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The constituent countries of the MENA region---defined in this thesis in conformity with the regional definition of the International Energy Agency and encompassing 17 Muslim countries in North Africa, in the Levant, on the Arabian Peninsula, and Iran---have developed very rapidly over the past decade. Two figures best exemplify the region's tremendous transformation: Total population has expanded by more than 20% and its aggregate economic output has more than doubled. As much as this development is desirable, said development trends have also dramatically reshaped the energy policy environment in the MENA region and began causing problems of their own---affecting the region's large oil exporters and its energy importers alike. Having traditionally enjoyed high energy security and handsome resource rents by virtue of their abundant and cheap fossil fuels, new realities in the domestic energy systems demand a new policy focus on domestic energy issues. Energy challenges have emerged which threaten security of supply, fiscal stability, and environmental integrity. The challenges differ in magnitude from country-to-country and reflect the specific national conditions and circumstances. However, given the similarity in the underlying drivers and the governing energy policies, the energy challenges resemble each other across borders. More specifically, ballooning domestic energy demand consumes a rising share of national energy production and thus increasingly imperils the constant flow of the much needed proceeds from oil and gas exports. In the MENA countries with less abundant hydrocarbon resources, domestic demand growth has heightened energy dependence and, to make matters worse, the tighter supply situation in the energy exporting neighbors may eventually also lead to a discontinuation of the preferential supply agreements which they have benefitted from in the past. As a further corollary of demand growth, massive capital-intensive infrastructure investments are necessary to keep pace with the growth on the demand side. The regional tradition to sell energy commodities domestically at prices non-competitive prices or even below cost, however, limits the national energy sectors' own capability of mustering the required capital. Finally, the universally observable heavily fossil fuel-dominated national energy mixes in the region render the study countries vulnerable to supply shocks. The virtually complete reliance on the regionally available hydrocarbons for meeting energy demand is also a principal contributor to environmental degradation and at the core of the large carbon footprint of energy consumption in MENA countries. Given current policies in combination with the emerging demographic and economic trends, these challenges must be expected to become more severe in the years to come. Rising living standards, especially in the region's expanding urban population, are likely to boost per capita energy consumption. The projected, continued demographic and economic growth will further drive commodity demand. And the supply side cannot be counted on to mitigate the challenges under given policies. On the contrary. Although no reliable production projections are available, it stands to reason that production from the region's most prolific oil and gas fields---some of which have been producing for several decades now---will increasingly require the use of costly secondary and tertiary recovery methods and that some will eventually [...]

Abstract In this study, we investigate the driving forces behind the changes in residential energy consumption (REC) in China’s urban and rural areas over the 2001–2012 period. Based on the logarithmic mean Divisia index method, the REC changes are decomposed into seven driving forces, which are climate change, energy price, energy expenditure mix, energy cost share (in total expenditure), expenditure share (in income), per capita income and population effects. According to the results, climate effect due to increasing days with abnormal temperature, energy cost share effect characterized by more expenditure to be paid for energy use, income effect describing constant income growth in the residential sector definitely increase REC in both urban and rural areas. In contrast, energy prices and energy expenditure mix effects negatively contribute to the REC increase, respectively because of the increase in energy prices and the transition from the low-priced energy to high-priced energy. Expenditure share and population effects play opposite roles in urban and rural areas, and the reasons and implications are analysed in depth.

Most households in sub-Saharan Africa rely on wood-based cooking fuels and their number is expected to rise. Despite this, national and subnational energy policies often neglect biomass cooking fuels. A Formative Scenario Analysis process is applied to show how the cooking fuel sector in Kilimanjaro Region (Tanzania) and Kitui County (Kenya) might evolve by 2030. In order to provide relevant knowledge for potential energy policies, this paper aims to identify the main drivers impacting the cooking fuel sector, and to assess and explore current and future demand and supply potential of biomass cooking fuels. Our results show that policies have the potential to substantially impact the future mix of cooking fuels and to foster or hamper the use of efficient cooking fuel technologies. Half of Kilimanjaro Region’s households could be supplied with biogas; in Kitui County, wood-based cooking fuels is likely to remain dominant but improving the efficiency of the technologies would reduce the demand for wood considerably. Hence, we argue that energy policies should explicitly consider biomass cooking fuels and endeavour to make this sector more sustainable and that priority should be given to increasing the sustainability of the biomass cooking fuel sector. Key leverage points to do so are improving the access to improved biomass technologies and capacity building.

