Suchergebnisse

The paper presents a decomposition analysis of the changes in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from passenger cars in Denmark and Greece, for the period 1990-2005. A time series analysis has been applied based on the logarithmic mean Divisia index I (LMDI I) methodology, which belongs to the wider family of index decomposition approaches. The particularity in road transport that justifies a profound analysis is its remarkably rapid growth during the last decades, followed by a respective increase in emissions. Denmark and Greece have been selected based on the challenging differences of specific socio-economic characteristics of these two small EU countries, as well as on the availability of detailed data used in the frame of the analysis. In both countries, passenger cars are responsible for half of the emissions from road transport as well as for their upward trend, which provokes the implementation of a decomposition analysis focusing exactly on this segment of road transport. The factors examined in the present decomposition analysis are related to vehicles ownership, fuel mix, annual mileage, engine capacity and technology of cars. The comparison of the results discloses the differences in the transportation profiles of the two countries and reveals how they affect the trend of CO2 emissions. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Decomposition analysis is used in this paper not only to explain changes in industrial CO2 emissions, but also to comparatively evaluate the progress made in 14 EU countries in decoupling emissions from industrial growth. The analysis is performed for the period 1990-2003, by distinguishing two time intervals for assessing progress prior to and following the agreement on the Kyoto Protocol. The refined Laspeyres model is used to determine the impact of 5 explanatory factors: output, energy intensity, structure, fuel mix and utility mix. The obtained results are further elaborated in order to assess the real efforts undertaken in each country and their effectiveness in dissociating the economic and environmental dimensions of development. Moreover, a rescaling procedure is implemented in order to adjust efforts to the average progress in the EU and proceed to a fair comparative evaluation. It is found that most EU countries made a considerable but not always sufficient decoupling effort, while no significant acceleration is observed in the post-Kyoto period. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V All rights reserved.

Security of energy supply is a major issue for all EU Member States due to Europe's increasing dependence on imported fossil-fuel sources and the continuous rise in energy demand. The latter is of particular importance in electricity sector given the continuously increasing use of gas for electricity generation. In order to properly tackle with the problem, concerted actions are required by the EU Member States in several levels, i.e. legislative, political, etc. Nevertheless, these actions will come at an additional cost paid by the society either through increased electricity bills or through public financing for energy security investments. Thus, such policies should be justified on the basis of cost-benefit analysis. Towards this direction, it may be necessary to take into account non-market costs and benefits, i.e. the value that consumers place on interruptions avoided. In order to explore households' perceptions and willingness to pay for securing gas supply for electricity production, an empirical study was conducted by means of the contingent valuation method. The results indicate that consumers are willing to pay a premium on their electricity bills in order to internalize the external costs of electricity production, in terms of energy security, which are caused from imported fuels. (c) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The key objective of the European Union's environmental policy is to successfully combine environmental protection with sustainable economic growth in the long term. Nowadays, it is increasingly recognized that environmental policies, besides increasing production cost, may at the same time give incentives to firms for undertaking innovative actions and/or developing and exploiting differentiation opportunities. Both differentiation capacity and cost increase are strongly dependent on a multiplicity of internal and external factors, such as energy intensity, type of technology used, characteristics of the competitive environment etc. The present paper presents a multicriterion approach for classifying firms into discrete categories of possible impact, according to their sensitivity to cost increases and their differentiation potential. The resulting environment-competitiveness matrix can be exploited for establishing sustainability strategies and designing effective policies in the industrial sector. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

AbstractThe key objective of the European Union's environmental policy is to successfully combine environmental protection with sustainable economic growth in the long term. Nowadays, it is increasingly recognized that environmental policies, besides increasing production cost, may at the same time give incentives to firms for undertaking innovative actions and/or developing and exploiting differentiation opportunities. Both differentiation capacity and cost increase are strongly dependent on a multiplicity of internal and external factors, such as energy intensity, type of technology used, characteristics of the competitive environment etc. The present paper presents a multicriterion approach for classifying firms into discrete categories of possible impact, according to their sensitivity to cost increases and their differentiation potential. The resulting environment–competitiveness matrix can be exploited for establishing sustainability strategies and designing effective policies in the industrial sector. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

The European policy target of substantially increasing the share of renewable energy in electricity generation, in combination with national subsidization support schemes, has strongly motivated private investors towards this business sector. In Greece, this interest is particularly apparent in the case of wind energy exploitation, due to a favourable legislative framework and the important wind potential available in several Greek regions. In such endowed regions, a very high number of applications were submitted to the competent authority, most of which compete for the same most attractive (windy) sites. The selection among these applications is a multicriteria problem that has been solved with the support of a Decision-Aid tool combining the multicriteria classification method ELECTRE-TRI with Integer Linear Programming. The developed approach takes into account both, the performances of the applications to the evaluation criteria, as well as a number of technical and policy constraints.

This paper aims at identifying the factors that have influenced changes in the level of industrial CO2 emissions. By means of an algebraic decomposition method the observed changes are analyzed into four different factors: output level, energy intensity, fuel mix and structural change. The application study refers to the industrial sector of European Union countries. The results show that CO2 emissions are possible to decrease without negatively affecting economic growth. In this sense, they confirm the decoupling of economic growth from energy consumption realized in the developed countries and prove that this detachment holds true also for the atmospheric emissions associated with energy use. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. JEL classification: Q40.

This paper aims at identifying the factors that have influenced changes in the level of industrial CO2 emissions. By means of an algebraic decomposition method the observed changes are analyzed into four different factors: output level, energy intensity, fuel mix and structural change. The application study refers to the industrial sector of European Union countries. The results show that CO2