IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wsi/ccexxx/v03y2012i03ns2010007812500170.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

MODELING LAND-USE CHANGES IN A GLOBAL CGE: ASSESSING THE EU BIOFUEL MANDATES WITH THE MIRAGE-BioF MODEL

Author

Listed:
  • DAVID LABORDE

    (International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Market Trade and Institutions Division, 2033 K Street NW, Washington DC, USA)

  • HUGO VALIN

    (International Institute on Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Ecosystems Services and Management Program, Schlossplatz 1, Laxenburg, Austria;
    UMR INRA-AgroParisTech "Economic Publique", 16 rue Claude Bernard, 75005 Paris, France)

Abstract

Evaluation of indirect land-use changes due to biofuels has been very controversial over the past few years, as doubts have arisen about the environmental benefits of growing crops for use as a substitute for fossil fuels. This paper presents an overview of the MIRAGE-BioF CGE modeling approach to biofuel policies assessment. Our framework introduces new innovative features that strengthen the relevance of the methodology. In particular, a more detailed and consistent database has been developed to represent the sectors and substitution mechanisms at play. Moreover, the model used has been improved in several important ways to better reproduce the agricultural supply function and land-use change. However, we also emphasize the critical uncertainties that prevent us from being able to provide a precise two-digit figure on the extent of land-use change and associated emissions. We illustrate these efforts with the case of EU biofuel mandates implications. We show that emissions from the current national targets in the EU could lead to an indirect effect of land-use expansion ranging from 1 ha per TJ consumed to 12 ha per TJ with a median value of 3.4 ha per TJ. The associated emissions in a 20-year period would range from 10gCO2/MJ to 115gCO2/MJ, with a median value of 38gCO2/MJ. These results seriously question the sustainability of the current EU biofuels policy and emphasize the even more dramatic effect of a biodiesel-oriented EU biofuel program, which was found to emit two times more than an EU ethanol-oriented program.

