| 1. |
- Larsson, Allan, et al.
(författare)
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Technology and Policy for Sustainable Development
- 2002
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Executive Summary 1. The mandate given by the European Council (Chapter 1). At the European Council in Göteborg in June 2001 a strategy for sustainable development was agreed, completing the Union’s political commitment to economic and social renewal by adding a third, environmental dimension to the Lisbon strategy and establishing a new approach to policy making. The European Council stated that clear and stable objectives for sustainable development will present significant economic opportunities. This “has the potential to unleash a new wave of technological innovation and investment, generating growth and employment”. The European Council invited industry to take part in the development and wider use of new environmental technologies in sectors such as energy and transport and in this way decouple economic growth from pressure on natural resources. The Commission committed itself to present to the Spring European Council 2002 a report assessing how environment technology can promote growth and employment. This report, assessing how technology for sustainable development can promote growth and employment, is one contribution to the follow up by the Commission of the mandate from Göteborg European Council. 2. The role of technology for investment, growth and employment (Chapter 2). The report takes the broad view of Agenda 21 on technology as a starting point. The integration of environment policy into a strategy for sustainable development and the broadening of the measures from regulations to more of market based instruments, leads by necessity to a situation where more and more of the technologies will be regarded as mainstream technologies, rather than regulation-driven eco-technologies. As a consequence of this choice of a broad definition of technology the report has the title “Technology and Policy for Sustainable Development”. The report confirms and elaborates on the main message from the Göteborg European Council that new technology offers a strong growth dividend, through investment in which new technologies are embedded. To attain a GDP growth rate of 3 per cent per year – in line with the Lisbon strategy - a rate of investment growth of about 4 to 6 per cent over several years seems necessary, which represents a significant acceleration from the 2 per cent average over the 1990s in the euro area. A higher rate of investment will create room for a faster replacement of old technologies. In addition, a strategy for sustainable development – including policies “to get prices right” – will make the introduction of new technologies more profitable and contribute to stimulate investment. Consequently, the EU strategy for sustainable development can both build on the macroeconomic efforts to stimulate investment and give a strong contribution to such an investment strategy. 3. The potential of new technologies for sustainable development (Chapter 3). Technology is a double-edged sword. It is both a cause of many environmental problems and a key to solving them. It is a matter of fact that the technologies of the past, still dominating in transport, energy, industry and agriculture, are undermining our basic life supporting systems – clean water, fresh air and fertile soil. However, in each of these sectors there are new technologies available or emerging, that may, if widely used, essentially solve the 4 environmental problems. Thus, new technologies have the potential to contribute to a decoupling of economic growth from pressure on natural resources. The fact is that we face a choice between technological change at historically unprecedented rates or a change in atmospheric composition unlike any experienced since the dawn of humanity. During the 1990s we have seen a substantial diffusion of renewable energy and transport technologies and further progress in industry and agriculture technology, not least biotechnology. The most promising for immediate investment is energy saving technologies in housing and the tertiary sector. A systematic introduction of best available technology could reduce the use of energy with 20-50 per cent. New technologies for waste management offers a great potential; the most recent investment in this sector shows a utilisation of more than 90 per cent of the energy content of waste. Even more fundamental are new technologies for “up-stream” resource management in industry, offering strong synergies for productivity in production, quality in goods and services and efficiency in the use of natural resources. In this way a dematerialisation can be brought about in a larger scale. In agriculture organic farming is increasing with 20 per cent a year, in spite of subsidies to traditional, nonsustainable farming methods. Yet, in other cases the growth is not self-sustained. There are still significant obstacles to be overcome to reach the stage where the diffusion of renewable energy technologies is independent of government interventions and where these technologies have made a major inroad into the energy market. The extent to which more efficient technologies will be adopted by the market depends largely on the relative future price relations between different sources of energy, government policies to benchmark or to set standards for eco efficiency and voluntary commitments by industries. It is also of vital importance to consider consumer’s preferences for eco efficient products as well as consumer protection. 4. EU policies of importance for new technology for sustainability (Chapter 4). The European policy initiatives in the main policy areas are discussed in Chapter 4. Such policies can – if forcefully implemented by the Member States – have a strong effect on the demand for new technology in general and could give a strong push for investment. Of fundamental importance is the recommendation in the Broad Economic Policy Guidelines on a gradual but steady and credible change in the level and structure of tax rates until external costs are fully reflected in prices, to cope with the most fundamental structural problem in all developed countries, the unsustainable patters of production and consumption. There is a substantial scope for a rebalancing of prices, particularly on energy markets in favour of renewable energy sources and technologies by using both taxes and other market instruments. The implementation of the European Climate Change Programme (ECCP) and the directive establishing an EU framework for emissions trading will act as a strong driving force towards more sustainable price relations. The setting of good environment standards to prevent the worst cases and measures to stimulate best practice, Integrated Product Policy (IPP), for the whole EU area will have a similar stimulating effect on investment in new technology. The European Single Market is the biggest market in the world for technology, and will become even more important through enlargement. The practices developed in this market will become global standards for all enterprises that wish to compete on this market. Thus, the integration of sustainable development in all policies, not least in research and development, can make the EU the 5 leading global actor in the renewal of products and processes, unleashing a new wave of technological innovation and investment, generating growth and employment. This makes the Member States’ sustainable development strategies, and a decisive implementation of these strategies, a matter of fundamental importance for growth and employment in the whole Community. 