Although agriculture could contribute substantially to European emission reductions, its mitigation potential lies untapped and dormant. Market-based instruments could be pivotal in incentivizing cost-effective abatement. However, sector specificities in transaction costs, leakage risks and distributional impacts impede its implementation. The significance of such barriers critically hinges on the dimensions of policy design. This article synthesizes the work on emissions pricing in agriculture together with the literature on the design of market-based instruments. To structure the discussion, an options space is suggested to map policy options, focusing on three key dimensions of policy design. More specifically, it examines the role of policy coverage, instruments and transfers to farmers in overcoming the barriers. First, the results show that a significant proportion of agricultural emissions and mitigation potential could be covered by a policy targeting large farms and few emission sources, thereby reducing transaction costs. Second, whether an instrument is voluntary or mandatory influences distributional outcomes and leakage. Voluntary instruments can mitigate distributional concerns and leakage risks but can lead to subsidy lock-in and carbon price distortion. Third, the impact on transfers resulting from the interaction of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) with emissions pricing will play a key role in shaping political feasibility and has so far been underappreciated.
POLICY RELEVANCE
Following the 2015 Paris Agreement, European climate policy is at a crossroads. Achieving cost-effectively the 2030 and 2050 European targets requires all sectors to reduce their emissions. Yet, the cornerstone of European climate policy, the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS), covers only about half of European emissions. Major sectors have been so far largely exempted from carbon pricing, in particular transport and agriculture. While transport has been increasingly under the spotlight as a possible candidate for an EU ETS sectoral expansion, policy discussions on pricing agricultural emissions have been virtually absent. This article attempts to fill this gap by investigating options for market-based instruments to reduce agricultural emissions while taking barriers to implementation into account. 相似文献
The shale gas boom in the United States spurred a shift in electricity generation from coal to natural gas. Natural gas combined cycle units emit half of the CO2 to produce the same energy as a coal unit; therefore, the market trend is credited for a reduction in GHG emissions from the US power sector. However, methane that escapes the natural gas supply chain may undercut these relative climate benefits. In 2016, Canada, the United States and Mexico pledged to reduce methane emissions from the oil and natural gas sector 40–45% from 2012 levels by 2025. This article reviews the science-policy landscape of methane measurement and mitigation relevant for meeting this pledge, including changes in US policy following the 2016 presidential election. Considerable policy incoherence exists in all three countries. Reliable inventories remain elusive; despite government and private sector research efforts, the magnitude of methane emissions remains in dispute. Meanwhile, mitigation efforts vary significantly. A framework that integrates science and policy would enable actors to more effectively inform, leverage and pursue advances in methane measurement and mitigation. The framework is applied to North America, but could apply to other geographic contexts.
Key policy insights
The oil and gas sector’s contribution to atmospheric methane concentrations is becoming an increasingly prominent issue in climate policy.
Efforts to measure and control fugitive methane emissions do not presently proceed within a coherent framework that integrates science and policy.
In 2016, the governments of Canada, Mexico and the United States pledged to reduce methane emissions from the oil and natural gas sector 40–45% from 2012 levels by 2025.
The 2016 presidential election in the United States has halted American progress at the federal level, suggesting a heavier reliance on industry and subnational efforts in that country.
Collectively or individually, the countries, individual agencies, or private stakeholders could use the proposed North American Methane Reduction framework to direct research, enhance monitoring and evaluate mitigation efforts, and improve the chances that continental methane reduction targets will be achieved.
This article analyses the implementation of emissions trading systems (ETSs) in eight jurisdictions: the EU, Switzerland, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) and California in the US, Québec in Canada, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea and pilot schemes in China. The article clarifies what is working, what isn’t and why, when it comes to the practice of implementing an ETS. The eight ETSs are evaluated against five main criteria: environmental effectiveness, economic efficiency, market management, revenue management and stakeholder engagement. Within each of these categories, ETS attributes ? including abatement cost, stringency of the cap, improved allocation practices over time and the trajectory of price stability ? are assessed for each system. Institutional learning, administrative prudence, appropriate carbon revenue management and stakeholder engagement are identified as key ingredients for successful ETS regimes. Recent implementation of ETSs in regions including California, Québec and South Korea indicates significant institutional learning from prior systems, especially the EU ETS, with these regions implementing more robust administrative and regulatory structures suitable for handling unique national and sub-national opportunities and constraints. The analysis also shows that there is potential for a ‘double dividend’ in emissions reductions even with a modest carbon price, provided the cap tightens over time and a portion of the auctioned revenues are reinvested in other emissions-reduction activities. Knowledge gaps exist in understanding the interaction of pricing instruments with other climate policy instruments and how governments manage these policies to achieve optimum emissions reductions with lower administrative costs.Key policy insights
Countries are learning from each other on ETS implementation.
Administrative and regulatory structures of ETS jurisdictions appear to evolve and become more robust in every ETS analysed.
A ‘double dividend’ for emissions reductions may also exist in cases where mitigation occurs as a result of the ETS policy and when auction revenues are reinvested in other emissions-reduction activities.
