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Trends in energy intensities for 31 countries are evaluated, over the period from 1950 to 1988, using a purchasing power parity-based GDP measure and United Nations energy statistics. With non-commercial energy included, the energy intensities of low income countries are similar to those of high income countries. Energy intensities have decreased for 15 out of the 31 countries studied. The analysis indicates that there is a level of energy intensity, between 0.25 and 0.5 toe per 1000 (1980) international dollars, to which many countries are converging. Energy use per capita increases with higher incomes, but cross-country comparisons can be misleading and inappropriate due to large differences in, for example, economic structure and climate. Electricity appears to be the energy carrier of choice for advanced economies, leading to increased use of electricity relative to other energy carriers. Electricity intensities for eight industrialized countries are evaluated. In four countries, electricity intensities have decreased in recent years. This result suggests that electricity intensities may develop similarly to how energy intensities have developed as economic structure and energy end-use efficiency continue to change.

It is often argued that the inequality in the world is increasing. We study the global income and resource inequality between 1960 and late 1990s. Income is measured in GDP/capita in terms of both current market exchange rate and purchasing power parity (PPP). Consumption of paper, energy, electricity, food, animal food, as well as emissions of carbon dioxide, is also studied. Changes in the absolute and relative gap between the top and bottom 20% consumers as well as the Atkinson measure are used as inequality indicators. Some remarks are made on how to compare income across countries and how inequality should be measured. We find that the inequality in terms of GDP/capita measured in PPP terms is rather stable in relative terms, but increasing in absolute terms. We conclude that inequality as measured by the Atkinson index is decreasing for all resources but that the gap in resource consumption in absolute terms is increasing for paper and electricity consumption.

A service transition is supposed to lead to the decline of energy intensity (energy/GDP). We argue that this interpretation is overly optimistic because the shift to a service economy is somewhat of an illusion in terms of real production. Several recent studies of structural effects on energy intensity have made the error of using sector shares in current prices, combined with GDP in constant prices, which is inconsistent and ignores the different behaviour of prices across sectors. We use the more correct method of sector shares in constant prices, and make an attempt to single out the effect from the real service transition by using two complementary methods: shift share analyses in current and constant prices, and Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index (LMDI) for 10 developed and 3 emerging economies. A service transition is rather modest in real terms. The major driver of the decline in energy intensity rests within the manufacturing sector. Meanwhile, the transition to a service sector had a small downward impact on energy intensity in 7 of the developed countries (and no impact in the others). For emerging economies like Brazil, Mexico and India, it is the residential sector that drives energy intensity down because of the declining share of this sector as the formal economy grows, and as a consequence of switching to more efficient fuels. (Less)

We study a tax policy based on the emission factor.We compare it to other environmental policies using a social welfare model.The policy provides the highest consumers' surplus and the lowest market price.The optimal tax rate induces high emitters to use less carbon-intensive fuels.A reduction in the emission factor leads to a reduction in the total emissions. This paper studies a tax policy based on the emission factor, which is used as an intensity measure. Specifically, the paper models a situation where policy makers set a limit on the production emission factor of a regulated industry and require firms to pay tax if they exceed that target. The efficiency of the policy is evaluated against other existing environmental policies using a social welfare mathematical programming model. A case study is built within the context of the cement industry and is used to carry out the analysis. The results show that the intensity-based carbon tax achieves the highest consumers' surplus and production quantities and the lowest prices. The policy is found to be effective in reducing CO2 emissions with little impact on social welfare.

More than 61% of the total population of Nepal has no access to electricity. The majority is poor and live in rural areas. In recent years, rural electrification has had high priority in government policies, and micro hydro and solar PV have been the most commonly adopted off-grid technologies. The financial mix in the off-grid rural electrification is generally characterized by subsidy, equity and credit. In this paper, we analyze how rural electrification has been funded and the impact of subsidy policies on the renewable energy market, focusing on the projects implemented under the ‘subsidy policy 2000’. Our study is based on official data obtained from authorities in Nepal and a survey carried out among private supply and installation companies, NGOs and financial institutions. The study shows that awareness levels in adopting RE-technologies and willingness of people to access and pay for electricity have increased significantly. However, there is a huge financial gap between the cost of electrification and the affordability. Bridging this gap is a crucial issue that needs to be addressed for the smooth expansion of rural electrification in the country.

This paper reviews the literature on the economics of climate change adaptation in developing countries, and identifies three key points for consideration in future studies. One key point is that all development policy should be formulated using forecasts from climate science as a baseline. When this is not done, there is risk that a false status quo without climate change is seen as an implicit baseline. Another key point is that authors must be clearer about their behavioral assumptions: Many studies either (problematically) assume profit maximization on the side of farm households, or do not specify behavioral assumptions at all. A third important point is that the allocation of rights is crucial for the results; if households have a right to maintain their current livelihoods, the costs of climate change in developing countries are considerably greater than traditional willingness‐to‐pay studies would indicate. Thus, costs and benefits of climate change adaptation cannot be analyzed using economic aspects only; climate science, behavioral science, and legal and moral aspects have crucial implications for the outcome of the analysis.

This paper1 takes as its starting point the observation that fuel prices – and thus taxes – are important for good management of climate change and other environmental problems. To economists this should be no surprise yet it seems that the role of fuel taxation as an instrument of climate policy has not been fully appreciated. It is however one of the few policy instruments that, since several decades, has actually reduced fuel consumption appreciably. Thanks to taxation (mainly in Europe and Japan), carbon emissions are considerably lower than they would have been otherwise. In future where carbon emissions are to be cut drastically, this instrument will be crucial. There is however much opposition to the instrument. This opposition uses various arguments, for instance that fuel taxes hurt the poor since they are strongly regressive. We however find that the choice of country and methodology turns out to be of great consequence. We study seven European countries—France, Germany, United Kingdom, Italy, Serbia, Spain and Sweden and do find some evidence of regressivity but the evidence is very weak. It does not apply when lifetime income is used and it does not apply to the poorest country in the group. The best one-line summary is probably that the tax is approximately proportional.

Increasing the current low level of access to electricity in developing countries is important for economic development and poverty eradication. Encouraging the involvement of new actors for implem ...

Global climate change stands out from most environmental problems because it will span generations and force us to think in new ways about intergenerational fairness. It involves the delicate problem of complex coordination between countries on a truly global scale. As long as fossil fuels are too cheap, climate change policy will engage all major economies. The costs are high enough to make efficiency a priority, which means striving toward a single market for carbon plus tackling the thorny issues of fairness. Hopes for a grand deal were mercilessly shattered at Copenhagen in December 2009 and in other recent UNFCCC meetings, with the result that "green growth" is promoted as an alternative path. Indeed, green growth is clearly the goal, but it is no magic bullet. The world economy will require clear and rather tough policy instruments for growth to be green-and it is naive to think otherwise. Growth, green or not, will boost demand for energy and coal is normally the cheapest source. The magnitude of the challenge is greater if we also consider the problems related to nuclear (fission) energy and, in some instances, to bioenergy (such as its competition for land that may be essential for the poor). This paper discusses some necessary ingredients for a long-term global climate strategy. As we wait for the final (and maybe elusive) worldwide treaty, we must find a policy that makes sense and is not only compatible with, but facilitates the development of such a treaty. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.