5. Enlargement and technology for sustainable development (Chapter 5). The review of the situation in the candidate countries highlights the role of technology and investment as key to the EU strategy for sustainable development. Enlargement of the EU will create strong incentives for the candidate countries to speed up the modernisation process, phasing out old investment and technologies from the command and control period and phasing in the most recent technologies. The energy sector is the most prominent example, where the candidate countries need to increase their capacity substantially and, at the same time, replace old outdated plants with new eco-efficient technologies. 6. Policy conclusions (Chapter 6) The integration of environment in the Lisbon strategy and the emphasis on new technology for sustainable development, agreed by the Göteborg European Council, will make the policies of each of the three pillars of the strategy mutually supportive: • To attain a GDP growth rate of 3 per cent a year and to bring about a decoupling of economic growth from pressure on natural resources, a rate of investment growth of about 4 to 6 per cent seems necessary, increasing the investment share of GDP from around 20 per cent to 24-25 per cent. • This higher rate of investment should be utilised to phase out old technology and phase in new technology, contributing to productivity, quality and eco-efficiency for health, prosperity and environment; to achieve these objective a forceful implementation of a strategy to “get prices right” is necessary to make the value of natural resources and eco-systems visible to the agents in the economy • Economic growth and investment should be utilised to create more and better jobs and be made sustainable by policies, that facilitate participation in working life (see Guidelines for Member States Employment Policy 2002); in this way the EU should reach the employment rate of 70 per cent, agreed in the Lisbon strategy, making Member States’ social protection systems, in particular their pension systems, more sustainable.
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| 2. |
- 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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| 3. |
- Bonilla, Jorge, 1975, et al.
(författare)
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Diffusion of NOx abatement technologies in Sweden
- 2014
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This paper studies how different NOx abatement technologies have diffused under the Swedish system of refunded emissions charges and analyzes the determinants of the time to adoption. The policy, under which the charge revenues are refunded back to the regulated firms in proportion to energy output, was explicitly designed to affect investment in NOx-reducing technologies. The results indicate that a higher net NOx charge liability, i.e. a reduction in tax liabilities net of the refund due to the new technology, increases the likelihood of adoption, but only for end-of-pipe post-combustion technologies. We also find some indication that market power considerations in the heat and power industry reduce the incentives to abate emissions through investment in postcombustion technologies. Adoption of post-combustion technologies and the efficiency improving technology of flue gas condensation are also more likely in the heat and power and waste incineration sectors, which is possibly explained by a large degree of public ownership in these sectors.
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| 4. |
- Bonilla, Jorge, 1975, et al.
(författare)
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Synergies and Trade-offs between Climate and Local Air Pollution: Policies in Sweden
- 2012
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In this paper, we explore the synergies and tradeoffs between abatement of global and local pollution. We built a unique dataset of Swedish heat and power plants with detailed boiler-level data 2001-2009 on not only production and inputs but also emissions of CO2 and NOx. Both pollutants are subject to strict policies in Sweden. CO2 is subject to multiple levels of governance using environmental instruments such as the EU ETS and Swedish carbon taxes; NOx – as a precursor of acid rain and eutrophication – is regulated by a heavy fee. Using a quadratic directional output distance function, we characterize changes in technical efficiency as well as patterns of substitutability in response to the policies mentioned. The fact that generating units face a trade-off between the pollutants indicates a need for policy coordination.
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| 5. |
- Burtraw, Dallas, et al.
(författare)
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Climate Policy Options and Consequences in the International Spotlight: A Report for Industry on the Implications of Domestic Policy Design and Global Negotiations
- 2015
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Following the 2009 Copenhagen Summit, momentum for mitigating global climate change has been spurred by the idea that success at the international level must be built around existing national policies. The Mistra Indigo research program —a collaboration among IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute, the University of Gothenburg’s Department of Economics, and Resources for the Future—was created to analyze this bottom-up approach to climate policy. From 2012-2015 the program brought together leading experts in economics and environmental policy, with the goal of understanding how to design and select environmental policy instruments to promote longterm, cost-effective global climate change mitigation change while taking into account the uncertain ties of international policy.