Two quiescent solar prominences were observed in July 2000 from SUMER aboard SOHO and from the two German solar telescopes at Tenerife. Two‐dimensional images taken at the VTT simultaneously in the spectral lines Hβ at 4862 Å and Ca II at 8542 Å show no significant spatial variation of their pressure‐sensitive emission ratio. Slit spectra of the Ca II 8542 Å and He I 10830 Å lines obtained at the Gregory‐Coudé telescope yield 8000 K < Tkin < 9000 K and 3 km/s < Vn–th < 8 km/s. Among the various spectral ranges observed with SUMER, we first investigate the Lyman emission lines, which were fitted by Gaussians yielding reliable spectral radiances and line widths for the series members 5 < k < 18. A determination of the level population gives for the lower series members a Boltzmann temperature of 60 000 K, the higher members being over‐populated. This temperature indicates an origin of the Lyman lines from hot surroundings of the cool prominence body seen in the ground‐based data; this also holds for the ‘hotter’ SUMER lines. 相似文献
Seawater samples were collected in the North Pacific along 175°E during a cruise of the Northwest Pacific Carbon Cycle Study (NOPACCS) program in 1994. Many properties related to the carbonate system were analyzed. By using well-known ratios to correct for chemical changes in seawater, the CO2 concentration at a given depth was back calculated to its initial concentration at the time when the water left the surface in winter. We estimated sea-surface CO2 and titration alkalinity (TA) in present-day winter, from which we evaluated the degree of air-sea CO2 disequilibrium in winter was. Using a correction factor for air-sea CO2 disequilibrium in winter, we reconstructed sea-surface CO2 in pre-industrial times. The difference between the back-calculated initial CO2 and sea-surface CO2 in pre-industrial times should correspond to anthropgenic CO2 input. Although the mixing of different water masses may cause systematic error in the calculation, we found that the nonlinear effect induced by the mixing of different water masses was negligible in the upper layer of the North Pacific subtropical gyre along 175°E. The results of our improved method of assessing the distribution of anthropogenic CO2 in that region show marked differences from those obtained using the previous back-calculation method. 相似文献
We have investigated the frustule ultrastructure of Baikalian Aulacoseira: A.baicalensis (K.Meyer) Sim. and of thin-wall, spore-producing Aulacoseira which has long been designated as A. islandica (O.Muller) Sim. or A.islandica ssp. helvetica (O.Muller) Sim. (now A.skvortzowii Edlund, Stoermer,Taylor). It was found that the disagreement on the name of spore-forming Aulacoseira is due to the destruction of its vegetative frustules in the process of breaking free of the organic content, while ultrastructure data on A.islandica from different Russia''s regions can reflect signatures of different species.A. baicalensis is characterized by great polymorphism. A. baicalensis starts its development from the initial cell (auxospore). The morphological characteristics of the frustule undergo the drastic changes in the course of the life cycle. It sequentially changes the morphology and structure of its valves. Its cells evolve through several stages of development:from cyclotella-like cells to narrow and short reproducing cells. In the influence zone of the Baikalsky Pulp-and-Paper Plant (BPPP), waste waters, disturbances in the frustule structure both in vegetative and generative cells have been detected. 相似文献
China's national emissions trading scheme (ETS) is expected to be operational in 2017. Effectively addressing regional disparities at the provincial level in allowance allocation will greatly affect the acceptance of the allocation approach and thus deserves careful consideration. This article aims to explore possible approaches for addressing regional disparities, by introducing regional adjustment factors (RAF) in free allowance allocation. Based on the principle of ‘national unified rules?+?stricter adjustment by provincial authorities’, four single factorial and three multi-factorial methods are proposed to calculate the RAFs, through a normalization process. These methods are associated with the most acknowledged factors dealing with regional disparities, including per-capita GDP; per-capita CO2 emissions; industrial sector contribution to GDP; economy-wide emissions control targets and CO2 emissions per unit GDP, per unit power and heat output and per unit industrial added value. A comparative analysis is made for the seven methods, in regard to value distribution and level of matching regional political demand.Key policy insights
‘Allowing stricter regional adjustment’ represents a dominant feature for China's national ETS, which aims to address regional disparities and government demands.
How the adjustment plan is designed will have a major influence on the operation of the national ETS and regional business competitiveness. Provincial governments need to consider the trade-off between auction revenue and local business competitiveness.
Applying the different methods leads to more scattered results for some regions, for whom the choice of adjustment approach will therefore have a greater impact.
Based on the analysis, four adjustment methods that generate similar results – the per-capita GDP-based method, the intensity reduction target-based method, the 12th FYP target-based method and intensity-based grandfathering – are recommended for most provincial-level regions, with some exceptions.
Atmospheric dust is an integral component of the Earth system with major implications for the climate, biosphere and public health. In this context, identifying and quantifying the provenance and the processes generating the various types of dust found in the atmosphere is paramount. Isotopic signatures of Pb, Nd, Sr, Zn, Cu and Fe are commonly used as sensitive geochemical tracers. However, their combined use is limited by the lack of (a) a dedicated chromatographic protocol to separate the six elements of interest for low‐mass samples and (b) specific reference materials for dust. Indeed, our work shows that USGS rock reference materials BHVO‐2, AGV‐2 and G‐2 are not applicable as substitute reference materials for dust. We characterised the isotopic signatures of these six elements in dust reference materials ATD and BCR‐723, representatives of natural and urban environments, respectively. To achieve this, we developed a specific procedure for dust, applicable in the 4–25 mg mass range, to separate the six elements using a multi‐column ion‐exchange chromatographic method and MC‐ICP‐MS measurements. 相似文献