The Global Environmental Impacts of China's Accession to the WTO: A 20-Year Review.

Robust empirical assessments of the long-term cumulative global effects of free trade and economic globalization on the environment are limited. This account fills this gap by constructing a dynamic computable general equilibrium model to estimate the environmental effects of a milestone in the recent history of trade liberalization: China's 20-year World Trade Organization (WTO) accession. The modeling shows that China's accession could have resulted in an increase in the global cumulative greenhouse gases (GHGs), sulfur dioxide (SO2), and nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions by roughly 14,000 Mt CO2-eq, 64 Mt, and 46 Mt, respectively. The global production scale effect contributed to most of these estimated increases. The regional total output composition effect also caused higher emissions. Meanwhile, the sectoral output composition effect helped reduce total emissions to a limited extent. Fortunately, a package of emission abatement measures led to a decrease in emission factors and a drop in the global cumulative emissions of GHGs, SO2, and NOx. The findings suggest that to enjoy the free trade and economic globalization benefits and minimize the induced emission increases, it is vitally important to systemically reduce emissions across the entire economy and nurture a low-carbon trade regime.

Assessing the Environmental-Health-Economic Co-Benefits from Solar Electricity and Thermal Heating in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

This article quantifies the environmental, health, and economic co-benefits from the use of solar electricity and heat generation in the Ger area (a sub-district of traditional residences and private houses) in Ulaanbaatar (UB), Mongolia. The quantification of the featured co-benefits is based on calculating emissions reductions from the installation of the solar photovoltaic (PV) and solar water heaters. A user-friendly spreadsheet tool is developed to shed much-needed light on the steps involved in estimating these co-benefits. The tool simulates the hourly electricity and thermal energy generation, taking into account local meteorological conditions, local geographical data, and technical specifications of the solar power and heat generation systems. The tool is then employed to evaluate two intervention scenarios: (1) Installing 100 MW solar electricity, including both rooftop PV and community grids, to reduce the peak-load burden on the grid; (2) Providing solar thermal heaters for 20,000 households to replace the heating load demand from the existing heat only boilers (HOBs) in UB. The modelling results reveal a significant reduction in GHG emissions and fine particulate matter (PM2.5) (PM that is 2.5 microns or less in diameter) by 311,000 tons and 767 tons, respectively, as well as nearly 6500 disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) and an annual saving of USD 7.7 million for the local economy. The article concludes that the mainstreaming spreadsheet-based estimation tools like the one used in this article into decision-making processes can fill important research gaps (e.g., usability of assessment tools) and help translate co-benefits analyses into action in Mongolia and beyond.

Breaking down barriers on PV trade will facilitate global carbon mitigation.

The global trade of solar photovoltaic (PV) products substantially contributes to increases in solar power generation and carbon emissions reductions. This paper depicts global PV product trade patterns, explores emissions reduction potential, and evaluates the impeding effect of tariff barriers on global PV product trade and emissions reductions. Solar power generation will result in a reduction of emissions in a range of 50-180 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2e) between 2017 and 2060 in a business as usual (BAU) scenario. Compared with BAU, during 2017-2060, global total solar cell and module production and installation will increase by roughly 750 gigawatts (GW) if half of the status quo trade barrier are removed, while it will decrease by 160-370 GW under tensioned trade barrier scenarios. Trade barrier reduction by half from the 2017 status quo level will increase the net carbon emissions mitigation potential by 4-12 GtCO2e by 2060, while extra trade barrier imposition will result in global net carbon emissions mitigation potential decreasing by up to 3-4 GtCO2e by 2060. Well-coordinated policy and institutional reforms are recommended to facilitate PV product trade and to deliver the related global environmental benefits.

Sustainable wastewater management in Indonesia's fish processing industry: Bringing governance into scenario analysis.

The government of Indonesia has pledged to meet ambitious greenhouse gas mitigation goals in its Nationally Determined Contribution as well as reduce water pollution through its water management policies. A set of technologies could conceivably help achieving these goals simultaneously. However, the installation and widespread application of these technologies will require knowledge on how governance affects the implementation of existing policies as well as cooperation across sectors, administrative levels, and stakeholders. This paper integrates key governance variables--involving enforcement capacity, institutional coordination and multi-actor networks--into an analysis of the potential impacts on greenhouse gases and chemical oxygen demand in seven wastewater treatment scenarios for the fish processing industry in Indonesia. The analysis demonstrates that there is an increase of 24% in both CH4 and CO2 emissions between 2015 and 2030 in the business-as-usual scenario due to growth in production volumes. Interestingly, in scenarios focusing only on strengthening capacities to enforce national water policies, expected total greenhouse gas emissions are about five times higher than in the business-as-usual in 2030; this is due to growth in CH4 emissions during the handling and landfilling of sludge, as well as in CO2 generated from the electricity required for wastewater treatment. In the scenarios where there is significant cooperation across sectors, administrative levels, and stakeholders to integrate climate and water goals, both estimated chemical oxygen demand and CH4 emissions are considerably lower than in the business-as-usual and the national water policy scenarios.

Modelling of sectoral emissions of short-lived and long-lived climate pollutants under various control technological strategies.

In India, air pollution has been acknowledged as the fifth most imperative cause of mortality due to high emissions from burning of fossil fuels in industries (brick kilns and thermal power plants), biomass burning, agricultural residue burning and transportation. The emissions of black carbon (BC) with the other air pollutants (CO2, CH4, N2O, HFC, PFC, and SF6), is taking considerable attention in the world because of its ability to effect air quality and weather. The Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP) region has been considered as one of the greatest source of emissions in India. The short lived climate pollutants (SLCPs) like BC, methane, tropospheric ozone and hydrofluorocarbons have been considered as a climate forcing agent along with CO2. These pollutants have shorter lifetime in atmosphere compared to CO2 and account for the 40-45% of global warming. Among them, BC has a great global warming ability and can increase the Earth's temperature much quicker than carbon dioxide. After CO2, the second highest donors to global warming are CH4 and BC. Recognising the importance of these pollutants, daily concentrations of BC, PM2.5 and PM10 were monitored in three district of IGP during January 2015 to December 2016. The GAINS model was used for assessment of pollution effects, emissions of SLCPs, GHGs and identifying appropriate control actions. The outcomes of modelling advocate that low carbon strategies are more competent to reduce emissions as compared to other control strategies. But, application of low carbon strategies would be restricted by the accessibility of clean fuels. In some cases, finance will be needed to support monitoring of air pollution and other supportive technologies.