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| 6. |
- Carlsson, Fredrik, 1968, et al.
(författare)
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A Fair Share : Burden-Sharing Preferences in the United States and China
- 2010
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Using a choice experiment, we investigated preferences for distributing the economic burden of decreasing CO2 emissions in the two largest CO2-emitting countries: the United States and China. We asked respondents about their preferences for four burden-sharing rules to reduce CO2 emissions according to their country’s 1) historical emissions, 2) income level, 3) equal right to emit per person, and 4) current emissions. We found that U.S. respondents preferred the rule based on current emissions, while the equal right to emit rule was clearly least preferred. The Chinese respondents, on the other hand, preferred the historical rule, while the current emissions rule was the least preferred. Respondents overall favored the rule that was least costly for their country. These marked differences may explain the difficulties countries face in agreeing how to share costs, presenting a tough hurdle to overcome in future negotiations. We also found that the strength of the preferences was much stronger in China, suggesting that how mitigation costs are shared across countries is more important there.
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| 7. |
- Carlsson, Fredrik, 1968, et al.
(författare)
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Discrimination in Scientific Review - A natural field experiment on blind versus non-blind review
- 2009
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This paper analyzes the impacts of gender, as well as other author characteristics, on reviewers’ grading of papers submitted to an international conference in economics in Sweden in 2008. Correcting for other variables, including country and research field as well as researcher academic level, we focus on the difference in grades between blind and non-blind review treatments. We find little effect of non-blind reviewing and no significant evidence of gender or any other type of discrimination. Furthermore, we do not find any significant difference between the average grading by female and male reviewers.
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| 8. |
- Carlsson, Fredrik, 1968, et al.
(författare)
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Is Fairness Blind? - The effect of framing on preferences for effort-sharing rules
- 2010
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- By using a choice experiment, this paper focuses on citizens’ preferences for effort-sharing rules of how carbon abatement should be shared among countries. We find that Swedes do not rank the rule favoring their own country highest. Instead, they prefer the rule where all countries are allowed to emit an equal amount per person, a rule that favors Africa at the expense of high emitters such as the U.S. The least preferred rule is reduction proportional to historical emissions. Using two different treatments, one where the respondents were informed about the country names and one where the country names were replaced with anonymous labels A-D, we also test whether people’s preferences for effort-sharing rules depend on the framing of the problem. We find that while the ranking of the principles is the same in both treatments, the strength of the preferences is significantly increased when the actual names of the countries are used.
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| 9. |
- Carlsson, Fredrik, 1968, et al.
(författare)
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Paying for Mitigation: A Multiple Country Study
- 2010
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Unique survey data from a contingent valuation study conducted in three different countries (China, Sweden, and the United States) were used to investigate the ordinary citizen’s willingness to pay (WTP) for reducing CO2 emissions. We find that a large majority of the respondents in all three countries believe that the mean global temperature has increased over the last 100 years and that humans are responsible for the increase. A smaller share of Americans, however, believes these statements, when compared to the Chinese and Swedes. A larger share of Americans is also pessimistic and believes that nothing can be done to stop climate change. We also find that Sweden has the highest WTP for reductions of CO2, while China has the lowest. Thus, even though the Swedes and Chinese are similar to each other in their attitudes toward climate change, they differ considerably in their WTP. When WTP is measured as a share of household income, the willingness to pay is the same for Americans and Chinese, while again higher for the Swedes.
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| 10. |
- Carlsson, Fredrik, 1968, et al.
(författare)
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The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing but the Truth - A Multiple Country Test of an Oath Script
- 2010
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Hypothetical bias is one of the main issues bedeviling the field of nonmarket valuation. The general criticism is that survey responses reflect how people would like to behave, rather than how they actually behave. In our study of climate change and emissions reductions, we took advantage of the increasing bulk of evidence from psychology and economics that addresses the effects of making promises, in order to investigate the effect of an oath script in a contingent valuation survey. The survey was conducted in Sweden and China, and its results indicate that an oath script has significant effects on respondent behavior in answering willingness-to-pay (WTP) questions, some of which vary by country. In both countries, the share of zero WTP responses and extremely high WTP responses decreases when an oath script is used, which also results in lower variance. In China, the oath script also reduces the average WTP, cutting it by half in certain instances. We also found that the oath script has different impacts on various respondent groups. For example, without the oath script, Communist party members in China are more likely than others to have a positive WTP for emissions reductions, but with the oath script, there is no longer any difference between the groups.
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