Under the Kyoto Protocol the European Union agreed to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases by 8 percent. The Burden-Sharing Agreement (BSA) redistributes the reduction target among the member states. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the BSA. To determine if cost efficiency was considered, marginal abatement costs (MACs) are first calculated based on an estimation of the directional output distance function using country production data for 1990-2000. MACs, together with equity indicators, are then regressed on the emission change targets. The main conclusion is that both efficiency and equity were important aspects considered in the settlement.
The objective of this paper is to analyze the rebound effect from increased efficiency in industrial use of energy in Sweden. Energy efficiency improvements can have significant micro-and macroeconomic effects that hampers the positive effect on real energy savings. To assess the size of the overall rebound effect in the Swedish economy we apply a computable general equilibrium model. The results show that the economy-wide rebound effect in Sweden depends on a number of factors, e.g. the extent of the energy efficiency improvement, how the labour market is modeled as well as if the increase in energy efficiency is combined with a cost or not. We find that the rebound effect following a 5 percent increase of energy efficiency in the Swedish industry lies in the range of 40-70 percent. When energy efficiency only is improved in energy-intensive production, the rebound effect becomes even higher. These findings are in line with the results in the literature.
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