| 1. |
- Chavez-Rodriguez, Mauro F., et al.
(författare)
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Fuel saving strategies in the Andes : long-term impacts for Peru, Colombia and Ecuador
- 2018
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Ingår i: Energy Strategy Reviews. - : Elsevier. - 2211-467X .- 2211-4688. ; 20, s. 35-48
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Crude oil exports and imports play a crucial role in the trade balance of Peru, Colombia and Ecuador. These countries are looking into fossil fuel saving measures as a way to deal with increasing demands and decreasing oil production rates. However, studies about the long-term effects of these measures is lacking. Using a combination of energy simulation technics, 17 fuel saving strategies ranging from fuel switching to the investment in underground transport and hydropower capacity expansion were modelled and assessed to evaluate their long-term effect on fossil fuels demand reduction. Our results show that the full implementation of strategies can account for cumulative oil savings of over 550 million barrels of oil by 2030. Findings also point out that Ecuador and Colombia could face the transition from net oil-exporters to importers as soon as the end of the next decade.
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| 2. |
- Steg, Linda, et al.
(författare)
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A method to identify barriers to and enablers of implementing climate change mitigation options
- 2022
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Ingår i: One Earth. - : Elsevier BV. - 2590-3330 .- 2590-3322. ; 5:11, s. 1216-1227
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Mitigation option are not yet being implemented at the scale required to limit global warming to well below 2°C. Various factors have been identified that inhibit the implementation of specific mitigation options. Yet, an integrated assessment of key barriers and enablers is lacking. Here we present a comprehensive framework to assess which factors inhibit and enable the implementation of mitigation options. The framework comprises six dimensions, each encompassing different criteria: geophysical, environmental-ecological, technological, economic, sociocultural, and institutional feasibility. We demonstrate the approach by assessing to what extent each criterion and dimension affects the feasibility of six mitigation options. The assessment reveals that institutional factors inhibit the implementation of many options that need to be addressed to increase their feasibility. Of all the options assessed, many factors enable the implementation of solar energy, while only a few barriers would need to be addressed to implement solar energy at scale.
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| 3. |
- Mata, Erika, et al.
(författare)
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Climate Mitigation from Circular and Sharing Economy in the Buildings Sector
- 2020
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Ingår i: Resources, Conservation and Recycling. - : Elsevier BV. - 0921-3449 .- 1879-0658. ; 158
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The buildings sector is a major consumer of energy and resources throughout the entire life cycle of the buildings (materials sourcing, design, manufacturing, distribution, consumption, disposal) with corresponding greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The contribution of the sector is therefore key to achieving ambitious climate targets. In particular, to maintain global warming below target of 1.5 °C, a carbon dioxide emissions reduction of 9 Gt is required just from the global building sector (Wang et al, 2018). This will need to be achieved by a reduction in energy consumption and decarbonization of electricity production. Equally substantial reductions are required from the other life cycle phases: materials production, construction and demolition phases, which are typically accounted as changes in the industrial sector. The improvement of resource flows through a Circular Economy (CE) approach that includes reducing, reusing, recycling and recovering materials and products, facilitates a decoupling of growth from resource consumption (Kalmykova et al, 2018). This can provide clear advantages from an environmental perspective, contributing to Sustainable Development Goals and to climate change mitigation. However, the literature has identified that despite a global trend of improved operational performance, there are rising “embodied” emissions from processing and manufacturing of building materials. Industrial recycling and energy recovery are the most common practices, even when reuse is believed to have higher economic and environmental value (Eberhardt et al, 2019). The Sharing Economy (SE), offers several opportunities for the building sector by promoting reuse, enabling shared ownership, access or use to increase the utilization rate of products and systems (e.g. shared accommodation, social spaces, offices or tools). Recent literature clearly highlights for the building sector the urgent need for a range of actions across the life cycle such as reduced operational and embodied impacts, as well as strategies to increase alignment of goals and action from numerous stakeholders along the value chain (Röck et al, 2020). This needs to be implemented with specific reference to people, cultures and norms in which the strategies are deployed. The pressure on the sector to embrace its role as provider of critical climate mitigation solutions, is expected to increase. There are however few explicit links to sustainable development and climate mitigation, and little common ground for the variety of analytical approaches and tools. The main aim of the CE in the literature is considered to be economic prosperity, followed by environmental quality; its impact on social equity and future generations is rarely mentioned. Circular and shared economy imply the adoption of cleaner production patterns, an increase of producers’ and consumers’ responsibility and awareness, the use of renewable technologies and materials as well as the adoption of suitable policies. It applies to different systems levels from the macro (neighborhood, city, region, nation and beyond) to the micro level (consumer, product, company). It requires the engagement of all actors in society and their capacity to create and exchange transformative patterns. In all, transition to the era of circular and shared economy aligned with climate goals requires more knowledge on the necessary changes in household’s behavior, design practices, construction and de-construction methods, business models and legal frameworks (Laurenti et al, 2019). This Virtual Special Issue (VSI) calls for new research contributions on mitigation potentials from the Circular and Sharing Economy in the buildings sector worldwide.
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| 4. |
- Oikonomou, Vasileios, et al.
(författare)
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The Role of Interferon-γ in Autoimmune Polyendocrine Syndrome Type 1.
- 2024
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Ingår i: The New England journal of medicine. - 1533-4406. ; 390:20, s. 1873-1884
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Autoimmune polyendocrine syndrome type 1 (APS-1) is a life-threatening, autosomal recessive syndrome caused by autoimmune regulator (AIRE) deficiency. In APS-1, self-reactive T cells escape thymic negative selection, infiltrate organs, and drive autoimmune injury. The effector mechanisms governing T-cell-mediated damage in APS-1 remain poorly understood.We examined whether APS-1 could be classified as a disease mediated by interferon-γ. We first assessed patients with APS-1 who were participating in a prospective natural history study and evaluated mRNA and protein expression in blood and tissues. We then examined the pathogenic role of interferon-γ using Aire-/-Ifng-/- mice and Aire-/- mice treated with the Janus kinase (JAK) inhibitor ruxolitinib. On the basis of our findings, we used ruxolitinib to treat five patients with APS-1 and assessed clinical, immunologic, histologic, transcriptional, and autoantibody responses.Patients with APS-1 had enhanced interferon-γ responses in blood and in all examined autoimmunity-affected tissues. Aire-/- mice had selectively increased interferon-γ production by T cells and enhanced interferon-γ, phosphorylated signal transducer and activator of transcription 1 (pSTAT1), and CXCL9 signals in multiple organs. Ifng ablation or ruxolitinib-induced JAK-STAT blockade in Aire-/- mice normalized interferon-γ responses and averted T-cell infiltration and damage in organs. Ruxolitinib treatment of five patients with APS-1 led to decreased levels of T-cell-derived interferon-γ, normalized interferon-γ and CXCL9 levels, and remission of alopecia, oral candidiasis, nail dystrophy, gastritis, enteritis, arthritis, Sjögren's-like syndrome, urticaria, and thyroiditis. No serious adverse effects from ruxolitinib were identified in these patients.Our findings indicate that APS-1, which is caused by AIRE deficiency, is characterized by excessive, multiorgan interferon-γ-mediated responses. JAK inhibition with ruxolitinib in five patients showed promising results. (Funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and others.).
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