| 1. |
- Wirsenius, Stefan, 1963, et al.
(författare)
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How much land is needed for global food production under scenarios of dietary changes and livestock productivity increases in 2030?
- 2010
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Ingår i: Agricultural Systems. - : Elsevier BV. - 1873-2267 .- 0308-521X. ; 103:9, s. 621-638
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Growing global population figures and per-capita incomes imply an increase in food demand and pressure to expand agricultural land. Agricultural expansion into natural ecosystems affects biodiversity and leads to substantial carbon dioxide emissions.Considerable attention has been paid to prospects for increasing food availability, and limiting agricultural expansion, through higher yields on cropland. In contrast, prospects for efficiency improvements in the entire food-chain and dietary changes toward less land-demanding food have not been explored as extensively. In this study, we present model-based scenarios of global agricultural land use in 2030, as a basis for investigating the potential for land-minimized growth of world food supply through: (i) faster growth in feed-to-food efficiency in animal food production; (ii) decreased food wastage; and (iii) dietary changes in favor of vegetable food and less land-demanding meat. The scenarios are based in part on projections of global food agriculture for 2030 by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, FAO. The scenario calculations were carried out by means of a physical model of the global food and agriculture system that calculates the land area and crops/pasture production necessary to provide for a given level of food consumption.In the reference scenario - developed to represent the FAO projections - global agricultural area expands from the current 5.1. billion ha to 5.4. billion. ha in 2030. In the faster-yet-feasible livestock productivity growth scenario, global agricultural land use decreases to 4.8. billion. ha. In a third scenario, combining the higher productivity growth with a substitution of pork and/or poultry for 20% of ruminant meat, land use drops further, to 4.4. billion. ha. In a fourth scenario, applied mainly to high-income regions, that assumes a minor transition towards vegetarian food (25% decrease in meat consumption) and a somewhat lower food wastage rate, land use in these regions decreases further, by about 15%. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd.
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| 2. |
- Sterner, Thomas, 1952, et al.
(författare)
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Policy design for the Anthropocene
- 2019
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Ingår i: Nature Sustainability. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2398-9629. ; 2, s. 14-21
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- © 2019, Springer Nature Limited. Today, more than ever, ‘Spaceship Earth’ is an apt metaphor as we chart the boundaries for a safe planet1. Social scientists both analyse why society courts disaster by approaching or even overstepping these boundaries and try to design suitable policies to avoid these perils. Because the threats of transgressing planetary boundaries are global, long-run, uncertain and interconnected, they must be analysed together to avoid conflicts and take advantage of synergies. To obtain policies that are effective at both international and local levels requires careful analysis of the underlying mechanisms across scientific disciplines and approaches, and must take politics into account. In this Perspective, we examine the complexities of designing policies that can keep Earth within the biophysical limits favourable to human life.
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| 3. |
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| 4. |
- Hänsel, Martin C., et al.
(författare)
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Climate economics support for the UN climate targets
- 2020
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Ingår i: Nature Climate Change. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1758-678X .- 1758-6798. ; 10:August 2020
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Under the UN Paris Agreement, countries committed to limiting global warming to well below 2 °C and to actively pursue a 1.5 °C limit. Yet, according to the 2018 Economics Nobel laureate William Nordhaus, these targets are economically suboptimal or unattainable and the world community should aim for 3.5 °C in 2100 instead. Here, we show that the UN climate targets may be optimal even in the Dynamic Integrated Climate–Economy (DICE) integrated assessment model, when appropriately updated. Changes to DICE include more accurate calibration of the carbon cycle and energy balance model, and updated climate damage estimates. To determine economically ‘optimal’ climate policy paths, we use the range of expert views on the ethics of intergenerational welfare. When updates from climate science and economics are considered jointly, we find that around three-quarters (or one-third) of expert views on intergenerational welfare translate into economically optimal climate policy paths that are consistent with the 2 °C (or 1.5 °C) target.
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| 5. |
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| 6. |
- Azar, Christian, 1969, et al.
(författare)
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The social cost of methane
- 2023
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Ingår i: Climatic Change. - 1573-1480 .- 0165-0009. ; 176:6
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A rapid and sustained reduction of methane emissions has been proposed recently as a key strategy to meet the climate targets of the Paris Agreement. The social cost of methane (SCM), which expresses the climate damage cost associated with an additional metric ton of methane emitted, is a metric that can be used to design policies to reduce the emissions of this gas. Here, we extend the DICE-2016R2 model so that it includes an improved carbon cycle and energy balance model as well as methane emissions, methane abatement cost, and an atmospheric methane cycle explicitly to be able to provide consistent estimations of the SCM. We estimate the SCM to lie in the range 880–8100 USD/tCH4 in 2020, with a base case estimate of 4000 USD/tCH4. We find our base case estimate to be larger than the average SCM presented in other studies mainly due to the revised damage function we use. We also estimate the social cost of carbon (SCC) and find that SCM estimates are less sensitive to variations in the social discount rate than the SCC due to the relatively short lifetime of methane. Changes in the parameterization of the damage function have similar relative impacts on both SCM and SCC. Furthermore, we evaluate the ratio of SCM to SCC as an alternative metric to GWP-100 of CH4 to facilitate tradeoffs between these two gases. We find this ratio to lie in the range 7–33 in 2020, with a base case estimate of 21, based on an extensive sensitivity analysis with respect to the discount rate, damage cost, and underlying emission scenarios. We also show that the global warming potential (GWP) and the SCM to SCC ratio are almost the same if the inverse of the effective discounting (in the social cost calculations) is equal to the time horizon used to evaluate the GWP. For comparison, the most widely used GWP, i.e., with a time horizon of 100 years, equals 27, hence in the upper range of the ratio we find using the SCM to SCC ratio.
