How Malleable are the Greenhouse Gas Emission Intensities of the G7 Nations?

Abstract

Why do countries' greenhouse gas (GHG) intensities differ? How much of a country's GHG intensity is set by inflexible national circumstances, and how much may be altered by policy? These questions are common in climate change policy discourse and may influence emission reduction allocations. Despite the policy relevance of the discussion, little quantitative analysis has been done. In this paper we address these questions in the context of the G7 by applying a pair of simple quantitative methodologies: decomposition analysis and allocation of fossil fuel production emissions to end-users instead of producers. According to our analysis and available data, climate and geographic size-both inflexible national characteristics-can have a significant effect on a country's GHG intensity. A country's methods for producing electricity and net trade in fossil fuels are also significant, while industrial structure has little effect at the available level of data disaggregation.

Reconciling energy efficiency and energy intensity metrics: an integrated decomposition analysis

“…The LMDI method has emerged as the preferred method for energy decomposition analysis at the level of sectors (Olanrewaju 2017;Norman 2017;Ang and Xu 2013), countries (Wang and Feng 2017;Sumabat et al 2016;Cansino et al 2015;Oh et al 2010;O'Mahony et al 2012;Zhang et al 2016;Kerimray et al 2017) and multi-country comparisons (Reutters et al 2017;Andreoni and Galmarini 2016;Fernández González 2015;Moutinho et al 2016;Bataille et al 2007). The typical LMDI application involves factoring energy (or emissions), with energy intensity as one of the factors.…”

Socio-technological impact analysis using an energy IO approach to GHG emissions issues in South Korea

“…Examples of decomposition studies on national CO 2 emissions (or emission intensities) include Wang et al [7] and Ma and Stern [8] of China, Lin et al [9] of Taiwan, Hatzigeorgiou et al [10] of Greece, O' Mahony [11] of Ireland, Löfgren and Muller [12] of Sweden, Sands and Schumacher [13] of Germany, Bacon and Bhattacharya [14] on behalf of 70 countries, Bataille et al [15] representing the G7 countries, Zhang [16] representing 18 countries in the Middle East and North Africa, and Böhm [17] representing 13 countries and 2 regions. Most of the studies decomposed the national CO 2 emissions growth into economic growth, fuel switching, and changes in emission intensity [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17].…”

“…Most of the studies decomposed the national CO 2 emissions growth into economic growth, fuel switching, and changes in emission intensity [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17].…”

“…Changes in sectoral GHG emission intensitiesFigs. 4 and 5 indicate the GHG emission intensities, GI, from 1985 to 2005 by the E-IO analysis according to Eqs (15). and(16).…”

Carbon prices across countries

“…hydropower, geothermal energy, solar and wind), potential for geological storage of CO2, capacity to employ nuclear power, economic structure (including the importance and mix of energy-intensive industries), and social preferences, all of which can affect GHG intensity and the marginal cost of abatement. 4 At the country level, the price of carbon needed to achieve a given national objective -for instance as defined by Nationally Determined Contributions to the Paris Agreement, or a longer objective for 2050 and beyond -will be lower when the marginal cost of abatement is lower. In particular, many developing countries with large endowments of solar, hydropower, or geothermal energy may find it possible to achieve large emission reductions with lower carbon prices than other countries.…”