Archivo de la categoría: Publications

NEW PUBLICATION IN REGIONAL SCIENCE POLICY & PRACTICE

The GEAR members Marina Sánchez-Serrano, Jorge Zafrilla, Mateo Ortiz and Guadalupe Arce have recently published in Regional Science Policy & Practice the paper entitled “Carbon taxation and related vulnerability of Spanish urban and rural households in a regional level”.

Consumer choices  are critical to reducing CO2 emissions from human activities. Climate policies aimed at reducing the carbon footprint of consumers often have a negative impact on low-income families and rural households with limited access to low-carbon consumption choices.

In this paper, we estimate households’ carbon footprint in Castilla-La Mancha (Spain) by urban-rural location and expenditure attributes and simulate the impacts of a carbon tax on the disposable income of different types of households.

A multiregional input-output model is proposed to assign global carbon footprints to products. This model will help us identify the main driving goods in each type of household’s carbon footprint and evaluate the household’s vulnerability after carbon taxation.

Our findings suggest that high-spending households would face the taxation strongest effects on car fuels and transport services, as they would have an impact of 2% of their total expenditure by the taxation on these products, while this effect in lower-income households would be 0,75%. A tax on basic housing services (electricity and heating) would have a regressive impact, undermining the consumption level of vulnerable households. They would be affected by 2,5%, while higher income households would spend between 1 and 1,5% of their total expenditure on paying the carbon tax on this product.

This heterogeneity across households leads us to recommend taxes and compensation mechanisms charged on adequate products to reduce households’ carbon footprints while avoiding the regressivity of climate policies and reducing urban-rural inequalities.

You can find the full text here:https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1757780224003342

NEW GEAR’s MULTIDISCIPLINARY PUBLICATION IN THE CHEMICAL ENGINEERING JOURNAL

New GEAR’s multidisciplinary collaboration is available now in the Chemical Engineering Journal:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1385894724037185?via%3Dihub#f0060

The paper, entitled “Sustainable Farms from a Biogenic Co2 Source: The CO2-MPS Strategy”, has been developed by A. Gueddari, Á. García-Alaminos, C. Alonso, J. Canales-Vázquez and S. García-Yuste.

This paper proposes a novel strategy to increase pig farmhouses’ sustainability.

Swine farming faces unprecedented challenges in meeting the growing demand to feed an increasing population. To do so, these farms contribute significantly to producing approximately 35 % of the world’s NH3 emissions, a highly harmful air pollutant. In response to this critical environmental issue, the CO2 Management Pig Slurry Strategy (CO2-MPS) proposes an innovative solution to mitigate NH3 emissions by leveraging the biogenic CO2 produced within pig farmhouses. This groundbreaking Carbon Dioxide Utilization (CDU) approach based on utilizing this biogenic CO2 to form a protective blanket over pig manure lagoons promises the reduction of over 8 million metric tons of NH3 emissions annually. Such NH3 emissions are well-documented initiators of Particulate Matter, particularly PM2.5, highlighting the potential positive impact on air quality of this strategy. In addition, implementing the CO2-MPS strategy would lead to the generation of environmentally friendly fertilizers.

NEW PUBLICATION IN ECONOMIC SYSTEMS RESEARCH!

The GEAR members Ángela García-Alaminos, Jorge Zafrilla and Fabio Monsalve have recently published the paper entitled “Forced labour in the fashion industry: a hypothetical EU-driven reorganisation of textile value chains” in Economic Systems Research.

Given recent breakdowns in global value chains, like the COVID-19 crisis or the conflict in Ukraine, developed economies are trying to develop resilience to address future drawbacks. Backshoring and nearshoring arise as attractive solutions to reduce exposure to global disruptions and undesirable practices such as forced labour.

This study analyses the labour impacts of a hypothetical EU-driven reconfiguration of value chains of the fashion industry through a multi-regional input-output model. Using the Structural Path Analysis methodology, how forced labour is transmitted within Europe is explored. Once the forced labour hotspots are determined, we explore the socioeconomic consequences of a trade-restructuring strategy simulated through the source-shifting technique.

