COMPARING EUROPEAN CO_2 EMISSION TRENDS BEFORE AND AFTER THE 2008 ECONOMIC CRISIS: A CASE STUDY OF FOUR EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

摘要

It is now generally agreed upon that climate change is one of the greatest environmental problems of recent times and carbon dioxide emissions are the primary greenhouse gases driving it. The continuous rise in global carbon dioxide (CO_2) emissions has attracted the attention of the international community and in December 2015 the Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) adopted the Paris Agreement to limit the global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees Celsius above their pre-industrial levels. This Agreement, entered into force in November 2016, requires all parties to follow nationally determined contributions to support the global effort. The European Union (EU) has ratified the Agreement and is actively working toward reducing CO_2 emissions from all sectors of its economy. Its energy climate plan, "Roadmap 2050," outlines the pathways to achieving a low-carbon economy in Europe by reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80 to 95 percent below their 1990 levels by the year 2050. Intermediate targets of a 20-percent reduction by 2020, a 40-percent reduction by 2030, and a 60-percent reduction by 2040 also were adopted. However, CO_2 emissions significantly depend on the economic performance of a country or group of countries. For example, the total CO_2 emissions in the EU-28 have decreased by 553 million tons of CO_2 equivalent (MtCO_2) or 13.64 percent between 2004 and 2012. But the overall reduction masks the temporal variation between the pre-economic crisis period (2004 to 2008) and the crisis period (2008 to 2012). Almost 76 percent of the emission reduction was achieved (421 MtCO_2) during the period of economic crisis whereas only 24 percent (or 132 MtCO_2) came from the pre-recession period of economic growth (2004 to 2008). This paper attempts to understand why this was the case and what the implications are for environmental policy.