Effects decomposition: separation of carbon emissions decoupling and decoupling effort in aggregated EU-15

Mara Madaleno () and Victor Moutinho
Additional contact information
Mara Madaleno: University of Aveiro
Victor Moutinho: University of Aveiro

Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, 2018, vol. 20, issue 1, No 11, 198 pages

Abstract: Abstract The ecological burden of economic growth is a highly discussed issue. In this article, we focus on the set of European Union (EU) 15 countries in the period 1995–2014. We first decomposed emissions into six effects and afterward the decoupling-effort index was used to calculate the magnitude of impact that each factor has on it, considering the country group. For the group of the EU-15 in the pre-Kyoto period, CO2 changes are only negative in 1998 and 1999 considering the initial view (with respect to the base year of 1995), being positive for all the other years. This positive effect means increased emissions, for which many contributed the positive and significant effects of income per capita and the population effects. The most significant reductions in CO2 changes are verified in the years after the effective Kyoto commitment and observed mainly in the alternative view (year to year changes), for which many contributed the negative and significant effects of carbon intensity of petroleum products, energy intensity and conversion efficiency in the overall period. The effects elasticity decoupling and decoupling effort do not seem to be controlled by the internal drivers of CO2 emissions. Policy makers should bet in policy instruments pointed in the sense of strengthening energy efficiency, in reducing petroleum products consumption and therefore dependency and on the structure of added value generated by the economy.

Keywords: Carbon emissions decoupling; Decoupling-effort index; European Union 15; Petroleum products dependency; Energy intensity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10668-018-0238-4 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:endesu:v:20:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1007_s10668-018-0238-4

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10668

DOI: 10.1007/s10668-018-0238-4

Access Statistics for this article

Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development is currently edited by Luc Hens

More articles in Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().