Our results show that the forced labour embodied in the European final demand for fashion products could fall by up to 34.2%. This strategy could generate more than 190,000 jobs in Europe, while China and India could lose more than 1.5 million jobs each.

You can find the full-text here: 

https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/EPQ7HPHGGFKYZQXJDHAP/full?target=10.1080/09535314.2024.2345096

NEW PUBLICATION IN SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT

The GEAR members Guadalupe Arce and Ángela García-Alaminos, together with Sara Fernández, Ignacio Cazcarro and Iñaki Arto have recently published the paper entitled “Climate change as a veiled driver of migration in Bangladesh and Ghana” in Science of The Total Environment.

This paper analyses climate drivers of migration in the deltas of Bangladesh and Ghana. People living in deltaic areas in developing countries are especially prone to suffer the effects from natural disasters due to their geographical and economic structure. Climate change is contributing to an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme events affecting the environmental conditions of deltas, threatening the socioeconomic development of people and, eventually, triggering migration as an adaptation strategy.

This study is based on data from migration surveys and econometric techniques from the DECCMA Project to analyse the extent to which environmental impacts affect individual migration decision-making in two delta regions in Bangladesh and Ghana.

The results show that, in both deltas, climatic shocks that negatively affect economic security are significant drivers of migration, although the surveyed households do not identify environmental pressures as the root cause of the displacement. Furthermore, environmental impacts affecting food security and crop and livestock production are also significant as events inducing people to migrate, but only in Ghana.

The study also finds that suffering from environmental stress can intensify or reduce the effects of socioeconomic drivers. In this sense, adverse climatic shocks may not only have a direct impact on migration but may also condition migration decisions indirectly through the occupation, the education, or the marital status of the person.

Although climate change and related environmental pressures are not perceived as key drivers of migration, they affect migration decisions through indirect channels (e.g., reducing economic security or reinforcing the effect of socioeconomic drivers).

You can find the full-text here: 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969724013494?via%3Dihub

NEW PUBLICATION IN ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS!

Pilar Osorio, María Ángeles Tobarra, and Manuel Tomás have recently published in the Journal of Ecological Economics the paper entitled “Are there gender differences in household carbon footprints? Evidence from Spain”.

In this paper, the carbon footprints of Spanish households are calculated using an environmentally extended multiregional input-output model combined with microdata from the Spanish Household Budget Survey.

Results show that households with a majority of men have a higher carbon footprint and carbon intensity.

Female households spend more (and generate more emissions) on housing supplies and food products, while male households show that pattern for restaurants and transport .

Access the paper here:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800924000272?via%3Dihub

NEW PUBLICATION IN THE JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL ECOLOGY

The GEAR members Ángela García-Alaminos, Fabio Monsalve and Jorge Zafrilla have recently published in the Journal of Industrial Ecology the paper entitled “Disentangling social impacts in global value chains through structural path analysis”.

This analysis proposes an analytical method to trace the precise pathways through which impacts from a specific origin are disseminated worldwide and embodied in high-income nations’ consumption.

Our work relies on a multi-regional input–output model extended with the structural path analysis (SPA) methodology. The SPA method is explored both in gross and net terms as complementary perspectives to disentangle the complexity of global value chains, which is the main contribution of our approach.

We take as a case study the forced labor in the two major worldwide cotton producers (India an China). Based on ILO data, we estimate that there are at least 32,000 and 55,300 persons being coerced into forced picking in China and India, respectively.

Our results show that more than 13% of the estimated forced workers are attributed to the European Union and the United States consumption, respectively, with apparel, footwear, and textiles as key goods embodying these workers.

Key findings show a high number of intrasectoral transformations inside the Chinese and Indian textile industries, which hinders the traceability of forced labour at the first stages of the fashion value chains. We also show that forced labor in the Chinese cotton industry is even more distant to the final consumer than usual unskilled labor, which is an additional obstacle to its eradication.