Suggested Citation

  • David Laborde & Hugo Valin, 2012. "MODELING LAND-USE CHANGES IN A GLOBAL CGE: ASSESSING THE EU BIOFUEL MANDATES WITH THE MIRAGE-BioF MODEL," Climate Change Economics (CCE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 3(03), pages 1-39.
    • Handle: RePEc:wsi:ccexxx:v:03:y:2012:i:03:n:s2010007812500170
    DOI: 10.1142/S2010007812500170
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S2010007812500170
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1142/S2010007812500170?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kanlaya J. Barr & Bruce A. Babcock & Miguel A. Carriquiry & Andre M. Nassar & Leila Harfuch, 2011. "Agricultural Land Elasticities in the United States and Brazil," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 33(3), pages 449-462.
    2. Huang, Haixiao & Khanna, Madhu, 2010. "An Econometric Analysis of U.S. Crop Yield and Cropland Acreage: Implications for the Impact of Climate Change," 2010 Annual Meeting, July 25-27, 2010, Denver, Colorado 61527, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    3. Michael J. Roberts & Wolfram Schlenker, 2013. "Identifying Supply and Demand Elasticities of Agricultural Commodities: Implications for the US Ethanol Mandate," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(6), pages 2265-2295, October.
    4. Bruce A. Babcock & Miguel Carriquiry, 2010. "Exploration of Certain Aspects of CARB's Approach to Modeling Indirect Land Use from Expanded Biodiesel Production, An," Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI) Publications (archive only) 10-sr105, Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) at Iowa State University.
    5. Kretschmer, Bettina & Peterson, Sonja & Ignaciuk, Adriana M., 2008. "Integrating biofuels into the DART model," Kiel Working Papers 1472, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    6. Bouët, Antoine & Dimaranan, Betina V. & Valin, Hugo, 2010. "Modeling the global trade and environmental impacts of biofuel policies," IFPRI discussion papers 1018, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    7. Hochman, Gal & Rajagopal, Deepak & Timilsina, Govinda & Zilberman, David, 2011. "The role of inventory adjustments in quantifying factors causing food price inflation," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5744, The World Bank.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wieser, Christina, 2011. "Determinants of the Growth Elasticity of Poverty Reduction: Why the Impact on Poverty Reduction is Large in Some Developing Countries and Small in Others," Conference papers 332062, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    2. Carriquiry, Miguel & Elobeid, Amani & Goodrich, Ryan, 2016. "Comparing the trends and strength of determinants to deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon in consideration of biofuel policies in Brazil and the United States," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 235888, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    3. Dimaranan, Betina V. & Laborde, David, 2012. "Ethanol Trade Policy and Global Biofuel Mandates," 2012 Conference, August 18-24, 2012, Foz do Iguacu, Brazil 126869, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    4. Hyunseok Kim & GianCarlo Moschini, 2018. "The Dynamics of Supply: U.S. Corn and Soybeans in the Biofuel Era," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 94(4), pages 593-613.
    5. Meyer, Kevin Michael, 2017. "Three essays on environmental and resource economics," ISU General Staff Papers 201701010800006585, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    6. Magrini, Emiliano & Morales-Opazo, Cristian & Balie, Jean, 2014. "Supply response along the value chain in selected SSA countries: the case of grains," 2014: Food, Resources and Conflict, December 7-9, 2014. San Diego, California 197193, International Agricultural Trade Research Consortium.
    7. Wyatt Thompson & Joe Dewbre & Patrick Westfhoff & Kateryna Schroeder & Simone Pieralli & Ignacio Perez Dominguez, 2017. "Introducing medium-and long-term productivity responses in Aglink-Cosimo," JRC Research Reports JRC105738, Joint Research Centre.
    8. John Baffes & Damir Cosic, 2014. "Global Economic Prospects : Commodity Markets Outlook, January 2014," World Bank Publications, The World Bank, number 18996.
    9. Guilherme DePaula, 2018. "Technology Adoption and the Agricultural Supply Response Function," Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) Publications 18-wp582, Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) at Iowa State University.
    10. Laborde, David & Valin, Hugo, 2010. "Modelling Indirect Land Use Effects Of Biofuels:," 14th ICABR Conference, June 16-18, 2010, Ravello, Italy 188100, International Consortium on Applied Bioeconomy Research (ICABR).
    11. Condon, Nicole & Klemick, Heather & Wolverton, Ann, 2015. "Impacts of ethanol policy on corn prices: A review and meta-analysis of recent evidence," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 63-73.
    12. Samuel Evans & Matthew Potts, 2015. "Effect of Agricultural Commodity Prices on Species Abundance of US Grassland Birds," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 62(3), pages 549-565, November.
    13. PHILIPPIDIS George & Helming John & Tabeau Andrzej, 2017. "Land Supply Elasticities," JRC Research Reports JRC106592, Joint Research Centre.
    14. Md Zabid Iqbal & Bruce A. Babcock, 2018. "Global growing‐area elasticities of key agricultural crops estimated using dynamic heterogeneous panel methods," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 49(6), pages 681-690, November.
    15. Mekbib G. Haile & Tesfamicheal Wossen & Kindie Tesfaye & Joachim von Braun, 2017. "Impact of Climate Change, Weather Extremes, and Price Risk on Global Food Supply," Economics of Disasters and Climate Change, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 55-75, June.
    16. Nicholas J. Pates & Nathan P. Hendricks, 2021. "Fields from Afar: Evidence of Heterogeneity in United States Corn Rotational Response from Remote Sensing Data," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 103(5), pages 1759-1782, October.
    17. DePaula, Guilherme M., 2018. "Relational Contracts, Technology Adoption, and the Agricultural Supply Response Function," 2018 Annual Meeting, August 5-7, Washington, D.C. 274383, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    18. Hendricks, Nathan P. & Smith, Aaron D., 2012. "Comparing the Bias of Dynamic Panel Estimators in Multilevel Panels: Individual versus Grouped Data," 2012 Annual Meeting, August 12-14, 2012, Seattle, Washington 124548, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    19. Hendricks, Nathan P. & Er, Emrah, 2018. "Changes in cropland area in the United States and the role of CRP," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 15-23.
    20. Goodwin, Barry K. & Marra, Michele C. & Piggott, Nicholas E. & Mueller, Steffen, 2012. "Is Yield Endogenous to Price? An Empirical Evaluation of Inter- and Intra-Seasonal Corn Yield Response," 2012 Annual Meeting, August 12-14, 2012, Seattle, Washington 124884, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wsi:ccexxx:v:03:y:2012:i:03:n:s2010007812500170. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Tai Tone Lim (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.worldscinet.com/cce/cce.shtml .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.