This thesis is a collection of four papers that explore the economics of forest carbon sequestration and optimal harvest decision, considering carbon storage in three major carbon pools: biomass, dead organic matter and wood product. The first three papers use a dynamic programming approach to determine the optimal harvest decision for a forest stand in the boreal forest of western Canada that provides both timber harvest volume and carbon sequestration services. The last paper uses an analytical model to confirm the findings in the first three papers that show that the optimal rotation age is dependent on the carbon stocks in the dead organic matter and wood product pools. In the first paper, the state of the forest at any point in time is described by stand age and the amount of carbon in the dead organic matter pool. The results of the study indicate that while optimal harvest age is relatively insensitive to carbon stocks in dead organic matter, initial carbon stock levels significantly affect economic returns to carbon management. In the second paper, the system is described by three state variables: stand age and the amount of carbon in the dead organic matter and wood product pools. The results of the study suggest that optimal behaviour of a landowner does not change much between cases where the market considers and ignores carbon storage in the wood product pool or between cases where the market considers and ignores fossil fuel carbon emissions. The third paper demonstrates that alternative baselines have little or no effect on the optimal decision, but can have a large effect on financial return to landowner. In the third paper, the forest stand is described by four state variables: the age of the stand, the initial stand age, carbon stocks in the DOM pool and the initial carbon stocks in the DOM pool. In the last paper, an analytical model is used to demonstrate that the optimal harvest decision is dependent on the initial DOM and wood product stocks. This finding is consistent with the results in the previous papers. / Forest Biology and Management

No description available.

As mudanças climáticas provocadas pelo Homem induziram a formação de um mercado que segue atividades que afirmam contemplar aspectos de desenvolvimento sustentável. O mecanismo de desenvolvimento limpo (MDL) é um dos instrumentos de flexibilização estabelecido pelo protocolo de Quioto com o objetivo de facilitar o cumprimento das metas de redução de emissão de gases de efeito estufa (GEE), definidas para os países que o ratificaram, tratando do desenvolvimento e da implantação de projetos visando à redução de emissões de gases de efeito estufa nos países em desenvolvimento, financiado pelos países desenvolvidos, em troca de créditos para serem abatidos dos seus compromissos de redução de emissões. Os projetos que se habilitarem à condição de projeto de MDL deverão cumprir uma série de procedimentos até receber a chancela da ONU e, consequentemente, certificar as reduções alcançadas. O presente trabalho tem o objetivo de analisar quais são os requisitos para a implantação de um MDL e discutir a real promoção da sustentabilidade do dispositivo, bem como a viabilidade econômica e ambiental, conforme preconiza o artigo 12 do Protocolo de Quioto. Para o cumprimento da presente tarefa foi necessária a análise dos antecedentes do Mecanismo de Desenvolvimento Limpo, a saber: As mudanças climáticas globais, a Convenção-Quadro das Nações Unidas sobre Mudança do Clima e o Protocolo de Quioto. Em seguida foram analisados dois projetos utilizando MDL sob dois aspectos diferenciados. O primeiro advindo de reduções de emissões em um aterro sanitário, na cidade de São Paulo, o segundo relacionado à silvicultura, no interior do mesmo Estado. / Climate change caused by man induced the formation of a market that follows activities that claim to include elements of sustainable development. The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is one of the Kyoto Protocol flexibilization instruments in order to facilitate the achievement of greenhouse gases (GHGs) emission reducing goals defined for the countries which have ratified it, treating of development and implementation of projects in order to reduce GHGs emission in developing countries, financed by developed countries, in exchange for credits to be deducted from their commitments to reduce emissions. Projects that qualify for CDM project status must meet a series of procedures to receive the United Nation (UN) approval and consequently, certify the achieved reductions. This study aims to examine which are the requirements for implementation of a CDM and discuss the actual promotion of the device sustainability as well as economic and environmental viability, as defined in article 12 of the Kyoto Protocol. In fulfillment of this task it was necessary to analyze the background of the CDM, as follows: Global climate changes, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol. Next, two projects were analyzed using CDM under two different aspects. The first about emission reductions in a landfill, in the city of Sao Paulo, the second related to growing eucalyptus, in the countryside of the same state.

