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Abstract The 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) marked a milestone in the course of international efforts on global climate action. As part of the COP21 side events, on December 4th the Lima Paris Action Agenda presented a half-day of presentations and round table discussions titled Focus on Private Finance. The event was supported by the Secretary-General of the United Nation, Caisse des Depots, and the I4CE Institute for Climate Economics. This conference report summarizes the findings of the session and the messages delivered by finance industry representatives. Significant investment in low carbon assets is required to maintain global temperature increases below 2 °C. The two resounding themes throughout the session were that in order to attract capital for low carbon investments fossil fuel subsidies must end and a higher carbon price is needed to incentivise investment. Furthermore, accounting and regulatory bodies need to implement more stringent disclosure and reporting requirements so that climate risk is properly understood by investors. There is significant appetite for investment in the low carbon sector which is demonstrated by the growth in the green bond market. Financial institutions have a role to play in aggregating, structuring and de-risking investments to facilitate private finance investment. Policy makers also need to improve the investment environment by creating consistent and stable long term policies which will give investors' confidence.

The EU has long pursued relatively ambitious climate and energy policies, often against the backdrop of what has been termed the EU ‘polycrisis’. This paper introduces a special issue which seeks t...

A focus on land-use and forests as a means to reduce carbon dioxide levels in the global atmosphere has been at the heart of the international climate change debate since the United Nations Kyoto Protocol was agreed in 1997. This environmental management practice is a process technically referred to as mitigation. These largely technical projects have aimed to provide sustainable development benefits to forest-dependent people, as well as to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, these projects have had limited success in achieving these local development objectives. This article argues that this is due in part to the patriarchal underpinnings of the sustainable development and climate-change policy agendas. The author explores this theory by considering how a climate mitigation project in Bolivia has resulted in different outcomes for women and men, and makes links between the global decision-making process and local effects.

Hybrid electric propulsion in the aviation field is becoming an effective alternative propulsion technology with potential advantages, including fuel savings, lower pollution, and reduced noise emission. On the one hand, the aeroengine manufacturers are working to improve fuel consumption and reduce pollutant emissions with new combustion systems; on the other hand, much attention is given to reducing the weight of the batteries increasing the energy density. Hybrid electric propulsion systems (HEPS) can take advantage of the synergy between two technologies by utilizing both internal combustion engines (ICEs) and electric motors (EMs) together, each operating at their respective optimum conditions. In the present work, some numerical investigations were carried out by using a zero-dimensional code able to simulate the flight mission of a turboprop aircraft, comparing fuel consumption and pollutant emissions of the original engine with other two smaller gas turbines working in hybrid configuration. An algorithm has been implemented to calculate the weight of the batteries for the different configurations examined, evaluating the feasibility of the hybrid propulsion system in terms of number of non-revenue passengers.

China and India are the world's largest developing economies and also two of the most populous countries. China, which now has more than 1.3 billion people, is expected to grow to more than 1.4 billion by 2050, and India with a population of I billion will overtake China to be the most populous country with about 1.6 billion population. These two countries are home to 37% of the world's population today. In addition, China and India have achieved notable success in their economic development characterised by a high rate of gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the last two decades. Together the two countries account already for almost a fifth of world GDP. The most direct and significant result of economic growth in India and China is the amazing improvement in quality of life (or at least spending power) for an increasing share of the population. The populations of both the countries have experienced a transition from 'poverty' to 'adequate food and clothing',- today growing parts of the population are getting closer to 'well to do lifestyles'. These seLyments of the society are not satisfied any more with enough food and clothes, but are also eager to obtain a quality life of high nutrient food, comfortable living, health care and other quality services. The theme of this paper is to analyse how the major drivers contributed to the environmental consequences in the past, and to take a forward look at the environmental impacts of these driving forces in China and India. The paper identifies population, affluence and technology to be the major drivina forces in environmental pollution for these two countries then applies the simple equation of Impact = Population x Affluence x Technology, or I = PAT to evaluate the effects of changes in these drivers on CO, emissions. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A stochastic mixed integer linear optimization scheduling model minimizing system operation costs and treating load and wind power production as stochastic inputs is presented. The schedules are updated in a rolling manner as more up-to-date information becomes available. This is a fundamental change relative to day-ahead unit commitment approaches. The need for reserves dependent on forecast horizon and share of wind power has been estimated with a statistical model combining load and wind power forecast errors with scenarios of forced outages. The model is used to study operational impacts of future high wind penetrations for the island of Ireland. Results show that at least 6000 MW of wind (34% of energy demand) can be integrated into the island of Ireland without significant curtailment and reliability problems.

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Abstract Cities are the major contributors to energy consumption and CO2 emissions, as well as being leading innovators and implementers of policy measures in climate change mitigation. Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) is an agglomeration of cities put forward by China to strengthen international cooperation among “Belt and Road” countries and promote low-carbon, inclusive, coordinated and sustainable development. Few studies have discussed the emission characteristics of GBA cities. This study, for the first time, compiles emission inventories of 11 GBA cities and their surroundings based on IPCC territorial emission accounting approach, which are consistent and comparable with the national and provincial inventories. Results show that (a) total emissions increased from 426 Mt in 2000 to 610 Mt in 2016, while emissions of GBA cities increased rapidly by 6.9% over 2000–2011 and peaked in 2014 (334 Mt); (b) raw coal and diesel oil are the top two emitters by energy type, while energy production sector and tertiary industry are the top two largest sectors; (c) GBA cities take the lead in low-carbon development, emitted 4% of total national emissions and contributed 13% of national GDP with less than a third of national emission intensities and less than three-quarters of national per capita emissions; (d) Macao, Shenzhen and Hong Kong have the top three lowest emission intensity in the country; (e) most of GBA cities are experiencing the shift from an industrial economy to a service economy, while Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Foshan and Huizhou reached their peak emissions and Guangzhou, Dongguan and Jiangmen remained decreasing emission tendencies; (g) for those coal-dominate or energy-production cities (i.e. Zhuhai, Zhongshan, Zhaoqing, Maoming, Yangjiang, Shanwei, Shaoguan and Zhanjiang) in mid-term industrialization, total emissions experienced soaring increases. The emission inventories provide robust, self-consistent, transparent and comparable data support for identifying spatial–temporal emission characteristics, developing low-carbon policies, monitoring mitigation progress in GBA cities as well as further emissions-related studies at a city-level. The low-carbon roadmaps designed for GBA cities and their surroundings also provide a benchmark for other developing countries/cities to adapting changing climate and achieve sustainable development.