This paper estimates the level of transient and persistent efficiency in the use of electricity in Swiss households using the newly developed generalized true random effects model (GTREM). An unbalanced panel dataset of 1994 Swiss households from 2010 to 2014 collected via a household survey is used to estimate an electricity demand frontier function. We further investigate whether energy and investment literacy have an influence on the household electricity consumption. The results show significant inefficiencies in the use of electricity among Swiss households, both transient (11%) and persistent (22%). We note that the high persistent inefficiency is indicative of structural problems faced by households and systematic behavioral shortcomings in residential electricity consumption. These results indicate a considerable potential for electricity savings and thus reaching the reduction targets defined by the Swiss federal council as part of the Energy Strategy 2050, wherein end-use efficiency improvement is one of the main pillars. The results support a positive role of energy and, in particular, investment literacy in reducing household electricity consumption. Policies targeting an improvement of these attributes could help to enhance efficiency in the use of energy within households.

China contributes 23 % of global carbon emissions, of which 26 % originate from the household sector. Due to vast variations in both climatic conditions and the affordability and accessibility of fuels, household carbon emissions (HCEs) differ significantly across China. This study compares HCEs (per person) from urban and rural regions in northern China with their counterparts in southern China. Annual macroeconomic data for the study period 2005 to 2012 were obtained from Chinese government sources, whereas the direct HCEs for different types of fossil fuels were obtained using the IPCC reference approach, and indirect HCEs were calculated by input-output analysis. Results suggest that HCEs from urban areas are higher than those from rural areas. Regardless of the regions, there is a similarity in per person HCEs in urban areas, but the rural areas of northern China had significantly higher HCEs than those from southern China. The reasons for the similarity between urban areas and differences between rural areas and the percentage share of direct and indirect HCEs from different sources are discussed. Similarly, the reasons and solutions to why decarbonising policies are working in urban areas but not in rural areas are discussed.

The rapid development of traditional agriculture in China was achieved at the expense of high energy consumption and investments. However, the global green development trend made it necessary for the country to transform its agricultural energy utilization. Energy efficiency changes are affected by many factors, particularly industrial agglomeration. In recent years, the Chinese government has introduced a series of policies, including setting major producing regions for grains and advantageous regions for characteristic agricultural product. These have caused significant changes to the spatial layout of the agriculture industry. However, there is still a lack of research on the impact of these changes on agricultural energy efficiency (AEE). In this study, panel data of 30 Chinese provinces from 2000 to 2016 were entered into stochastic frontier models to measure the country's AEE at the provincial level. A series of spatial econometric models were also used to analyze the impact of agricultural industrial agglomeration on China's AEE. The results indicated that the country's AEE exhibited obvious spatial gradients and correlations. After controlling the impacts of spatial correlation and other factors in the models, agricultural industrial agglomeration was found to have an overall positive impact on China's AEE. In the future, policies should be formulated to increase AEE by establishing agricultural functional areas, strengthening the innovation and sharing of green development technologies at the farm level, and promoting the optimization of energy structures in agricultural and rural areas.

Do communities struck by disaster build back better, or not? Recent small and medium N studies have shown mixed effects. This mixed methods study tests the effect of disasters on the adoption of solar power, as a key form of building back better and adapting to climate change. To text this effect, we apply a large-N longitudinal matching experiment on cities affected and unaffected by disaster paired with qualitative case studies, focusing on the 2011 triple disaster in Japan and Hurricane Sandy in 2012 in the US. We find that disaster hit cities can and do adopt more solar farms and rooftop solar than cities unaffected by crisis, and that the community resources of these disaster hit communities shapes their adoption patterns. By clarifying the effects of disasters on the build-back-better phenomenon in comparative cases, this study aims to guide recovery priorities after large scale shocks. All data will be released for replication upon publication.