nÃo hà / This work aims to make an economic analysis of the Carbon Market, as a new international commerce that, each day, atracts new parts or investors, either to assume voluntary or imposed greenhouse effect gas reducion marks, or to especulate with this marketâs price variation and opportunity. Innitially there is a brief historic description of this market dawn, as well as the fundamental principles that leaded to its creation. The economic analysis itself begins with the suppliers and demandants exclusives characteristics, as well as the price formation in this market. The main objective of this research is, however, to study the negative effects, caused mainly by de excessive and not homogeneous taxing and positive effects that appears with the motivation that some internationals taxes offer to those who preffers the technological development other to the ordinary acquisition of international CREs. / Este trabalho procura realizar uma anÃlise econÃmica no Mercado de Carbono, como um novo setor de comÃrcio internacional que, a cada dia, atrai novos investidores ou participantes, seja assumindo metas obrigatÃrias ou voluntÃrias de reduÃÃo de emissÃes de gases de efeito estufa, seja para especular com a sua oscilaÃÃo de preÃos e oportunidades. Inicialmente conta-se com uma breve descriÃÃo histÃrica do surgimento desse mercado, bem como dos princÃpios basilares que levaram a sua criaÃÃo. A anÃlise econÃmica propriamente dita inicia-se com o estudo das caracterÃsticas exclusivas de seus ofertantes e demandantes, bem como da sua formaÃÃo de preÃo. O objetivo principal dessa pesquisa Ã, no entanto, estudar os efeitos negativos, causados principalmente pela cobranÃa excessiva e nÃo homogÃnea de impostos e efeitos positivos, que sÃo evidenciados no incentivo que alguns tributos supranacionais oferecem a quem prefere o desenvolvimento tecnolÃgico definitivo à aquisiÃÃo ordinÃria de RCEs internacionais..

Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-15T19:33:34Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Ricardo Pedro Guazzelli Rosario.pdf: 1162218 bytes, checksum: 855fbaa5b332d42a896aa36fb4c5285f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-08-16 / Fundo Mackenzie de Pesquisa / Since the end of the 60's, humanity has been more concerned about its relationship with the environment. As a result, many worldwide conferences and concepts have been developed along the way. The main events were the Stockholm conferences (1972) and Rio de Janeiro (Eco- 992), the World Commission about the Environment and Development which published The Report of Our Common Future and defined sustainable development as being that which is capable of guaranteeing the necessities of present generations as well as future generations in regards to quality of life and the planet's resources. However, this is not what has been witnesses, especially in regards to the emissions of the greenhouse effect antropic gases, which have aggravated the system, the climate in relation to the increase in the planet's temperature, and its consequences. From the recognition of that fact, society began making either voluntary decisions or taking international political action. In the political sphere, agreements with the Agenda 21, the Convention of Biologic Diversity, The Convention of the Climatic Changes, and the Kyoto Protocol are the main instruments which are focused on the reduction of the emission of greenhouse gases from the different antropic actions. The aforementioned instruments together with all of their systems created a mandatory carbon market. In parallel, organized society also desiring to reduce its gas emissions and start a lower carbon economy created several voluntary carbon marktes such as Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) and the Gold Standard Foundation to mention a few. This study presents the mandatory as much as the voluntary markets and presents the Brazilian potentials with the creation of the voluntary national carbon market. / Desde o fim da década de 1960 a humanidade tem tido uma maior preocupação com a sua relação com o meio ambiente. Diante disso, muitas conferências mundiais e conceitos foram desenvolvidos, nessa trajetória os principais fatos foram as Conferências de Estocolmo (1972) e do Rio de Janeiro (Eco-1992), além delas a Comissão Mundial sobre Meio Ambiente e Desenvolvimento que em 1987 publica o Relatório Nosso Futuro Comum definindo o desenvolvimento sustentável como aquele capaz de garantir as necessidades das presentes e futuras gerações com relação à qualidade de vida e recursos do planeta. Porém, não é isso que se tem visto principalmente com relação às emissões antrópicas de gases de efeito estufa que têm agravado o sistema do clima em relação ao aumento da temperatura do Planeta e as suas conseqüências. A partir dessa constatação a sociedade passou a tomar decisões voluntárias ou no âmbito político internacional. Na esfera política acordos como a Agenda 21, a Convenção de Diversidade Biológica, a Convenção Quadro de Mudanças Climáticas, e o Protocolo de Quioto são os principais instrumentos que tem como objetivo a redução de emissões de gases de efeito estufa das diferentes ações antrópicas. Estes últimos instrumentos junto com todo seu sistema criaram o mercado de carbono mandatório, mas também a sociedade organizada, com o mesmo objetivo de reduzir suas emissões e criar uma economia de baixo carbono criou diversos mercados voluntários de carbono como a Bolsa do Clima de Chicago, a Fundação Gold Standard,entre outros. Este trabalho apresenta tanto os mercados mandatórios quanto os voluntários e apresenta as potencialidades brasileiras com a criação de um mercado de carbono voluntário nacional.

