Publications

About the publications...

Does Geography Matter for the Clean Development Mechanism?

Under the Kyoto Protocol, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is designed to serve the dual purposes of allowing the industrialised countries to earn credits by investing in project activities that reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, while contributing to sustainable development in developing countries via the flows of technology and capital. The fact that the geographic distribution of CDM projects is highly uneven motivates this research into whether certain geographic endowments matter for the CDM development.

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The Clean Development Mechanism and Sustainable Development: A Panel Data Analysis

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol is designed to allow the industrialised countries to earn credits by investing in greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction projects in developing countries, which contribute to sustainable development in the host countries. This research empirically investigates the long-run impacts of CDM projects on CO2 emissions for 34 CDM host countries over 1990-2007.

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A bottom-up analysis of including aviation within the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme

European nations agree they must tackle escalating greenhouse gas emissions arising from energy consumption. In response, the EU has set an emission reduction target for 2050 chosen to correspond with stabilising the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases at a level likely to avoid ‘dangerous climate change’ or to not exceed a 2ºC rise above pre-industrial levels. By selecting a target related to global greenhouse gas concentrations, governments have, perhaps inadvertently, accepted such targets must include all greenhouse gas-producing sectors.

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A Dynamic Typology of Stakeholder Engagement within Climate Change Research

This paper offers a descriptive overview of Stakeholder Engagement (ShE) within climate change research at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.

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World economic dynamics and technological change: projecting interactions between economic output and CO2 emissions

With the emergence of accelerated technological change and progress, economic growth has been exhibiting increasingly complex features. Trade within and across industries, countries and regions, has risen sharply, and the globalisation effects of economies of specialisation, low-cost information technologies and networks have taken a stronger grip on economies.

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Carbon Capability: what does it mean, how prevalent is it, and how can we promote it?

This Working Paper introduces the concept of ‘carbon capability’, provides initial empirical evidence of levels of carbon capability amongst the UK public, and suggests ways in which carbon capability might be promoted. ‘Carbon capability’ captures the contextual meanings associated with carbon, whilst also referring to an individual’s ability and motivation to reduce emissions within the broader institutional and social context.

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Governing Climate Change Post-2012: The Role of Global Cities - London

While international negotiations for a climate change policy framework post-2012 continue, there is increasing recognition that a range of activities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are taking place ‘beyond’ this formal arena. This working paper contributes to the research of the Tyndall Centre programme 1 by focusing on a group of non nation-state actors - global cities – and their role in climate governance.

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Allocating emissions rights: Are equal shares, fair shares?

In a world where greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced, what is the fair way to allocate rights to the limited available emissions? For many, the answer is that a fair allocation is an equal per capita allocation. From at least as far back as 1988, it has been proposed that emissions rights be allocated between nations on an equal per capita basis.

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The Economics of Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change

The problem of avoiding dangerous climate change requires analysis from many disciplines. Mainstream economic thinking about the problem has shifted with the Stern Review from a single-discipline focus on cost-benefit analysis to a new inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary risk analysis, already evident in the IPCC Third Assessment Report. I argue that this shift is more evidence of the failure of the traditional, equilibrium approach in general to provide an adequate understanding of observed behaviour, either at the micro or macro scale.

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An Integrated Assessment of the Potential for Change in Storm Activity over Europe: Implications for Insurance and Forestry in the UK

In western Europe, two severe windstorms at the start of 1990 caused insured losses of around £6.5 billion and 160 deaths. At the end of 1999 storms destroyed 10% of French forests. The objective of this Tyndall Centre Theme 3 research is to assess the implications of future European windstorm activity for the forestry and insurance industries in the UK.

Hanson, C., T. Holt, and J. Palutikof

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Evaluating the options for carbon sequestration

Gough, C., S. Shackley, and M. Cannell

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A blueprint for integrated assessment of climate change

The Blueprint Project was set up to reach key decisions on how the Tyndall Centre will develop its plans for integrated assessment modelling over the years 2002 to 2005. The Blueprint Project now forms the first stage of the work carried out under the theme 1 flagship project on Integrating Frameworks. As a result of the work carried out under this project, the plans for integrated assessment modelling work have now been laid out and are under way. 

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How do regulated and voluntary carbon-offset schemes compare?

The purchase of Verified Emission Reductions through the voluntary carbon market has become a mainstream practice across business and individuals who aim to offset their greenhouse gas emissions. This voluntary market relies on offset projects which may or may not follow the standards of the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism.

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Governing Climate Change Post-2012: The Role of Global Cities, Case-Study: Los Angeles

In May 2007 Los Angeles adopted an Action Plan to Lead the Nation In Fighting Global Warming. The plan includes a CO2 emissions reduction target of 35 percent by 2030 of 1990 levels. The approach Los Angeles is taking is one of simultaneously addressing future energy and water security by investing in decentralised renewable energy and decreasing per-capita water use. Additional areas include waste management, greening of buildings and open space and addressing emissions from the transport sector. The emphasis has so far been on the supply, rather than the demand, side.

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Renewable Energy Scenarios for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

A widespread enthusiasm has been growing with regard to the transition towards more sustainable systems of production and consumption in order to meet today’s needs without compromising those of future generations. Renewable energy technologies, in particular, are becoming internationally recognised as a vital contribution towards a sustainable energy future. This paper presents a set of renewable energy scenarios for the currently oil-rich Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

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A blueprint for the integrated assessment of climate change in cities

More than half of the global population live in cities, which are major concentrations of vulnerability to climate change. Cities are also major emitters of greenhouse gasses. Consequently they are key to mitigating global climate change and reducing the impacts of climate change on people and infrastructure. This role is being increasingly recognised through the policy and planning measures of individual cities and their collective action in the global climate debate.

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An Inventory of Adaptation to climate change in the UK: challenges and findings

Climate change science has been promoting adaptation measures for some years. The message has been that the climate is changing and people need to be prepared. However, while there has been an increasing investment in the ‘science of adaptation’, there has been less, if any, attention paid to the ‘practice of adaptation’, i.e. is adaptation occurring, and if so, how, where and why? There is now a clear demand from policy makers to answer these questions and specifically to answer them with relation to actions in the UK. 

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Is Economic Volatility Detrimental to Global Sustainability?

This paper examines the effects of economic volatility on global sustainability in a dynamic panel data model allowing for error cross section dependence. It finds that output volatility and financial market volatility exert strong negative impacts on sustainable development, with the impacts exacerbated in some subsamples such as higher en- ergy intensity countries and lower trade share countries.

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Impacts of Climate Change and Sea-Level Rise: A Preliminary Case Study of Mombasa, Kenya

Mombasa is the second largest city in Kenya and the largest international seaport in East Africa with more than 650,000 inhabitants. The city has a history of natural disasters associated with extreme climatic events, most recently the severe rain-induced flooding in October 2006, which affected about 60,000 people in the city and caused damage to important infrastructure. As the city is expected to continue to experience rapid growth, the future impacts of such events can only increase.

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