Many studies have examined the impact of climatic variability on agricultural productivity, although an understanding of these effects on farmland values and their relationship to farmers’ decisions to adapt and modify their land-use practices remains nascent in developing nations. We estimated the impacts of the deviation in our study year's (2012) temperature and precipitation patterns from medium-term (1980–2011) climatic patterns on farmland values in Pakistan. This was accomplished by employing a modified form of a Ricardian regression model. We also examined farmers’ perceptions of climate change during this period, as well as their perceptions of climate change impacts on farm productivity, in addition to past and anticipated farm adaptation strategies. Our results indicate that positive temperature deviation from the medium-term mean – indicative of climatic change – affects farmland values in Pakistan. Deviation in annual cumulative precipitation conversely appears to have no significant impact. Estimates of the marginal impact of temperature deviation suggested a slight but negative linear relationship with farmland values. The location of farms in areas where farmers can avail financial or extension services conversely had a positive impact on farmland values, as did the availability of irrigation facilities. Our analysis of farmers’ perceptions of climate change and their consequent adaptation behavior indicated a relatively high degree of awareness of climatic variability that influenced a number of proactive and future anticipated farm adaptation strategies. Examples included increased use of irrigation and farm enterprise diversification, as well as land-use change, including shifting from agriculture into alternative land uses. National policy in Pakistan underscores the importance of maintaining a productive rural agricultural sector. Our findings consequently highlight the importance of appropriate adaptation strategies to maintain both farm productivity and farmland values in much of Pakistan. The implications of increased extension and financial services to enhance farmers’ potential for climate change adaptation are discussed.

Bamboo – identified as a Non Timber Forest Product (NTFP) – offering optimal mechanical properties for construction purposes, and at the same time little studied among contemporary building materials, is paradoxically most used in precarious housing. The use of natural resources within the context of sustainable development is nowadays considered a subject of vital importance, especially in the construction industry, considered as being the largest consumer of world energy. This work concerns itself with two fundamental contemporary issues: the use of natural resources as a contribution to sustainable development and precarious housing. The topic of housing among the different problems relating to the construction industry is one of the most critical in developing countries since poverty entails precariousness in various aspects of the habitat and particularly in housing. The aim of this thesis is to validate a construction element designed using bamboo as its main constituent. Therefore in the first part, before presenting the composite bamboo structure, the CBS panel (an element designed within the framework of this thesis), the theme of precarious housing in relation to bamboo is examined. A final part gives insight into the appropriation and application of the proposed CBS panel. The first part, devoted to the link between bamboo and precarious housing, analyses the problems concerning social housing in developing countries. To identify how bamboo's use for construction is related to the social habitat, precarious housing is evaluated on the basis of the world view and aspirations of inhabitants. This will help determine the challenges involved in the construction proposals put forward to reduce the complex problems of social housing in the South. In this search, the reality of intermediate cities is examined to obtain a better understanding of the urbanisation phenomenon of metropolises versus the deterioration of the rural habitat within the context of globalisation (Chapters 1 and 2). The second part is devoted to presenting the composite bamboo structure (CBS panel) carrying out simple four-point load bending tests resulting in values that guarantee the element's load-bearing capacity, establishing the existence of a composite behaviour between bamboo and concrete. An experimental study, allowing the interaction between bamboo and concrete to be identified, was carried out. The use of bamboo in construction is validated via mechanical tests, studying the mechanical properties of bamboo and identifying high tensile strength, and confirming the weakness of bamboo, a longitudinal separation parallel to the grain. The investigation contributes to improvement by means of fibre reinforcement: natural, such as jute, and artificial, such as glass fibre, with compression tests made parallel and perpendicular to the fibre (Chapters 3, 4, 5 and 6). The third part concerns the study of appropriation and application criteria, applied to the composite bamboo structure (CBS panel). This part contains theoretical elements and a descriptive study with qualitative methodology that explores appropriation by various populations of Latin America, all involved with a construction project. This revision confirms the hypothesis that social appropriation is a complex issue that includes cultural, social and psychological elements, which are part of the emerging phenomenon of human settlements in precarious areas. The production of social housing is based on the study of the relationship between bamboo, its morphology, its applicability as construction system and the spaces that can be generated. Consequently the different possible forms of housing are presented, developing details of connections between the housing elements, and their chain of production. Quality control is identified as being the most important stage to guarantee the final product. Failure to carry out this control would be to jeopardise the success of not only the CBS panel but also the use of bamboo as resource. We also demonstrate that appropriation of a technology for a target group must be considered not only in relation to this group, but also introduce its use to a superior target group, since the reference factor is important (Chapter 7).