Composition of greenhouse gas emissions in Spain: An input–output analysis

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors describe a method for evaluating how exogenous changes in sectorial demand, such as changes in private consumption, public consumption, investment and exports, affect the relative contribution of the six major greenhouse gases regulated by the Kyoto Protocol to total greenhouse emissions.

About: This article is published in Ecological Economics.The article was published on 2007-03-01 and is currently open access. It has received 47 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Greenhouse gas & Kyoto Protocol.

Summary

In recent decades, environmental pollution has received the attention of both economists

• And ecologists who have integrated their ideas and concepts.
• Specifically, the authors provide a method that measures the relative composition of greenhouse pollution and analyses how the 5 exogenous inflows in final demand of activities (consumption, government expenditure, investment and exports) modify the relative importance of every pollutant within the total greenhouse emissions.
• The authors apply this analytical context to Spain, using both economic and environmental information for the year 2000.
• The approach the authors present here extends their knowledge of the economic-ecologic relationships that take place within the production sphere, and this may help to define and implement successful environmental policies.
• The rest of the paper is organised as follows.

2. Modeling the Composition of Greenhouse Emissions

• The analytical framework that accounts for the composition of emissions is based on the input-output approach.
• In expression (1), (I – A)-1 is the matrix of input-output multipliers and shows the overall effects (direct and indirect) on sectorial production caused by unitary and exogenous changes in the final demand of sectors.
• The input-output model can be extended to account for the environmental pollution associated with activities of production.
• Let B be the matrix of sectorial greenhouse emissions per unit of output, in which each element is the amount of gas type i (in physical units) per monetary unit of final production in activity j.
• The authors considered that methane has a warming potential of 21 and nitrous oxide of 310.

In particular, this model makes it possible to analyse how changes in the final demand

• Of activities modify the composition of greenhouse emissions, in terms of the percentages of different types of gases in total air pollution.
• So, g is the vector of the relative composition of total greenhouse emissions that is calculated by dividing the vector F of i greenhouse emissions by the total emissions ( Fe' ).
• So, one individual element of this matrix, Gij, determines the magnitude (positive or negative) of the change in the relative significance of pollutant i on the total emissions caused by a unitary inflow in the final demand of activity j.
• It should be pointed out that, irrespective of the dimension of matrix G, the sum of the columns in this matrix is zero.
• The analysis of relative emissions, therefore, extends their knowledge of the effects that changes in the economic activity of production sectors may have on greenhouse emissions within the context of air pollution.

3. Databases

• Which is for the year 2000.the authors.
• The Supply Matrix and the Use Matrix are given in terms of industry by product classification, following respectively the National Classification of Economic Activities (CNAE93) for activities, and the National Classification of Products (CNAP96) for 11 products.
• Like the input-output coefficients matrix, the columns in B contain 17 different activities of production.
• Empirical Application to the Spanish Greenhouse Emissions Second, the authors show the context of relative composition of greenhouse emissions.

4.1. Emission Multipliers

• The exception is transportation (sector 14) which, with 612.91 tonnes of CO2 eq., generates 5% of the total emission multipliers.
• The sum of rows in table 2 shows the increase in the emissions of the pollutant gas in the row when there is one unitary injection in the final demand of all the activities simultaneously.
• Another important aspect that table 2 makes clear is that some bilateral effects are very significant in terms of pollution generation, and this means that some activities have a strong influence on Spanish greenhouse emissions.
• The authors results show that the increase in the greenhouse emissions caused by the Spanish production system will essentially depend on the activity that receives the exogenous inflow in final demand.

4.2. Composition of Greenhouse Emissions

• This section presents the empirical results of the relative greenhouse emissions.
• The elements in table 3 show, therefore, the relative contribution of each pollutant to the total emissions of each activity of production.
• The higher CH4 relative emissions are in agriculture (sector 1), and in public services (sector 17), representing 35.44% and 36.80% of the total emissions of agriculture and public services respectively.
• Also from table 3, chemistry (sector 5) has relatively high emissions of HFC and machinery (sector 6) has relatively high emissions of PFC and SF6.
• This information corresponds to vector g that has been defined in expression (4) above.

