Bridging the climate mitigation gap with economy‐wide material productivity

Scott, Kate; Giesekam, Jannik; Barrett, John; Owen, Anne

doi:10.1111/jiec.12831

Cited by 33 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…2. Policy makers may still target policies directly to intermediary producers or final consumers first to allow for differentiation or compensation of distributional impacts of pricing instruments, second, to address (organizational or) behavioural aspects with for example product standards (Scott, Giesekam, Barrett, & Owen, 2019), building standards or to address strategic aspects (innovation, infrastructure) of decisions (Grubb, 2014).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The structure, drivers and policy implications of the European carbon footprint

et al. 2019

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Policy to reduce the European Union's (EU) carbon footprint needs to be grounded in an understanding of the structure and drivers of both the domestic and internationally traded components. Here we analyse consumption-based emission accounts (for the main greenhouse gases (GHGs)) for the EU, focusing on understanding sectoral contributions and what changes have been observed over the last two decades, including the role of trade. The EU28 has reduced its overall GHG footprint by 8% over the two decades, mainly due to the use of more efficient technology, both at home and abroad. Emissions embodied in imports, which make up one-third of the EU28 GHG footprint, grew strongly until 2008 but have stabilized in volume since. Foreign production has been more emissions intensive than if goods were produced in the EU. However, the overall contribution of this effect is small, offset by much larger (global) technological improvements and growths in consumption. Hence the focus should now be on accounting and responsibility for enacting change, not the global impact of trade. Finally, the inclusion of non-CO 2 GHGs in the analysis shows their importance in the traded element, particularly for the mining and agricultural sectors. Key policy insights. The total EU carbon footprint has reduced since 2007, but at a slower rate than production-based emissions, and rarely faster than GDP growth.. Consumption growth has had a much greater impact on the EU carbon footprint than the offshoring of production.. Trade in both directions (imports and exports) is important for the manufacturing sector. The data does not support claims of wholesale 'de-industrialisation' but rather reflects increased trade intensity related to specialization.. Several (but not all) of the major sources of net embodied imports are largely unavoidable consequences of European consumption because the primary production activities (e.g. mining and significant shares of agricultural) could not realistically occur within the EU.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The structure, drivers and policy implications of the European carbon footprint

et al. 2019

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“…For further discussion of the UKMRIO database including additional notes on construction and application see Barrett et al (2013), Hardt et al (2018), Lenzen et al (2010), Owen et al (2018), Sakai et al (2017), Scott et al (2018), and Wiedmann et al (2010) and the Supporting Information (SI) for this article.…”

Section: Energy Footprints and The Uk Multiregional Input-output Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reducing inequality resulting from UK low-carbon policy

Owen

Barrett

2020

Climate Policy

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In the UK, the cost of low-carbon policies, such as renewable energy subsidies, household retrofit and installation of smart meters, adds an additional 13% to household energy bills. Given that the lowest income households spend 10% of their income on heating and powering their homes, whereas the highest spend less than 1.5%., any increase in prices hits the poor disproportionately. Using an energyextended multiregional input-output model combined with household expenditure survey data, we calculate the full supply-chain energy embodied in goods and services consumed by different households. First, we demonstrate that low-carbon policy costs are placed on a small percentage of household energy demandperversely on items representing a higher proportion of expenditure for low income households. The lifestyles of higher income households require nearly five times more energy than the lowest, but because levies are only raised on energy bills, those with high incomes pay only 1.9 times more towards policy costs. Second, we evaluate alternative approaches to funding low-carbon policy: a household energy footprint approach, taking account of households' full energy service demands; and funding the costs from general taxation payments. We explore the demographic characteristics of the households who would pay less towards funding policy costs and those who would take on a larger burden under these new proposals. While none of the approaches offer a 'perfect solution' in terms of distributional impacts, raising the funds through general taxation offers a fairer and practical solution. Key policy insights. Low income households currently pay disproportionately more towards lowcarbon policy costs in the UK.. Funding low-carbon policy through general taxation would better align energy demand with policy costs, and would reduce costs for 65% of UK households.. Households comprising women of retirement age living alone; single parent families; and households who have never worked or are long-term unemployed could see reductions in bills by recovering climate policy costs through general taxation.. A general taxation approach requires leadership and long-term commitment to avoid leaving the policy vulnerable to short-term budgetary changes.

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“…As a recent review found that current policies are insufficient to tap the significant mitigation potential of ME [215], improved IAM capabilities for robust, policy-relevant assessment of ME strategies should be a critical priority. Emerging work on a country level may offer indications for how the effect of ME can be modeled [216,217].…”

Section: Me In Integrated Policy Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Material efficiency strategies to reducing greenhouse gas emissions associated with buildings, vehicles, and electronics—a review

Hertwich

Ali

Ciacci

et al. 2019

Environ. Res. Lett.

259

164

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As one quarter of global energy use serves the production of materials, the more efficient use of these materials presents a significant opportunity for the mitigation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. With the renewed interest of policy makers in the circular economy, material efficiency (ME) strategies such as light-weighting and downsizing of and lifetime extension for products, reuse and recycling of materials, and appropriate material choice are being promoted. Yet, the emissions savings from ME remain poorly understood, owing in part to the multitude of material uses and diversity of circumstances and in part to a lack of analytical effort. We have reviewed emissions reductions from ME strategies applied to buildings, cars, and electronics. We find that there can be a systematic trade-off between material use in the production of buildings, vehicles, and appliances and energy use in their operation, requiring a careful life cycle assessment of ME strategies. We find that the largest potential emission reductions quantified in the literature result from more intensive use of and lifetime extension for buildings and the light-weighting and reduced size of vehicles. Replacing metals and concrete with timber in construction can result in significant GHG benefits, but trade-offs and limitations to the potential supply of timber need to be recognized. Repair and remanufacturing of products can also result in emission reductions, which have been quantified only on a case-by-case basis and are difficult to generalize. The recovery of steel, aluminum, and copper from building demolition waste and the end-of-life vehicles and appliances already results in the recycling of base metals, which achieves significant emission reductions. Higher collection rates, sorting efficiencies, and the alloy-specific sorting of metals to preserve the function of alloying elements while avoiding the contamination of base metals are important steps to further reduce emissions.

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Bridging the climate mitigation gap with economy‐wide material productivity

Cited by 33 publications

References 57 publications

The structure, drivers and policy implications of the European carbon footprint

The structure, drivers and policy implications of the European carbon footprint

Reducing inequality resulting from UK low-carbon policy

Material efficiency strategies to reducing greenhouse gas emissions associated with buildings, vehicles, and electronics—a review

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