IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jresou/v6y2017i4p62-d116393.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A New Composite Index for Greenhouse Gases: Climate Science Meets Social Science

Author

Listed:
  • Heidi K. Edmonds

    (Centre for Efficiency and Productivity Analysis (CEPA), School of Economics, University of Queensland, Brisbane 4072, QLD, Australia)

  • Julie E. Lovell

    (Centre for Efficiency and Productivity Analysis (CEPA), School of Economics, University of Queensland, Brisbane 4072, QLD, Australia)

  • C. A. Knox Lovell

    (Centre for Efficiency and Productivity Analysis (CEPA), School of Economics, University of Queensland, Brisbane 4072, QLD, Australia)

Abstract

Global greenhouse gas emissions have increased at a rate of nearly 2% per year since 1970, and the rate of increase has been increasing. The contribution of greenhouse gases to global warming constitutes an environmental management challenge requiring interdisciplinary effort and international cooperation. In an effort to meet this challenge, the Kyoto Protocol imposes limits on aggregate CO 2 -equivalent emissions of four greenhouse gases, although it permits countries to trade off one gas for another at specified rates. This requires a definition of trade-off rates, which the Protocol specifies as Global Warming Potentials, although these have been controversial since their introduction. The primary source of concern has been the constancy of the trade-off rates, both across countries and through time. We propose a new composite index that allows freely variable trade-off rates, thereby facilitating the design of efficient abatement policy. In a pair of exercises we compare our composite index with that used by the Protocol. In both exercises we reject the constancy of trade-off rates, although despite the significantly different weighting schemes we find a degree of concordance between the two greenhouse gas indices.

Suggested Citation

  • Heidi K. Edmonds & Julie E. Lovell & C. A. Knox Lovell, 2017. "A New Composite Index for Greenhouse Gases: Climate Science Meets Social Science," Resources, MDPI, vol. 6(4), pages 1-16, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jresou:v:6:y:2017:i:4:p:62-:d:116393
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/6/4/62/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/6/4/62/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Picazo-Tadeo, Andrés J. & Castillo-Giménez, Juana & Beltrán-Esteve, Mercedes, 2014. "An intertemporal approach to measuring environmental performance with directional distance functions: Greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 173-182.
    2. Andrew P. Schurer & Michael E. Mann & Ed Hawkins & Simon F. B. Tett & Gabriele C. Hegerl, 2017. "Importance of the pre-industrial baseline for likelihood of exceeding Paris goals," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 7(8), pages 563-567, August.
    3. Lovell, C. A. Knox & Pastor, Jesus T., 1999. "Radial DEA models without inputs or without outputs," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 118(1), pages 46-51, October.
    4. Balk,Bert M., 2012. "Price and Quantity Index Numbers," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107404960, September.
    5. Zhou, P. & Delmas, M.A. & Kohli, A., 2017. "Constructing meaningful environmental indices: A nonparametric frontier approach," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 21-34.
    6. Charnes, A. & Cooper, W. W. & Rhodes, E., 1978. "Measuring the efficiency of decision making units," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 2(6), pages 429-444, November.
    7. Alan S. Manne & Richard G. Richels, 2001. "An alternative approach to establishing trade-offs among greenhouse gases," Nature, Nature, vol. 410(6829), pages 675-677, April.
    8. Ebert, Udo & Welsch, Heinz, 2004. "Meaningful environmental indices: a social choice approach," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 270-283, March.
    9. David F. Bradford, 2001. "Time, money and tradeoffs," Nature, Nature, vol. 410(6829), pages 649-650, April.
    10. Kandlikar, Milind, 1995. "The relative role of trace gas emissions in greenhouse abatement policies," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 23(10), pages 879-883, October.
    11. Nordhaus, William D, 1977. "Economic Growth and Climate: The Carbon Dioxide Problem," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(1), pages 341-346, February.
    12. Richard Schmalensee, 1993. "Comparing Greenhouse Gases for Policy Purposes," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1), pages 245-256.
    13. Zhou, P. & Ang, B.W. & Poh, K.L., 2006. "Comparing aggregating methods for constructing the composite environmental index: An objective measure," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(3), pages 305-311, September.
    14. Tone, Kaoru, 2001. "A slacks-based measure of efficiency in data envelopment analysis," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 130(3), pages 498-509, May.
    15. Millington, H.K. & Lovell, J.E. & Lovell, C.A.K., 2015. "A framework for guiding the management of urban stream health," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 222-233.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Karagiannis, Giannis & Ravanos, Panagiotis, 2023. "A composite indicator of social inclusion for EU based on the inverted BoD model," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).

