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Energy efficiency is a national priority for China as rapid energy consumption growth aggravates its greenhouse gas emissions, local air pollution and energy scarcity. In the 1990s, a large number of voluntary agreements emerged in industrialised countries in order to improve industrial energy efficiency. These experiences are now taken into account in China. This article analyses the drivers for voluntary agreements on industrial energy efficiency in China, based on a case study of three enterprises in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province. Furthermore, the article reviews the institutional set-up of energy policy and investigates the pertaining policy culture. From the findings, conclusions are drawn on the role of voluntary agreements within China's larger policy context. We conclude that opposed to avoiding stricter regulation, voluntary agreements in Nanjing are reinterpreted in view of more stringent national provisions on energy efficiency in the 11th Five Year Plan. Hence, agreements have evolved into an implementation tool of national policy at the local level. For industry, another major driver for participation was identified as improving its relations with local authorities. Voluntary agreements showed to have the potential to overcome traditional constraints of implementing top-down policies at the local level in China.
This paper presents the strategy for a large EU-funded Integrated Project: EXIOPOL ("A New Environmental Accounting Framework Using Externality Data and Input-Output Tools for Policy Analysis"), with special attention for its part in environmentally extended (EE) input-output (IO) analysis. The project has three principal objectives: (a) to synthesize and further develop estimates of the external costs of key environmental impacts for Europe; (b) to develop an EE IO framework for the EU-27 in aglobal context, including as many of these estimates as possible, to allow for the estimation of environmental impacts (expressed as LCA themes, material requirement indicators, ecological footprints or external costs) of the activities of different economic sectors, final consumption activities and resource consumption; (c) to apply the results of the work to external costs and EE I-O for illustrative policy questions.
Sustainable Resource Management is the result of longlasting exhaustive research by the Wuppertal Institute. Looking at material flows, industrial and societal metabolism and their implications for the economy, this new book provides radical perspectives on how the global economy should use natural resources in intelligent ways that maximise well-being without destroying lifesupporting ecosystems. It presents a vision of the future and the fundamental elements necessary for the sustainable management of the Earth's resources. It argues that the need to manage the use of our natural resources at a sustainable level can be shaped into a great opportunity for innovation and for new institutions to govern change.
Sustainable management of natural resources is a crucial element for a sustainable development, but also a precondition for economic growth. The book analyses raw materials supply and resource use in a global context. The contributions present state-of-the art results and perspectives on the availability of resources. They discuss factors such as demand from emerging and other countries as well as critical shortage of some materials together with the resulting consequences for economies. It also gives new views and perspectives on the sustainable growth in ermerging economies and examines the possibilities and experiences concerning the decoupling of resource use from economic growth. Moreover, it offers cross-country comparisons with emphasis on emerging countries. A key focus is placed on China regarding its domestic energy, climate and resource policy but also its developing foreign policy in Africa.
The analysis of different global energy scenarios in part I of the report confirms that the exploitation of energy efficiency potentials and the use of renewable energies play a key role in reaching global CO2 reduction targets. An assessment on the basis of a broad literature research in part II shows that the technical potentials of renewable energy technologies are a multiple of today's global final energy consumption. The analysis of cost estimates for renewable electricity generation technologies and even long term cost projections across the key studies in part III demonstrates that assumptions are in reasonable agreement. In part IV it is shown that by implementing technical potentials for energy efficiency improvements in demand and supply sectors by 2050 can be limited to 48% of primary energy supply in IEA's "Energy Technology Perspectives" baseline scenario. It was found that a large potential for cost-effective measures exists, equivalent to around 55-60% of energy savings of all included efficiency measures (part V). The results of the analysis on behavioural changes in part VI show that behavioural dimensions are not sufficiently included in energy scenarios. Accordingly major research challenges are revealed.