The talk with present the key results of the IPCC Working Group III 5th assessment report. Concluding four years of intense scientific collaboration by hundreds of authors from around the world, the report responds to the request of the world's governments for a comprehensive, objective and policy neutral assessment of the current scientific knowledge on mitigating climate change. The report has been extensively reviewed by experts and governments to ensure quality and comprehensiveness.

Climate change 2014 - Mitigation of climate change

The theory of environmental policy

We focus on three environmental impacts particularly influenced by population age-structure—carbon emissions from transport and residential energy and electricity consumption—as well as aggregate carbon emissions for a panel of developed countries, and take as our starting point the STIRPAT framework. Among our contributions is to further disaggregate population into three particularly key age groups: 20-34, 35-49, and 50-64, and by doing so demonstrate that population’s environmental impact differs considerably across age-groups, with the older age-groups (ones typically associated with larger households) actually exerting a negative influence. Furthermore, those age-specific population influences are different (in absolute and relative terms) for the different environmental impacts we analyze. Also, we find that urbanization, in developed countries, best measures access to a country’s power grid, and thus, is positively associated with energy consumption in the residential sector. Lastly, we suggest some modelling and methodological improvements to the STIRPAT framework.

Age-Structure, Urbanization, and Climate Change in Developed Countries: Revisiting STIRPAT for Disaggregated Population and Consumption-Related Environmental Impacts

Do green technology innovations contribute to carbon dioxide emission reduction? Empirical evidence from patent data

Towards a green world: How do green technology innovations affect total-factor carbon productivity

This paper reviews the literature on environmental innovation (EI) and systematizes it by means of an original methodology identifying the main directions in which the literature on EI has developed over time. In order to do so, two algorithms are adopted and used to analyze a citation network of journal articles and books. The main path analysis reveals that this literature revolves around the following topics: i) determinants of EI; ii) economic effects of EI; iii) environmental effects of EI; and iv) policy inducement in EI. Each of these topics is discussed and implications from the main findings as well as possible future research extensions are outlined.

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A survey of the literature on environmental innovation based on main path analysis

Eco-innovation plays a crucial role in reducing carbon emissions. Exploiting the consolidated IPAT/STIRPAT framework, this paper studies whether a relationship exists between green technological change (measured as stock of green patent) and both CO2 emissions and emission efficiency (CO2/VA). To investigate this relation, a rich panel covering 95 Italian provinces from 1990 to 2010 is exploited. The main regression results suggest that green technology has not yet played a significant role in promoting environmental protection, although it improved significantly environmental productivity. Notably, this result is not driven by regional differences, and the main evidence is consistent among different areas of the country.

/pdf/green-inventions-and-greenhouse-gas-emission-dynamics-a-1kuccvu4tj.pdf

Green inventions and greenhouse gas emission dynamics: a close examination of provincial Italian data

https://services.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1857&context=feem

Innovation complementarity and environmental productivity effects: Reality or delusion? Evidence from the EU

a b s t r a c t In this study we investigate the EU's economic, environmental and innovation performances from a sector-based perspective. We correlate the various sectors' performances, taking into account the role of changing specialization. In addition, we examine environmental sector performance related factors through a shift-share decomposition analysis. We show that wide divergences exist regarding environmental, economic and innovation performances among the EU countries. The leading role of Germany emerges, with strong underpinnings in its economic specialization, rooted in manufacturing. France excels in some services, while Italy suffers. Germany and Sweden present the most win-win economic-environmental sector performances. Our investigation illustrates how economic and environmental performances can potentially be effec- tively interrelated. Examples of integrated innovation-economic-environmental performances appear. Nevertheless, the sector view highlights that the foundations of macro performance rely on various ele- ments related to structural change and innovation. Further research could investigate how composition effects and innovation changes correlate towards the achievement of sustainable economic development.

/pdf/sustainability-and-competitiveness-in-evolutionary-hu22a4li79.pdf

Marianna Gilli

Papers

A survey of the literature on environmental innovation based on main path analysis

Green inventions and greenhouse gas emission dynamics: a close examination of provincial Italian data

Innovation complementarity and environmental productivity effects: Reality or delusion? Evidence from the EU

Sustainability and competitiveness in evolutionary perspectives: Environmental innovations, structural change and economic dynamics in the EU

Behavioural attitudes towards waste prevention and recycling