    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. Fusco, Elisa & Vidoli, Francesco & Rogge, Nicky, 2020. "Spatial directional robust Benefit of the Doubt approach in presence of undesirable output: An application to Italian waste sector," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    2. Yuan, Qianqian & Fang Chin Cheng, Charles & Wang, Jiayu & Zhu, Tian-Tian & Wang, Ke, 2020. "Inclusive and sustainable industrial development in China: An efficiency-based analysis for current status and improving potentials," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 268(C).
    3. Van Puyenbroeck, Tom & Rogge, Nicky, 2017. "Geometric mean quantity index numbers with Benefit-of-the-Doubt weights," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 256(3), pages 1004-1014.
    4. Jie Zhang & Majed Alharthi & Qaiser Abbas & Weiqing Li & Muhammad Mohsin & Khan Jamal & Farhad Taghizadeh-Hesary, 2020. "Reassessing the Environmental Kuznets Curve in Relation to Energy Efficiency and Economic Growth," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(20), pages 1-21, October.
    5. Pastor, Jesus T. & Lovell, C.A. Knox & Aparicio, Juan, 2020. "Defining a new graph inefficiency measure for the proportional directional distance function and introducing a new Malmquist productivity index," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 281(1), pages 222-230.
    6. H. K. Millington & J. E. Lovell & C. A. K. Lovell, 2013. "Using Fieldwork, GIS and DEA to Guide Management of Urban Stream Health," CEPA Working Papers Series WP072013, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    7. Zhou, P. & Wang, M., 2016. "Carbon dioxide emissions allocation: A review," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 47-59.
    8. Heidi K. Edmonds & C. A. Knox Lovell & Julie E. Lovell, 2022. "The Inequities of National Adaptation to Climate Change," Resources, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-26, December.
    9. Wei-Kang Wang & Wen-Min Lu & Yu-Han Wang, 2013. "The relationship between bank performance and intellectual capital in East Asia," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 47(2), pages 1041-1062, February.
    10. Xiang Ji & Jie Wu & Qingyuan Zhu & Jiasen Sun, 2019. "Using a hybrid heterogeneous DEA method to benchmark China’s sustainable urbanization: an empirical study," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 278(1), pages 281-335, July.
    11. Jamal Ouenniche & Skarleth Carrales, 2018. "Assessing efficiency profiles of UK commercial banks: a DEA analysis with regression-based feedback," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 266(1), pages 551-587, July.
    12. Richard S. J. Tol & Seán Lyons, 2008. "Incorporating GHG Emission Costs in the Economic Appraisal of Projects Supported by State Development Agencies," Papers WP247, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    13. Vincenzo Patrizii & Anna Pettini & Giuliano Resce, 2017. "The Cost of Well-Being," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 133(3), pages 985-1010, September.
    14. Georgiou, Andreas C. & Thanassoulis, Emmanuel & Papadopoulou, Alexandra, 2022. "Using data envelopment analysis in markovian decision making," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 298(1), pages 276-292.
    15. P. Zhou & B. Ang, 2009. "Comparing MCDA Aggregation Methods in Constructing Composite Indicators Using the Shannon-Spearman Measure," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 94(1), pages 83-96, October.
    16. Zhou, P. & Delmas, M.A. & Kohli, A., 2017. "Constructing meaningful environmental indices: A nonparametric frontier approach," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 21-34.
    17. Juan Aparicio & Magdalena Kapelko, 2019. "Enhancing the Measurement of Composite Indicators of Corporate Social Performance," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 144(2), pages 807-826, July.
    18. Mai, Nhat Chi, 2015. "Efficiency of the banking system in Vietnam under financial liberalization," OSF Preprints qsf6d, Center for Open Science.
    19. Hatefi, S.M. & Torabi, S.A., 2010. "A common weight MCDA-DEA approach to construct composite indicators," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 114-120, November.
    20. Liu, Yang & Dilanchiev, Azer & Xu, Kaifei & Hajiyeva, Aytan Merdan, 2022. "Financing SMEs and business development as new post Covid-19 economic recovery determinants," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 554-567.

    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:gam:jresou:v:6:y:2017:i:4:p:62-:d:116393. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.