This article examines the potential contribution of household scale off-grid renewable energy generation to the post-carbon economy. The large-scale focus of the green jobs agenda in high-income countries obscures how small-scale technologies can be a transformative source of employment in developing economies. Debates about what constitutes a green job and their value leaves out the everyday practice of green livelihoods carried out by the urban poor across the African continent in unfavourable institutional contexts where nonrenewable fuel is subsidised and renewable energy inputs are heavily taxed. The article presents experiences from field work in several countries, including Egypt, Nigeria and Kenya to provide practical examples of communities pursuing strategies of income generation, community empowerment and environmental preservation. It argues that scholars and practitioners concerned with both social justice and environmental preservation should embrace a definition of green jobs that is bottom-up or people-centred.
This paper focuses on how to undertake energy subsidy reform in light of country experiences. The paper reviews the challenges arising from energy subsidies, emphasizing their fiscal costs, adverse macroeconomic and environmental impacts, and the regressive distribution of subsidy benefits. A novel feature of the paper is that it presents the most comprehensive estimates of energy subsidies available covering petroleum products, electricity, natural gas, and coal. A central objective of the paper is to learn from past subsidy reform experiences, both successful and otherwise, to identify key design features that can facilitate reform.
The paper draws on lessons from international reform experiences from 22 country case studies (covering 28 reform episodes) undertaken by IMF staff, which are provided in a supplement to this paper.
Each of the last several years has seen a fresh record high in global carbon dioxide emissions, and scientists say if this trend continues the planet will suffer a catastrophic increase in temperature. With electricity generation responsible for about half of recent growth in emissions, a new IEA book looks at ways the power sector can keep up with an improvement in global living standards while minimising the risk of drastic climate change.
In Electricity in a Climate-Constrained World, IEA experts consider potential solutions ranging from the design of a Chinese emissions trading programme to stand-by consumption of networked appliances to carbon capture and storage.
The book lays out the reasons electricity generation must get cleaner, and do so quickly. Higher temperatures will affect all aspects of human life, including the very electricity sector that emits so much of the cause of climate change.
This paper explores the relative average GHG intensity of production of selected goods in different world regions and the potential for regions to access low-GHG fuels and feedstocks needed to expand low-GHG production. While a complete analysis of shifting trade patterns would assess the economic implications, including the scale effect, the authors present a simplified approach which allows them to gauge what conditions might enable countries to be future low-GHG producers.
They begin by looking at the emissions embodied in trade (Section 2), based on a multiregional input-output model, to help identify significant trade flows for further analysis. Section 3 then examines differences in GHG-intensity among regions for some of the categories identified, while Section 4 asks whether and how shifting the location of steel production could reduce global GHGs. Section 5 assesses a range of national and international policies that could be used to shift trade patterns. Section 6 summarizes the results and identifies areas for further research.
The future of renewable energy is fundamentally a choice, not a foregone conclusion given technology and economic trends, according to this report. It examines the future of renewable energy in the context of: total energy share by sector; integration between utilities, buildings, industry and transportation; business models and investment; urban planning; national and regional policy; and technology, cost and market growth. The report is based on the opinions of 170 leading experts and the projections of 50 recently published scenarios. It finds a wide range of expert projections of the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix by 2050, with low estimates below 20 per cent to high estimates upwards of 50-95 per cent. Experts predicted that the expansion of renewable will accelerate through 2020, particularly in leading developing countries such as Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Egypt, Ghana, Indonesia, Jordan, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, the Philippines, South Africa and Thailand.
This report includes case studies on market growth and policy support for the European Union, the United States, Japan, China and India.
This book describes comprehensively potential, co-benefits and drawbacks of carbon (C) sequestration for ecosystem services. Soil generates numerous ecosystem services for human wellbeing and ecological functions. The services discussed include provisional (feed, food, timber, biofuel), regulating (carbon sequestration, pests, diseases), cultural, and supporting (soil formation, nutrient cycling) services. Recarbonization of the biosphere is a potential strategy to redistribute C among global pools, and to enhance ocean but most importantly land-based C sinks with possible feedback on soil-based ecosystem services. Land use and soil management can degrade soil quality, and either reduce quantity and quality of ecosystem services or lead to disservices and create large ecological footprint. Thus, trade-offs between carbon sequestration and ecosystem services must be considered when incentivizing land managers through payments for ecosystem services. Together with sustainable management of land-based C sinks for climate change adaptation and mitigation this will minimize the risks of recarbonization of the biosphere for ecological functions and human wellbeing.