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Abstract China's carbon emissions have been ranking first in the world. This study filled in the gaps in research, decomposed carbon intensity from the perspective of time, space and industry. A decoupling effort model based on factor decomposition models was constructed to analyze the driving factors of carbon emissions and economic decoupling, which builded a foundation for achieving sustainable economic development. Using the Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index method (LMDI), the paper measured the carbon emission intensity of 29 provinces and cities in China from 1998 to 2019, and decomposed the decoupling effect between GDP and carbon emission on the basis of factor decomposition by tapio. The results showed that: (1) Carbon intensity declined first, then rise lightly, and finally declined steadily. For the primary industry and the tertiary industry, the carbon intensity declined steadily, while the carbon intensity increased accordingly to the overall carbon intensity. In terms of spatial evolution, the regional differences between different provinces decreased correspondingly. (2) The cumulative contribution rates of these three effects, i.e., technological progress, industrial structure and regional scale were 106.3299%, −15.1486% and 8.8188%, respectively. There were obvious differences of these cumulative contribution rates of carbon intensity among different provinces. (3) From the perspective of industrial, technological progress effect is the largest contribution for carbon intensity in the secondary industry. The Industrial structure effect mainly affects the primary and tertiary industries; and no significant difference in regional scale effect. (4) The decoupling effect gradually improved, and technological progress has played an absolute leading role in promoting the decoupling effect. Based on the research results, the key policy recommendation are put forward as follows: (1) Further improve the technological level and support clean technology enterprises. (2) Promote industrial upgrading in backward industrial provinces (3) Promote regional assistance and the introduction of high-quality foreign investment.

A balance between industrial pollution and economic growth becomes a major policy issue to attain a sustainable society in the world. To discuss the problem from economics and business perspectives, this study proposes a new use of DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis) as a methodology for unified (operational and environmental) assessment. A unique feature of the proposed approach is that it separates outputs into desirable and undesirable categories. Such separation is important because energy industries usually produce both desirable and undesirable outputs. This study discusses how to unify the two types of outputs under natural and managerial disposability. The proposed DEA approach evaluates various organizations by the three efficiency measures such as OE (Operational Efficiency), UEN (Unified Efficiency under Natural disposability) and UENM (Unified Efficiency under Natural and Managerial disposability). An important feature of UENM is that it separates inputs into two categories and unifies them under the two disposability concepts in addition to the proposed output separation and unification. This study incorporates an amount of capital assets for technology innovation, as one of the two input group, into the measurement of UENM. Then, it compares UENM with the other two efficiency measures. This study is the first research effort in which DEA has an analytical capability to quantify the importance of investment on capital assets for technology innovation. To confirm the practicality of the proposed approach, this study applies the three efficiency measures to a data set regarding manufacturing and non-manufacturing industries of 47 prefectures in Japan. This study empirically confirms the validity of Porter hypothesis in Japanese manufacturing industries, so implying that environmental regulation has been effective for betterment on the performance of Japanese manufacturing industries. Another important finding is that the emission of greenhouse gases is a main source of unified inefficiency in the two groups of industries. Therefore, Japanese industries, examined in this study, need to make their efforts to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution substances by investing in capital assets for technology innovation.

Abstract Industry and agriculture in Malaysia are the main contributors to economic growth and employment. These sectors also play an important role in Malaysia's total exports. The question then is whether technological innovation, sectoral output, and exports growth have had a real impact on these two sectors, which are very important for policy-making. This paper attempts to empirically identify such relations using econometric methods, including an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds testing method and a dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) during 1978–2018. The results confirmed that overall long-run economic growth is the main contributor to the increase in energy consumption with a greater magnitude than in the short-run. In the long-run, an increase of 1% in economic growth leads to an increase of 4.6% and 1.1% in energy demand in agriculture and industrial sectors, respectively. Exports are the second largest contributor to energy demand in the overall economy and the agriculture sector. Finally, the technological innovation that enhances energy efficiency is only effective in reducing energy consumption in the industrial sector, which ultimately reduces emissions.

Abstract This paper examines the relationship between hydroelectricity consumption and economic growth in China, while controlling for fossil fuel consumption, financial development, capital, institutional quality and globalization and its components for the period, 1970–2014. We have employed the Bayer and Hanck, (2013) combined cointegration test to examine the long-run relationships between those variables as well as the autoregressive distributed lag method with structural breaks as a robustness check. The empirical findings demonstrate a long-run relationship between those variables. Hydroelectricity consumption, fossil fuel consumption, capital, financial development and globalization and its components have a positive influence on GDP in China. The findings also provide predominant evidence on the long-run feedback hypothesis between the variables. The findings suggest that policies should be implemented to increase the role hydropower in the energy mix for sustainable economic growth in the country.