No description available.

This thesis explores the influence of governance arrangements on sustainability commitments contained within voluntary forest carbon standards. This exploration is achieved through the application of a two-stage governance and sustainability analysis, which is an amalgamation of analytical tools originating in the “new governance” literature and the sustainability assessment literature. First, each voluntary forest carbon standard is examined in terms of its institutional, political and regulatory dimensions, using a framework adopted from the new governance literature. Second, the sustainability commitments contained within each of the voluntary forest carbon standards are assessed comparatively, using criteria adopted from the sustainability assessment literature. Following this, the results of the two-stage analysis are used to consider and discuss the relationship between governance and sustainability. The voluntary forest carbon standards reviewed in this analysis are the Verified Carbon Standard, the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Standard, Plan Vivo and CarbonFix. / Graduate

Carbon offsetting has been an institutionalised response to climate change for over a decade. Over this period, climate change has become more severe and calls for climate justice have become increasingly insistent. Yet the normative controversies of carbon offsetting remain unresolved, as debates about the environmental quality, development impacts and ethical implications of carbon offsetting continue. This thesis explores the relationship between morality and carbon offsetting in three domains. First it provides an evaluation of the ethics of offsetting. Second it gives an account of the 'lay normativity' of the market, describing how carbon market actors interpret and act upon issues of moral concern. And third, it explains offsetting's moral economy. First, the thesis examines the moral rationales for and problems of offsetting in order to clarify the bases of criticisms levelled at offsets by researchers concerned about trends in neoliberal environmental governance. In evaluation of the ethics of offsetting, the PhD recognises some limited rationales, but mainly highlights widespread problems including lack of environmental integrity and failure to produce 'sustainable development'. The structure of the market is shown to create opportunities for malpractice and difficulties for reform. Second, building on work in cultural political economy, the research describes carbon offsetting's lay normativity. The account is based on interviews with over sixty carbon offset market actors including project developers, consultants, auditors, regulators, retailers and buyers in the UK, continental Europe, and in India. Findings show that the market is founded on ethical principles: offsetting is nothing without notions of environmental and developmental care. Critiques of, and reforms to, offsetting are also grounded in principled debate. But carbon market actors often use their power to further commercial interests that are not aligned with production of environmental or developmental value. And yet, even as rationales are ignored and problems are amplified, market actors maintain a discursive semblance of moral behaviour through forms of justification, story-telling and identity work. Third, the thesis explains how principles, profit and power combine to affect the governance of offsetting. It shows that the concentration of power among profit-seeking actors drives the production of offsetting's moral problems in the stages of project development, regulation and retail. Commercial interests in the politics of knowledge lead to manipulation of the discursive framings through which people come to understand offsets. Ethical narratives are deployed to sustain the market in states of dysfunction, enabling privileged groups to gain exchange value at the expense of climate protection and sustainable development. Through this explanatory work, the PhD contributes an original application of ideas about moral political economy to the case of climate change and carbon trading, demonstrating that powerful actors can shape culture and alter our perceptions of right and wrong.