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| 7. |
- Johansson-Stenman, Olof, 1966, et al.
(författare)
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DN Debatt: Det territoriella perspektivet fortfarande viktigast
- 2015
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Ingår i: Dagens Nyheter. - 1101-2447.
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Styrmedel baserade på territorialperspektivet är bättre, för de påverkar både produktionsmetoder och sammansättningen på konsumtion, skriver Olof Johansson-Stenman, Thomas Sterner och Christian Azar.
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| 8. |
- Azar, Christian, 1969, et al.
(författare)
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DICE and the Carbon Budget for Ambitious Climate Targets
- 2021
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Ingår i: Earth's Future. - 2328-4277. ; 9:7
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The Dynamic Integrated Climate-Economy (DICE) model is one of the most influential Integrated Assessment Models available. Its founder Professor William Nordhaus was recently awarded Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel due to his pioneering work on the economics of climate change. In a recent paper in American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, Nordhaus uses the model to conclude that a 2.5°C target is almost out of reach. In this paper, we update DICE 2016 R2 with state-of-the-art models of the carbon cycle, heat uptake into the oceans, and the role of non-CO2 forcers. We find that the allowable remaining carbon budget (over the period 2015–2100) to meet a 2.5°C target to be 2,360 GtCO2 whereas the estimate obtained using DICE 2016 R2 is about 460 GtCO2. Nordhaus's estimate of the remaining carbon budget for this target is hence five times lower than estimates made by our updated DICE. We also compare our results with estimates by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and find our results to be in line with the carbon budgets presented in IPCC SR 1.5. We explain the reasons behind the difference between our result and that of Nordhaus and propose that an updated climate module in DICE is warranted.
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| 9. |
- Andersson, David, 1979, et al.
(författare)
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DN Debatt: LRF och Svenskt flyg svarar inte om klimatmålen
- 2015
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Ingår i: Dagens Nyheter. - 1101-2447.
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Tidskriftsartikel (populärvet., debatt m.m.)abstract
- Sammantaget ser vi inget i motdebattörernas argument som talar emot att införa styrmedel, till exempel konsumtionsskatter, inom dessa områden där inga stora tekniska lösningar finns i sikte, skriver 14 miljö- och energiforskare i slutrepliken till sin text om flyg- och köttskatt (26/2).
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| 10. |
- Samuelsson, Bo, 1942, et al.
(författare)
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From Here to Sustainability – Is the Lisbon/Göteborg agenda delivering?
- 2004
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Executive Summary The European Councils held in Lisbon (2000) and in Göteborg (2001) gave the Union a new direction by establishing a long term strategy with sustainable development as the overarching objective. Sustainable development means, in this context, goals for economic, social and environmental policy, which are both mutually consistent and capable of delivering enhanced economic growth. To assure progress towards an agreed range of targets, the open method of coordination (OMC) has been adopted as the process for the implementation of the strategy. The strategy for sustainable development is a long-term one and, although the deadline originally set for the Lisbon agenda was 2010, it is clear that sustainable development has a much longer time-horizon and also that there is a global dimension to sustainable development, not just an EU one. In the run up to the mid-term review of the Lisbon strategy, this report by the European Panel for Sustainable Development, EPSD, offers an assessment of the EU approach to sustainable development. The report is based on official documents, research reports and background reports prepared by researchers from different disciplines. It concentrates on the EU-15 Member States, because the ten new members that acceded to the EU in May 2004 have not (yet!) been subject to the same commitments in relation to sustainable development. However, in future work by the EPSD, it is anticipated that the coverage will be extended to embrace all 25 Member States. The report starts with a discussion on the political process, followed by an examination of the economic, social and environmental dimensions of the strategy, of the potential of new technologies, and of the results delivered by the Member States. The final chapters include discussions on impact assessment and the global dimension of sustainable development. The focus of the report is on: − The integration of the three dimensions of sustai nable development and the policies that affect them into one coherent strategy − The implementation of the strategy through the open method of co-ordination The main messages of the report are that it is vital to: • Maintain the original commitment to sustainable development as the overarching objective of the Lisbon strategy and improve the co-ordination between the three pillars of the strategy: the economic, social and environmental dimensions [...]
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