• Energy Research

SummaryInequality has recently become a major concern in economics. Leaving aside its social and economic effects is also possible to trace its environmental consequences, which this article attempts to assess. The indicator to be measured is the household's carbon footprint (CF) for different social groups. The deep economic crisis in the Spanish economy between 2008 and 2013 has increased consumption inequality and doubled the number of households below the poverty line. When focusing on domestic consumption, we found that the shopping basket of all income groups has very similar emissions intensities; therefore, the differences among the household CFs depend mainly on the scale effect (i.e., the size of consumption). However, when international trade is also considered, we found that the emission intensity of imports is bigger than the intensity of all the respective domestic goods. Therefore, the share of imported goods and services by social class will be an important determinant of the respective total CF. Before the crisis, households with higher incomes imported 30% of their total consumption items whereas households with lower income imported only 20% of their consumption. During the crisis, the imports of medium‐high‐income households fell to 20%, whereas low‐ and middle‐income families maintained the same import share, which contributed to the reduction of the total household CF.

International trade leads to emissions burden shifting and threatens mitigation targets. Multiregional input–output (MRIO) and bilateral trade input–output (BTIO) models are widely used to analyse ...

To meet the Paris Agreement, Mexico is committed to reduce unconditionally 25% of its greenhouse gases emissions for the year 2030. Since the strategy to achieve the mitigation goals needs an increase in renewable energy sources, Mexico’s national climate change policy package has already been launched, including the deployment of 13.5 GW of wind, 1 of biomass, 0.7 of geothermal, 1.75 of hydropower and 10.4 of solar energy in the period 2018–2030. However, these green investments planned are below the scenario proposed by IRENA compatible with the Paris Agreement. This paper assesses Mexico’s green investments for the period 2018–2030 in terms of value added, employment, materials, land use, water and CO2eq emissions in a multiregional input-output framework and compare the results with the IRENA proposal. These green investments are expected to account for nearly an increase of 1% both of GDP and employment in Mexico and an expected mitigation of around 63 Mt CO2eq, once the new facilities are fully deployed. Nevertheless, the deployment and operation and maintenance phases will increase the emissions (0.82%), the water and material footprint (0.19 and 0.9%, respectively) and the land use (0.19%) with a substantial share of the positive and negative effects leakaged outside.

By using an environmentally extended multi-regional input-output model, this paper analyses the Spanish households carbon footprint for the 2008 2017 period considering the municipality size as well as the urban or rural residential zone where families live. Results show that, on a per capita basis, inhabitants of medium-large municipalities emit fewer carbon emissions than those settled in small ones (between 0.34 and 0.54 tCO2/cap depending on the year studied). This carbon unbalance is mainly explained by the higher direct carbon footprints of dwellers who reside in small municipalities and, in special, in rural zones. Furthermore, applying inequality measures through a consumption-based carbon footprint Gini coefficient, we show that both income and CO2 emissions inequality are lower in small municipalities. In the light of the findings, in Spain, the application of a carbon pricing on direct and indirect carbon footprints will be regressive, disproportionally affecting people of small municipalities and rural areas. Accordingly, household carbon inequalities must be contemplated to avoid poorly designed climate change mitigation policies. © 2020 Elsevier Ltd Manuel Tomás was supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 821105 (LOCOMOTION project), and the Spanish Government through BC3 María de Maeztu excellence accreditation [ MDM-2017-0714 ] and the grant [ RTI2018-099858-A-100 ]. Luis Antonio López and Fabio Monsalve were supported by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of Spain [ ECO2016-78939-R ].

The increasing concern about the environmental performance and sustainability of firms and organizations also involves educational institutions. If universities aim to become leaders in sustainability aspects, they must adopt strategies that involve the entire university system. As a useful tool for this purpose, the objective of this study was to calculate the carbon footprint for the University of Castilla-La Mancha for the period 2005–2013. The calculation of the university carbon footprint was accomplished through a hybrid environmentally extended input–output model in a multiregional framework, which constitutes a novelty of the analysis. The proposed tool also allows the calculation of the potential for emissions reduction of abatement measures. The carbon footprint induced by the consumption of university employees' wages is also undertaken as a way to increase awareness and university outreach to society. The results show the relevance of both imports and indirect emissions and highlight the significance of energy-related emissions enabled by sectors such as renting, electrical and optical equipment, manufacturing or even services.

In this chapter, the authors describe the current situation of the global dairy livestock industry under the influence and challenge of the commitments of the so-called Paris Agreement. Firstly, the key points of the Agreement affecting the livestock and dairy systems are discussed within the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals. Next, a detailed analysis of the evolution of the activity and the greenhouse gas emissions of the industry is presented. Finally, a summary of current environmental solutions and bioeconomy alternatives will contribute to enriching the discussion.

Achieving the Paris Agreement goals calls for higher ambition across actors. In this article, we address the carbon emission responsibility of the city of Bogota from a consumption-based perspective, by assessing the carbon footprint for the whole city. We use an environmentally extended multiregional input-output model where a survey-based input-output table of Bogota is nested, avoiding the downside of using assumptions regarding the production and trade structure of the city. We identify city's emissions hotspots across the globe, mainly in China and the United States, proving that consumption-based accounting is required when highly open systems as cities are under analysis, to finally propose source shifting scenarios as mitigation strategies. Our results indicate that Bogota is a net importer of CO2 emissions and, the city's carbon footprint almost double direct emissions generated within its territory. China, the rest of Colombia, and the United States are heavily affected by Bogota's carbon footprint as those three regions bear 38% of the city's footprint. The main drivers of those emissions are Electrical equipment, Computers, Vehicles and Machinery, goods that are imported and consumed by Bogota's residents. Important opportunities for emission reductions arise when sourcing changes from China to the US and Latin American countries, which provide fresh evidence for national and local authorities to improve their efforts on reducing emissions.

Sustainable development, in its wider sense, i.e., economic, social and environmental, has emerged as one of the key challenges for humankind in the 21st century. Solar photovoltaic (PV) emerges as a key technology to meet not only the climate targets but also those related to social progress and economic growth. This paper's main objective is to capture the momentum and potentialities of the Spanish Solar PV sector using a Triple Bottom Line (TBL) analysis from a broad economic, social and environmental footprint perspective in an MRIO context in 2016.Regarding the economic impact, we find that the Spanish Solar PV sector accounts for 0.19% and 0.31% of GDP in direct and in total terms, respectively; besides, 60% of indirect GDP is created within Spanish economy and 40% is generated abroad, while 86% of induced GDP is generated within domestic economy. By activity, PV manufactures is the only one to generate most of its indirect GDP abroad (68%). In social terms, Solar PV activities are responsible for 5904 direct jobs and 18,377 in total in Spain in 2016, and the most important activity is energy production and distribution (50.2% of total generated employment). In environmental terms, the footprint of the whole Solar PV industry accounts for only 734 ktCO2, which helps to avoid a great volume of direct emissions in electricity generation, with more than 69% generated beyond Spain's borders.With regard to the potentialities of the Spanish Solar PV sector, and given the forecasted growing deployment of Solar PV in Spain by 2030 and 2050, this industry is set to be one of the leading sectors of the Spanish sustainability transition in the near future. Current policy requires the fast deployment of Solar PV throughout the country to ensure more sustainability-friendly economic, social and environmental development.