Austria’s consumption-based greenhouse gas emissions: Identifying sectoral sources and destinations

Steininger, Karl W.; Muñoz, Pablo; Karstensen, Jonas; Peters, Glen P.; Strohmaier, Rita; Velazquez, Erick

doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2017.11.011

Cited by 68 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 62 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Territorial accounting allocates emissions to the country of origin and lacks insights into the emissions embodied in trade and transboundary flows (Ramaswami et al 2012, Wiedmann 2016. Particularly in developed countries, where a significant share of the carbon footprint is composed of these embodied emissions imported from other countries, it would be relevant to use consumption-based accounting (CBA) and targets as a complementary policy tool with the territorial accounting (Dolter and Victor 2016, Chen et al 2017, Steininger et al 2018, Ottelin et al 2019. Although it is more difficult for the EU to affect emissions embodied in imported goods than direct emissions inside EU borders, it could be a more costeffective mitigation strategy, which has been previously argued for at the city level (Mi et al 2016, Chen et al 2017, Millward-Hopkins et al 2017.…”

Section: Policy Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Household carbon footprint patterns by the degree of urbanisation in Europe

Ottelin

Heinonen

Nässén

et al. 2019

Environ. Res. Lett.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Urbanisation increases household carbon footprints in developing economies. However, the results from developed countries have varied, particularly in Europe. This study provides a coherent comparison of the impact of the degree of urbanisation on income, expenditure and carbon footprints in Europe. On average, carbon footprints are 7% lower in cities than in rural areas when income and household characteristics are controlled. However, this is compensated by the 6% higher average income in cities. The patterns are not uniform in all countries. In Eastern Europe, the pattern is similar to other developing regions. In some Western European countries, both the income level and the carbon footprints are lower in urban areas than in rural areas. In the rest of Europe, the differences in income level between rural and urban areas are small, but they still largely compensate for the efficiency benefits of urban areas. We call for more systemic emissions accounting and climate strategies.

show abstract

Section: Policy Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Household carbon footprint patterns by the degree of urbanisation in Europe

Ottelin

Heinonen

Nässén

et al. 2019

Environ. Res. Lett.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Yet these broader assessments of behavioural change often neglect strategies to affect the supply chain and do not yet consider the life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions (a.k.a. carbon footprints) that more narrow studies of specific strategies have shown to be important (Chester, Pincetl, Elizabeth, Eisenstein, & Matute, 2013;Hellweg & Milà i Canals, 2014;Hoekstra & Wiedmann, 2014;Koide & Akenji, 2017;O'Rourke, 2014;Scholz, Eriksson, & Strid, 2015) But increasing attention is being given to potential behavioural changes at points along the emitter-to-final-consumer supply chain aside from the primary emitter (Creutzig et al, 2018;Steininger et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying the potential for consumer-oriented policy to reduce European and foreign carbon emissions

et al. 2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The EU Carbon-CAP project assembled a comprehensive portfolio of consumer initiatives in order to assess the potential total impact of consumer options on national carbon footprints. Existing evaluations of behavioural change have focused primarily on direct energy reductions, typically in households and buildings. However, changes in consumer demand have deeper impacts via their upstream supply chains. The consumer behaviour options considered in the portfolio focus on green household initiatives. Combining existing micro-level studies with a multiregional input-output economic model, we estimated the potential efficacy and uptake of each behaviour across the European Union (EU). The results suggest that adopting these consumer options could reduce carbon footprints by approximately 25%. While 75% of this is delivered as reductions in emissions within Europe, one-quarter of the effect is delivered as a reduced imported carbon footprint, due to changes in the composition of imports. Key policy insights. Consumer initiatives can have a big effect on embodied carbon imports, in addition to domestic impacts. We connect a portfolio of ∼90 green behaviour changes to a global supply chain database to model impacts holistically. We estimate that with reasonable levels of adoption green consumer actions can reduce the EU CO2 footprint by 25%. A quarter of this effect is delivered in the form of reduced embodied emissions in imports ARTICLE HISTORY

show abstract

“…For the current consumption-based emissions an environmentally extended multiregional input-output (EE-MRIO) method employing GTAP9 data (Aguiar, Narayanan, & McDougall 2016) is used to derive the Austrian emission levels on a sectoral level (cf. Steininger et al 2018, Nabernegg et al 2019. The estimated use times for sectoral capital stocks under the production-based accounting approach (Table 3) are transferred to the sectoral shares of upstream embodied emissions.…”

Section: Sectoral Budgets Using Consumption-based Accountingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This paper builds on recent carbon emission allocation by sectoral final demand which traces respective multi-country value-added chains (Lenzen & Murray 2010;Lenzen et al 2013;Steininger et al 2018). Empirical data of one highly developed country-Austria-are used to illustrate the quantitative relevance of following either one of the allocation and accounting principles.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sectoral carbon budgets as an evaluation framework for the built environment

Steininger

Meyer

Nabernegg

et al. 2020

Buildings and Cities

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The objective of the United Nations Paris Agreement to limit global warming to well below 2°C, with efforts to reach 1.5°C, requires a strict limitation of future global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions based on a global carbon budget. Applying equity considerations allows for the derivation of national carbon budgets. A key question then arises: How can these national budgets be allocated at the sectoral level? A new method is proposed to allocate carbon budgets at the sectoral level. First, a cost-based approach is used to indicate a necessary carbon budget for each sector. However, the aggregation of these initial sectoral carbon budgets usually exceeds the available national carbon budget. This indicates the relevance of working with sectoral carbon budgets and the required reductions to remain within the overall national carbon budget. This conceptual approach aims at, first, a cost-effective sectoral effort-sharing; second, the design of corresponding strict carbon emission reduction pathways (at both the sector and aggregate levels); and, third, the redesign of investment policies for capital stock improvements to remain within the aggregate carbon budget (involving trade-offs in investment induced emissions for operational emission reduction). Policy relevance Limiting global warming according to the United Nations Paris Agreement requires a strict limitation of future global GHG emissions. A new method is presented to allocate national carbon budgets to the national sectoral level. The carbon budget concept has the potential to provide a transparent and informative tool for the analysis, policy design and monitoring of GHG emission pathways, particularly for the long time horizons involved. The area of activity involving the construction and use of buildings, termed embodied and operational GHGs, requires a particularly large fraction of the national carbon budget. Compared with other sectors, these activities have the highest potential for keeping countries within their national carbon budgets as far as enabling capital stock improvements are concerned that over-proportionally reduce use emissions. The approach can link carbon budgets at the municipal, city and regional levels. It could lend itself to an initially voluntary initiative, later compulsory policy framework for substantial and cost-effective emission reductions.

show abstract

Austria’s consumption-based greenhouse gas emissions: Identifying sectoral sources and destinations

Cited by 68 publications

References 62 publications

Household carbon footprint patterns by the degree of urbanisation in Europe

Household carbon footprint patterns by the degree of urbanisation in Europe

Quantifying the potential for consumer-oriented policy to reduce European and foreign carbon emissions

Sectoral carbon budgets as an evaluation framework for the built environment

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About