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Agricultural Economics / Jason S. Bergtold / In recent years, great attention has been placed on conservation systems for agricultural production. Conservation practices offer economic and environmental benefits, yet conventional practices remain the prevailing system in some regions. As conservation efforts are launched by different local and federal agencies, understanding farmers’ motivations when adopting conservation practices is important to ensure the continuation of adoption through the development of programs that are tailored to meet farmers’ preferences and constraints. The purpose of the first essay was to identify the factors affecting farmers’ choice of tillage practice at the crop level. Farmer’s choice of No-till, Strip-till and Conventional tillage was modeled for dryland corn, wheat and soybean production in Kansas. The results show that tillage decisions are crop-specific and that factors such as risk aversion, baling and grazing of crop residue, crop acreage, and farmers’ approach to adopting new technologies are significant factors affecting farmers’ decisions. The second essay focused on the adoption of continuous no-till, conservation crop rotation, cover crops, and variable rate application of inputs and the effect that incentive payments, payment mechanism, and off-farm environmental benefits from conservation have on the decision to adopt. This essay also examined the risk associated with the variability of net returns and its effect on farmers’ willingness to adopt using a non-linear extended expected utility framework, allowing for the estimation of a utility parameter for net returns, farmer’s subjective judgment of probabilities, and farmers’ risk attitudes. Farmers were found to exhibit risk aversion, with an estimated risk premium of approximately 3% of net returns. Results also suggested a preference for federally-run programs and for programs with higher off-farm environmental benefits. The third essay examined the timing of adoption of continuous no-till, cover crops, and variable rate application of inputs. This study found that risk aversion delays the timing of adoption of cover crops and variable rate application of inputs. However, the timing of adoption of continuous no-till was not affected by risk aversion. Findings also indicated that farmers who consider themselves innovators adopt at a faster rate than their counterparts.

Energy markets feature a wide range of unusual price behaviour along with a complicated dependence structure between electricity, natural gas, coal and carbon, as well as other variables. We approach this broad modelling challenge by firstly developing a structural framework to modelling spot electricity prices, through an analysis of the underlying supply and demand factors which drive power prices, and the relationship between them. We propose a stochastic model for fuel prices, power demand and generation capacity availability, as well as a parametric form for the bid stack function which maps these price drivers to the spot electricity price. Based on the intuition of cost-related bids from generators, the model describes mathematically how different fuel prices drive different portions of the bid stack (i.e., the merit order) and hence influence power prices at varying levels of demand. Using actual bid data, we find high correlations between the movements of bids and the corresponding fuel prices (coal and gas). We fit the model to the PJM and New England markets in the US, and assess the performance of the model, in terms of capturing key properties of simulated price trajectories, as well as comparing the model’s forward prices with observed data. We then discuss various mathematical techniques (explicit solutions, approximations, simulations and other numerical techniques) for calibrating to observed fuel and electricity forward curves, as well as for pricing of various single and multi-commodity options. The model reveals that natural gas prices are historically the primary driver of power prices over long horizons in both markets, with shorter term dynamics driven also by fluctuations in demand and reserve margin. However, the framework developed in this thesis is very flexible and able to adapt to different markets or changing conditions, as well as capturing automatically the possibility of changes in the merit order of fuels. In particular, it allows us to begin to understand price movements in the recently-formed carbon emissions markets, which add a new level of complexity to energy price modelling. Thus, the bid stack model can be viewed as more than just an original and elegant new approach to spot electricity prices, but also a convenient and intuitive tool for understanding risks and pricing contracts in the global energy markets, an important, rapidly-growing and fascinating area of research.