• Energy Research
• 1. No poverty close

Climate change is a global problem, which affects the various geographical regions at different levels. It is also associated with a wide range of human health problems, which pose a burden to health systems, especially in regions such as Africa. Indeed, across the African continent public health systems are under severe pressure, partly due to their fragile socioeconomic conditions. This paper reports on a cross-sectional study in six African countries (Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Namibia, Ethiopia, and Kenya) aimed at assessing their vulnerabilities to climate change, focusing on its impacts on human health. The study evaluated the levels of information, knowledge, and perceptions of public health professionals. It also examined the health systems’ preparedness to cope with these health hazards, the available resources, and those needed to build resilience to the country’s vulnerable population, as perceived by health professionals. The results revealed that 63.1% of the total respondents reported that climate change had been extensively experienced in the past years, while 32% claimed that the sampled countries had experienced them to some extent. Nigerian respondents recorded the highest levels (67.7%), followed by Kenya with 66.6%. South Africa had the lowest level of impact as perceived by the respondents (50.0%) when compared with the other sampled countries. All respondents from Ghana and Namibia reported that health problems caused by climate change are common in the two countries. As perceived by the health professionals, the inadequate resources reiterate the need for infrastructural resources, medical equipment, emergency response resources, and technical support. The study’s recommendations include the need to improve current policies at all levels (i.e., national, regional, and local) on climate change and public health and to strengthen health professionals’ skills. Improving the basic knowledge of health institutions to better respond to a changing climate is also recommended. The study provides valuable insights which may be helpful to other nations in Sub-Saharan Africa.

AbstractThe concept of a ‘just transition’ to a low‐carbon economy is firmly embedded in mainstream global discourses about mitigating climate change. Drawing on Karl Polanyi's political economy elaborated inThe Great Transformation, we interrogate the idea of a just transition and place it within its historical context. We address a major contradiction at the core of global energy transition debates: the rapid shift to low‐carbon energy‐systems will require increased extraction of minerals and metals. In doing so, we argue that extractive industries are energy and carbon‐intensive, and will enlarge and intensify social and ecological injustice. Our findings reveal the importance of understanding how the idea of a just transition is used, and by who, and the type of justice that underpins this concept. We demonstrate the need to ground just transition policies and programmes in a notion of justice as fairness.

Societal relations in rural areas have entered into a new stage of adjustment over the past decade. However, the adjustment, which might bring about profound societal changes in countryside as well as in China as a whole, have not been paid much attention and very few studies have been conducted from the perspective of ecological resource crises. We use the case of a village as an example to show how water pollution, as one of the contributory factors, possibly affect the transition of clans and societal changes in Chinese villages. Through observation and interviews, we find that there is an apparent rise of “New Clanism” within clans, which gradually abandons the tradition of supremacy of clan interests and places family or individual interests at top priority. We also find that clan boundaries get increasingly obscure since the integrity of clans is undermined by the rise of new interest groups across clans, but the boundaries remain relatively clear due to the consistency (albeit incomplete) of clan interests. Some new clan élites and representatives of new interest groups get involved in village governance, which indicates that their goals have shifted from natural resources to social or political capital. The significance of our findings is that they provide not only a unique perspective for the interaction between society and resources, but also some new ideas for the future study of rural China at the environment-social interface.

We researched China's climate and sustainable development goal with relevant and susceptible instruments capable of inducing and mitigating carbon emissions. Amidst the contributor to the global carbon emissions, China is caught in between mitigating its carbon emission and aiming towards placing its national contribution of emissions to the acceptable levels of 1.5 °C and below 2 °C. Following the intricacies surrounding China's sustainable development as it contains its economic and environmental performance, we adopt China's data of 1980 and 2018 with different scientific approaches (nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL), dynamic ordinary least square test, and bootstrap Granger causality) with different instruments (such as economic growth, financial development, renewable energy, and innovation policies) to research China's sustainable development. For clear exposition and insight into our findings with policies attached, we draw a conclusion from the outcomes of the mentioned approaches. From NARDL and dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS), we find that economic growth through economic activities is statistically significant in determining the trend (increase) of carbon emissions in China in both periods (short run and long run). However, other selected instruments (financial, renewable, and innovation policies) tend towards controlling and moderating the carbon emissions in China. Thus, China has good prospects to mitigate its carbon emissions if considered tailoring its policies towards favorable instruments. From bootstrap Granger causality, we find similar inferential results that support previous findings thereby confirming the positive implication of the selected instruments to China's sustainable development. Hence, the nexus that is established among the selected instruments clearly show the importance of technological innovation and renewable energy in mitigating carbon emissions.

Abstract Commercial potential in developing countries has always received a great attention from international investors, but this is not the case in Waste-to-Energy sector. Waste-to-Energy is bound up with various uncertainties rooted in its long-term nature therefore incorporating risks regarding political matters in developing countries makes it more complex. The present study substantiates the incompatibility of classic valuation methods in risky projects. Consequently, to deal with the riskiness of Waste-to-Energy investment in less developed countries, the combination of binomial tree analysis and Decoupled NPV is proposed. The hybrid approach is deployed to value a Waste-to-Energy project in Iran, and all evidence attest to the robustness of the method. The contribution of this paper can open up new vistas for investing in Waste-to-Energy industry, thus abating the catastrophic effects of landfill gas emissions.

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.