You can find the full-text here: 

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/author/WERSJEV8TERZFN8CCPFC?target=10.1111/jiec.13359.

NEW PUBLICATION IN ENERGY ECONOMICS

The GEAR members Carmen Córcoles, Pilar Osorio, Luis Antonio López and Jorge Zafrilla have recently published in Energy Policy the paper entitled: «The carbon footprint of the empty Castilla-La Mancha».

This paper is part of our regional project that has just started! We analyzed the carbon footprint of Castilla-La Mancha households and their mitigation potential by using the environmentally extended multiregional input-output model and HBS microdata.

What did we find? Small municipalities generate more direct emissions and have a higher carbon intensity because the lack of transport services leads them to use more private vehicles. The larger the size of the municipality, the lower the carbon intensity.

We found that the mitigation potential of the CLM household carbon footprint accounts for 20.1% Adopting a more sustainable consumption pattern could lower emissions by 2.43 tCO2!

The 43% of households in Castilla-La Mancha, which are living in municipalities of less than 10,000 inhabitants, have more difficulties modifying their housing and transport behavior than the largest municipalities. Mitigation policies must especially support small municipalities and their inhabitants. Infrastructure and social services must be developed to facilitate a change in their consumption patterns!

50 days open access: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1i4Bw14YGgpcrh…

NEW PUBLICATION IN STRUCTURAL CHANGE AND ECONOMIC DYNAMICS

The GEAR members Pilar Osorio, María Ángeles Cadarso, María Ángeles Tobarra and Ángela García-Alaminos have recently published in Structural Change and Economic Dynamics the paper entitled: «Carbon footprint of tourism in Spain: Covid-19 impact and a look forward to recovery».

This paper quantifies the impact of the pandemic on Spanish tourism carbon footprint by using an environmentally extended multiregional input-output model. It also provides several scenarios to evaluate possible trends of tourism recovery and their impact on emissions. The results show that more ambition is needed: major changes in consumption patterns and efficiency are required to get on track towards the Net Zero targets.

We invite you to read the article and hope you find it interesting.

Link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0954349X23000358

NEW PUBLICATION IN GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE

The journal Global Environmental Change published a new research by GEAR member. This article is the result of a new collaboration between Luis Antonio López, María Ángeles Cadarso and Mateo Ortiz with Prof. Xuemei Jiang (Capital University of Economics and Business, Beijing). In the paper entitled “The emissions responsibility accounting of multinational enterprises for an efficient climate policy”, the authors propose a novel method to allocate CO2 emissions among countries integrating the emissions transfers through multinationals and foreign investment. This method, called technology-adjusted investment-based emission accounting (TIBA), rewards the home regions of multinationals that transfer clean technology to other regions through their affiliates.

The main finding of the work indicates that the application of the TIBA method on a global scale has the potential to reduce global CO2 emissions up to 16%.

We invite you to read the article and hope you find it interesting.

Link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2022.102545

NEW PUBLICATION IN STRUCTURAL CHANGE AND ECONOMIC DYNAMICS

GEAR members Mateo Ortiz, Maria Ángeles Cadarso and Luis Antonio López achieve a new publication on the global supply chains of multinational enterprises, this time in collaboration with our colleague Xuemei Jiang of Capital University of Economics and Business (Beijing, China).

In the paper entitled “The trade-off between the economic and environmental footprints of multinationals’ foreign affiliates”, the authors trace the CO2 emissions and value added generated along the global supply chains of multinationals and quantify the trade-offs between their economic benefits and environmental impacts. They found that value added and ownership are concentrated in developed countries, while CO2 emissions are mostly released in developing countries.

The article also provides comparisons between the economic-environmental performance of multinationals and domestic-owned companies. In this respect, it finds that foreign affiliates in OECD countries show higher CO2 intensities and carbon leakages than the domestic firms in the same countries.

We strongly encourage you to read this great article on a very interesting topic. We hope you like it!

Link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.strueco.2022.05.005