Abstract This paper describes the World Bank's technical assistance and lending efforts in support of developing countries facing power shortages. The paper reviews the World Bank's experience in helping governments to mitigate power shortages in Africa, South Asia, East Asia, and Latin America regions. The paper stresses the need to consider each power “crunch” on an individual basis, and describes the process used in diagnosing a shortage situation and prescribing mitigation strategies. Several brief case studies are presented, including Botswana, Brazil, Uganda, and South Africa. The political and customer-centric dimensions of power shortage mitigation are briefly described, with suggestions for minimizing the socio-economic impacts of power shortages on the urban and rural poors. The paper concludes that an integrated supply–demand portfolio approach works best, and within the portfolio a mix of market-based rationing, emergency mobilization of customer-owned generation, interruptible rates, load control, and energy efficient lighting should be sought. Although the best formulation will vary according to market structure, demand composition, and nature of the crisis, World Bank practitioners have found one program that works almost everywhere to produce fast and effective results – mass market Compact Fluorescent Lamp (CFL) replacement programs.

Abstract We examine drivers of cost overruns in Norwegian development projects in the oil and gas sector. The multivariate longitudinal econometric analysis employs a unique and detailed dataset consisting of 79 different projects between 2000 and 2013. Among the significant results, we find that the unexpected change in economic activity has a positive effect on the overruns, there is a considerable positive momentum in the transitional cost overruns, more experienced operators tend to incur less overruns and finally that the size of the investment of the projects has a positive impact on the overruns. Furthermore, we find evidence that current economic activity matters to an extent, but that the pivotal factor is the unexpected change in activity.

Abstract This paper uses an aggregate modelling approach to assess the impact of taxes on refined petroleum products on the Philippine economy. The effects of removing the 48% tax on premium and regular gasoline and the 24% tax on other refined petroleum products on prices and quantities are examined. For example, the consequences of a complete elimination of refined petroleum product taxes would be an increase in output by all producing sectors of about 3.7% or about 2.65 hundred billion Philippine pesos, a rise in the consumption of goods and services by about 13.6% or 4.2 hundred billion Philippine pesos, a rise in lower tax revenue for the government of 62.4% or 2.8 hundred billion Philippine pesos. When subjected to sensitivity analyses, the results are reasonably robust.

The need for deep decarbonisation in the energy intensive basic materials industry is increasingly recognised. In light of the vast future potential for renewable electricity the implications of electrifying the production of basic materials in the European Union is explored in a what-if thought-experiment. Production of steel, cement, glass, lime, petrochemicals, chlorine and ammonia required 125 TW-hours of electricity and 851 TW-hours of fossil fuels for energetic purposes and 671 TW-hours of fossil fuels as feedstock in 2010. The resulting carbon dioxide emissions were equivalent to 9% of total greenhouse gas emissions in EU28. A complete shift of the energy demand as well as the resource base of feedstocks to electricity would result in an electricity demand of 1713 TW-hours about 1200 TW-hours of which would be for producing hydrogen and hydrocarbons for feedstock and energy purposes. With increased material efficiency and some share of bio-based materials and biofuels the electricity demand can be much lower. Our analysis suggest that electrification of basic materials production is technically possible but could have major implications on how the industry and the electric systems interact. It also entails substantial changes in relative prices for electricity and hydrocarbon fuels.

This study presents a new approach to gauging energy or fuel poverty for developed countries. It develops a multidimensional energy poverty index (MEPI), which can evaluate energy poverty from a multidimensional angle. The MEPI is composed of three attributes (dimensions) of energy poverty, specifically for developed countries: energy costs, income, and energy efficiency of housing. The study applies this measure to gauge energy poverty in Japan after the 2000s, focusing on the years around the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake (GEJE) and the Fukushima nuclear accident. Based on unique microdata, the results show that energy poverty has been aggravated in Japan since the 2000s. Mother-child and single-elderly households (vulnerable households) are in a serious situation and the elderly are at high levels of energy poverty. In addition, the results indicate the grave impact of energy price escalation after the Fukushima accident on energy poverty aggravation, especially for vulnerable households or the elderly.