We employ a set of sign restrictions on the generalized impulse responses of a Global VAR model, estimated for 38 countries/regions over the period 1979Q2.2011Q2, to discriminate between supply-driven and demand-driven oil-price shocks and to study the time profile of their macroeconomic effects for different countries. The results indicate that the economic consequences of a supply-driven oil-price shock are very different from those of an oil-demand shock driven by global economic activity, and vary for oil-importing countries compared to energy exporters. While oil importers typically face a long-lived fall in economic activity in response to a supply-driven surge in oil prices, the impact is positive for energy-exporting countries that possess large proven oil/gas reserves. However, in response to an oil-demand disturbance, almost all countries in our sample experience long-run inflationary pressures and a short-run increase in real output.

Le Pakistan traverse une crise énergétique terrifiante et dévastatrice. Récemment, la prévision de la consommation d'énergie s'est intensifiée par rapport à sa capacité de production, ce qui est problématique pour la stabilité sociale et économique du Pakistan. Par conséquent, il est essentiel d'examiner le lien entre la consommation d'électricité, les prix de l'électricité, la transition urbaine, les autres utilisations d'électricité et l'expansion économique de 1970 à 2018 au Pakistan. Pour l'analyse, la technique économétrique de deuxième génération de Lee et Strazicich (2013), le nouveau Augmented Autoregressive Distributed Lag (AARDL) et Frequency Domain Causality (FDC) est utile pour détecter l'association à moyen et à court terme entre les variables. Les résultats montrent que la consommation d'électricité stimule l'expansion économique à court et à long terme, bien que la hausse des prix de l'électricité diminue l'activité économique à court et à long terme. En outre, la transition urbaine et d'autres utilisations de l'électricité ont un impact positif et négatif substantiel sur l'expansion économique à court et à long terme. Le résultat suggère qu'un approvisionnement énergétique efficace, des prix de l'énergie à faible coût, une bonne gestion de la transition urbaine et d'autres utilisations de l'énergie pourraient être utiles aux décideurs pour atteindre les ODD 7 et 11 au Pakistan. Pakistán se encuentra en una crisis energética aterradora y devastadora. Recientemente, la predicción del consumo de energía se ha intensificado en comparación con su capacidad de producción, lo que es problemático para la estabilidad social y económica de Pakistán. Por lo tanto, es vital examinar el vínculo entre el consumo de energía, los precios de la energía, la transición urbana, otros usos de la electricidad y la expansión económica de 1970 a 2018 en Pakistán. Para el análisis, la técnica econométrica de segunda generación de Lee y Strazicich (2013), el novedoso Retraso Distribuido Autoregresivo Aumentado (AARDL) y la Causalidad en el Dominio de la Frecuencia (FDC) son útiles para detectar la asociación a largo y corto plazo entre las variables. Los resultados muestran que el consumo de energía estimula la expansión económica a corto y largo plazo, aunque el aumento de los precios de la energía disminuye la actividad económica a corto y largo plazo. Además, la transición urbana y otros usos de la electricidad tienen un impacto positivo y negativo sustancial en la expansión económica a corto y largo plazo. El resultado sugiere que el suministro eficiente de energía, los precios de la energía de bajo coste, la gestión adecuada de la transición urbana y otros usos de la energía podrían ser útiles para que los responsables políticos alcancen los ODS 7 y 11 en Pakistán. Pakistan is in a terrifying and devastating energy crisis. Recently, the prediction for energy consumption has intensified compared to its production capacity, which is problematic for Pakistan's social and economic stability. Hence, it is vital to examine the link between power consumption, power prices, urban transition, other electricity use, and economic expansion from 1970 to 2018 in Pakistan. For analysis, the second-generation econometric technique of Lee and Strazicich (2013), novel Augmented Autoregressive Distributed Lag (AARDL), and Frequency Domain Causality (FDC) is useful to detect the long-medium and short-run association among the variables. The results show that power consumption stimulates economic expansion in the short and long-run, though the rise in power prices declines economic activity in the short and long-run. Also, urban transition and other electricity use are a substantial positive and negative impact on economic expansion in the short and long-run. The outcome suggests that efficient energy supply, low-cost power prices, proper urban transition management, and other energy use could be useful for policymakers to achieve SDGs 7 and 11 in Pakistan. باكستان في أزمة طاقة مرعبة ومدمرة. في الآونة الأخيرة، تكثف التنبؤ باستهلاك الطاقة مقارنة بقدرته الإنتاجية، مما يمثل مشكلة للاستقرار الاجتماعي والاقتصادي لباكستان. وبالتالي، من الضروري دراسة الصلة بين استهلاك الطاقة وأسعار الطاقة والتحول الحضري واستخدام الكهرباء الأخرى والتوسع الاقتصادي من 1970 إلى 2018 في باكستان. للتحليل، فإن تقنية الاقتصاد القياسي من الجيل الثاني من Lee and Strazicich (2013)، والتأخر الموزع الانحداري الذاتي المعزز (AARDL)، وسببية مجال التردد (FDC) مفيدة للكشف عن الارتباط طويل المدى وقصير المدى بين المتغيرات. تظهر النتائج أن استهلاك الطاقة يحفز التوسع الاقتصادي على المدى القصير والطويل، على الرغم من أن ارتفاع أسعار الطاقة يؤدي إلى انخفاض النشاط الاقتصادي على المدى القصير والطويل. كما أن التحول الحضري والاستخدامات الأخرى للكهرباء لها تأثير إيجابي وسلبي كبير على التوسع الاقتصادي على المدى القصير والطويل. تشير النتيجة إلى أن إمدادات الطاقة الفعالة، وأسعار الطاقة منخفضة التكلفة، وإدارة الانتقال الحضري المناسبة، وغيرها من استخدامات الطاقة يمكن أن تكون مفيدة لصانعي السياسات لتحقيق هدفي التنمية المستدامة 7 و 11 في باكستان.