Corporate investments in supply chain sustainability: Selecting instruments in the agri-food industry

Submitted by Manuela Fonseca on

Private investments to address environmental issues are perceived as a powerful engine of sustainability. For the agri-food sector, multiple instruments have been developed to green supply chains. Yet little is known about the underlying process and conditions under which green sourcing concerns lead to the adoption of specific sustainability instruments among agri-food companies.

Agriculture

Construction of a Chilean Energy Matrix Portraying Energy Source Substitution: A System Dynamics Approach

Submitted by Manuela Fonseca on

The energy matrix is a useful tool for understanding the trends of production and consumption in a country and for evaluating long-term energy policies. This paper presents a behavioral simulation model of the evolution of Chile’s energy matrix. The model is developed and calibrated by considering a dynamic substitution of energy sources.

Energy

Payments for Ecosystem Services and Motivational Crowding in Colombia’s Amazon Piedmont

Submitted by Manuela Fonseca on

Globally, there is an increasing level of funding targeted to pay farmers and rural communities for the provision of ecosystem services, for example through Payments for Ecosystem or Environmental Services (PES) schemes and pilots for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation, and maintaining or enhancing forest carbon stocks (REDD +).

Experiments, Conservation, Forestry

Assessing the impacts of transport policies through energy system simulation: The case of the Medellin Metropolitan Area, Colombia

Submitted by Manuela Fonseca on

The transport sector contributes to climate change, and it has been the target of public interventions to improve quality of life and reduce CO2 emissions. The Medellin metropolitan area (Colombia) has developed a mass transportation system called Metro de Medellin that integrates train lines, a tram line, BRTs, gondola lift systems, a bicycle-sharing system and hybrid buses to reduce traffic and CO2 emissions.

Policy Design

Behavioural economics: Cash incentives avert deforestation

Submitted by Manuela Fonseca on
EfD Authors:

There is tension in developing countries between financial incentives to clear forests and climate regulation benefits of preserving trees. Now research shows that paying private forest owners in Uganda reduced deforestation, adding to the debate on the use of monetary incentives in forest conservation.

Experiments, Conservation

Temperature and Economic Performance of Chinese Manufacturing Firms

Submitted by Eugenia Leon on
EfD Authors:

This paper uses year-to-year fluctuations in temperature within counties to identify its effects on economic outcomes of Chinese manufacturing firms. We find four primary results. First, profit exhibits nonlinear responses to temperature. Profit decreases with higher summer temperatures and increases with higher winter temperatures. With temperature bins as temperature variables, profit increases with temperature up to 12-15°C, and then declines at higher temperatures.

Policy Design

Are renewable energy policies climate friendly? The role of capacity constraints and market power

Submitted by Hang Yin on
EfD Authors:

This paper studies the impacts of renewable energy support policies on energy prices, fossil
fuel supply and thus carbon emissions from fossil fuels. Such supports are climate friendly if
the renewables are already competitive against fossil fuels. But if the renewables are not yet
competitive, the climate change impacts are often ambiguous and are sensitive to capacity
constraints of renewables production and to the fossil fuel market structure. If the renewables

Climate Change, Energy

Global warming and local air pollution have reduced wheat yields in India

Submitted by Eugenia Leon on

We use regression analysis on data from 208 districts over the period 1981–2009 to examine the impact of temperature and solar radiation (affected by pollution from aerosols) on wheat yields in India. We find that a 1 °C increase in average daily maximum and minimum temperatures tends to lower yields by 2–4% each. A 1% increase in solar radiation increases yields by nearly 1%. Yields are estimated to be about 5.2% lower than they would have been if temperatures had not increased during the study period.

Agriculture, Climate Change