Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/74270 
Year of Publication: 
2007
Series/Report no.: 
Nota di Lavoro No. 93.2007
Publisher: 
Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM), Milano
Abstract: 
Combining unique data bases on emissions with sectoral output and employment data, we study the sources of the fall in world-wide SO2 emissions and estimate the impact of trade on emissions. Contrarily to concerns raised by environmentalists, an emission-decomposition exercise shows that scale effects are dominated by technique effects working towards a reduction in emissions. A second exercise comparing the actual trade situation with an autarky benchmark estimates that trade, by allowing clean countries to become net importers of emissions, leads to a 10% increase in world emissions with respect to autarky in 1990, a figure that shrinks to 3.5% in 2000. Additionally, back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that emissions related to transport are of the same magnitude. In a third exercise, we use linear programming to simulate extreme situations where world emissions are either maximal or minimal. It turns out that effective emissions correspond to a 90% reduction with respect to the worst case, but that another 80% reduction could be reached if emissions were minimal.
Subjects: 
Trade
Growth
Environment
Decomposition
Embodied Emissions in Trade
Transport
JEL: 
F11
Q56
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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