4.3. Changes in the Composition of Greenhouse Emissions

• This section shows the changes in the relative composition of pollutants within the amount of greenhouse emissions.
• So, the values in table 5 show the amount of reassigned tonnes of CO2 eq. among pollutants when the total emissions are held constant at the initial level.
• Of the different activities, agriculture (sector 1), energy (sector 2) and minerals (sector 4) have the largest column values and this means that these activities are more able to modify the relative importance of pollutants under exogenous changes in their demand.
• It should be pointed out that, while the relative emissions of CO2 and N2O increase under a new and exogenous demand to all the activities of production, the relative emissions of CH4 decrease.
• Table 5 also shows that the changes in the relative greenhouse emissions have no direct relation with the relative distribution in activities (table 3).

5. Conclusions

• This paper has analysed the relative composition of greenhouse gas emissions in Spain, through the use of both economic and atmospheric emissions data for the year 2000.
• This provides additional information about the complex process of pollution generation and how it is related to production activities.
• In particular, the extension of the environmental inputoutput model has revealed that the modifications in the relative status of the six major greenhouse gases regulated by the Kyoto Protocol are a set of bilateral connections, which tell us how the inflows to activities affect the relative contribution of every pollutant within the amount of emissions.
• One important finding is, therefore, that there are significant differences in the way some activities affect greenhouse emissions.
• This suggests that even if the pollution abatement policies in the production sphere focus on only a few activities the effects on the environment could be extremely beneficial.

Figures

Table 2. Emission Multipliers (B(I – A)-1 ). Tons of Carbon Dioxide Equivalents

Table 3. Composition of Sectorial Emissions in Spain ( ) ( )[ ] −′ − − − T

Table 4. Composition of Total Greenhouse Emissions in Spain (g)

Table 1. Sectors of Production and Greenhouse Gases

Frequently asked questions

Q1. What are the contributions mentioned in the paper "“composition of greenhouse gas emissions in spain: an input-output analysis”" ?

In this paper the authors describe a method for evaluating how the exogenous changes in sectorial demand, such as changes in private consumption, public consumption, investment and exports, affect the relative contribution of the six major greenhouse gases regulated by the Kyoto Protocol to total greenhouse emissions. Therefore, the final impact on the relative contribution of pollutants will * Corresponding author. 

Q2. What did they include in the matrix of emission multipliers?

They included private consumption emissions in the matrix of emission multipliers, and considered consumption as another category of pollutant commodities. 

Q3. What is the objective of this paper?

The objective of this paper is to adapt the conventional Leontief model in such a way that it will be able to calculate the changes in the composition of greenhouse emissions under exogenous shocks in sectorial demand. 

Q4. What is the definition of input-output model?

The input-output model is a framework that analyses environmental impacts by integrating both economic and technical relations that take place within the production system. 

Q5. What are the recent contributions to the input-output model?

Several recent contributions have used the input-output model to account for the greenhouse emissions and the energy embodiments of production processes. 

Q6. What is the rescaled matrix of greenhouse emissions?

As the different gases are measured in different units, to allow for comparisons and global estimations, the authors rescale matrix B to express all the emissions in common units, which are carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2 eq.). 

Q7. what is the g of the matrix of changes in the composition of greenhouse gases?

This mathematical operation means that, through matrix G of changes in the composition of greenhouse gases, the context of relative emissions can be interpreted as a process of winners and losers. 

Q8. How many rows in table 2 show the increase in the emissions of the pollutant gas?

The sum of rows in table 2 shows the increase in the emissions of the pollutant gas in the row when there is one unitary injection in the final demand of all the activities simultaneously. 

Q9. How is the emission of a particular gas determined?

This is determined by multiplying the amount of a particular gas emitted by the global warming potential of the gas (that is, its ability to absorb heat in the atmosphere).