the previous studies and the current research on the preparation of ammonia as a next-generation renewable energy carrier. The study focuses on technical advances emerging in ammonia synthesis technologies, such as photocatalysis, electrocatalysis and plasmacatalysis. Ammonia is now also strongly regarded as fuel in the transport, industrial and power sectors and is relatively more versatile in reducing CO2 emissions. Therefore, the utilisation of ammonia as a renewable energy carrier plays a significant role in reducing GHG emissions. Finally, the simplicity of ammonia processing, transport and use makes it an appealing choice for the link between the development of renewable energy and demand.


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