Global warming is an international problem which has led to that many corporations today has an increased environmental awareness. This thesis includes a Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) approach which evaluates whether carbon offsetting is a profitable alternative for corporations and society wide. The study is predominately focusing on the emissions of the greenhouse gas . The calculations of CBA show the difference between the scenarios with or without the carbon offsetting. In the CBA approach effects are divided into benefits and costs. The study includes a case study of Husqvarna AB and is carried through with aim to get a decision support whether or not to make the corporation carbon neutral. Basic data from Husqvarna AB has been used.

<p>Global warming is an international problem which has led to that many corporations today has an increased environmental awareness.</p><p>This thesis includes a Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) approach which evaluates whether carbon offsetting is a profitable alternative for corporations and society wide. The study is predominately focusing on the emissions of the greenhouse gas . The calculations of CBA show the difference between the scenarios with or without the carbon offsetting. In the CBA approach effects are divided into benefits and costs.</p><p>The study includes a case study of Husqvarna AB and is carried through with aim to get a decision support whether or not to make the corporation carbon neutral. Basic data from Husqvarna AB has been used.</p>

<p>Global warming is an international problem which has led to that many corporations today has an increased environmental awareness.</p><p>This thesis includes a Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) approach which evaluates whether carbon offsetting is a profitable alternative for corporations and society wide. The study is predominately focusing on the emissions of the greenhouse gas . The calculations of CBA show the difference between the scenarios with or without the carbon offsetting. In the CBA approach effects are divided into benefits and costs.</p><p>The study includes a case study of Husqvarna AB and is carried through with aim to get a decision support whether or not to make the corporation carbon neutral. Basic data from Husqvarna AB has been used.</p>

As response to climate change, the UN and the EU have adopted a market-based approach aiming to reduce Greenhouse gases via flexible market-based mechanisms, constituted by carbon trading and carbon offsetting. The approach rests on the notion that sustainable development and environmental protection are compatible with a liberal market and economic growth. However, this rather complex issue is debated among stakeholders and the perspectives of the matter vary. As an important societal institution, Swedish newspapers play a central democratic role by interpreting, conveying and discussing responses to climate change. By having this informative role, Swedish newspapers influence the public agenda. This study aims to analyze and describe how carbon trading and carbon offsetting are presented in Swedish newspapers by revealing patterns within their content. The research was conducted via a content analysis of 204 articles in the two leading newspapers in Sweden, Aftonbladet and Dagens Nyheter covering the years 2007 and 2014. The results could be summarized as: (i) the issue is described through a variety of contexts with strong influence of ideological messages, (ii) the elites in society in general and domestic political parties/allianes in particular are the most dominant stakeholder groups in the debate, (iii) the approach seems to be linked to the messages of Swedish liberal/conservative parties, (iv) the political orientation of the newspapers do not influence the choice of political parties given a voice in the articles, (v) the level of connection between cabon trading/carbon offsetting and sustainable development varies among the articles.

Our study examines some design alternatives for a carbon market by exploring the fledgling Alberta carbon market. We attempt to evaluate the performance of these designs on the bases of trade volume, cost efficiency and stability. To achieve this we construct an empirically-calibrated but simple agent-based model, certain aspects of which we selectively modify to incorporate various design options. We make comparisons among these options based on data simulated from the ensuing family of models. We find strong evidence that in general, market design features such as source-of-credits, the scale of the market, and pricing-mechanism are very important considerations that influence the performance of the market. In addition, we find support for the notion that the level of the price cap relative to the average cost of abatement in the market matters, and beyond a threshold, higher price caps are associated with lower levels of performance. / vii, 155 leaves ; 29 cm

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wyoming, 2008. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on August 4, 2009). Interdisciplinary thesis in International Studies and Environment and Natural Resources. Includes bibliographical references (p. 58-63).

Thesis (D.Phil.)--University of Oxford, 2009. / Supervisor: Professor Gordon L. Clark. Bibliography: leaves 239-260.

Input Output frameworks have been widely used to study the emissions of industrial sectors either in specific economies or globally but usually focus on aggregated measures under production or consumption accounting principles (PAP and CAP). This leads to a lack of transparency in terms of the structure of the emissions and provides limited information on what are the main drivers of the emissions allocated to each sector under PAP and CAP. This information gap limits the options of policy makers to interventions on whole sectors, rather than the components of their supply chains that hold the major shares of the total embodied emissions. In this thesis we argue in favour of a more disaggregated, a ‘hot-spot’, approach that provides a better understanding of the structure of emissions under both of these headline measures. We develop a methodology to identify CO2 ‘hot-spots’ in downstream and upstream supply chains, both domestic and global. The methodology is applied first to a Single Region Input Output framework for China in 2005 identifying ‘Electricity, Gas and Water Supply’ as the Chinese sector with the highest direct emissions. Examination of the sector’s domestic downstream supply chain reveals that the majority of emissions are generated to support the final demand of other domestic sectors. Of these ‘Construction’ is the main driver and it also is the Chinese sector that is found to have the largest domestic CO2 footprint, with several emissions ‘hot-spots’ in its domestic upstream supply chain. The ‘hot-spot’ methodology is then extended to a global Inter-Regional Input Output framework to consider ‘hot-spots’ in a global supply chain context. By focusing on 2009 (the year for which appropriate data are most recently available) and UK total final demand we find that Chinese ‘Electricity, Gas and Water Supply’ is the non-UK sector with the largest direct emissions driven by UK total final demand. Studying this sector’s downstream supply chain outside China reveals that a large share of the sector’s emissions is ultimately generated to support several UK-based sectors’ domestic final demand. Furthermore, the UK ‘Health and Social Work’ sector is identified as the UK sector with the second largest global footprint to support domestic final demand. We identified a number of ‘hot-spots’ in the international part of its upstream supply chain, with a key finding being its dependence on the activity and the embodied emissions in global chemicals production. Finally, the thesis goes on to demonstrate how conducting ‘hot-spot’ analysis on disaggregated regional/sub-national Input Output tables can provide more detailed local level analysis of ‘hot-spot’ findings from the Inter-Regional Input Output framework. The key finding in this respect is the importance of introducing region specific emissions data where possible, as non-region specific data can lead in incorrect estimation of the embodied emissions in any component of the supply chains of any sectors. In general, through this research project we developed a methodology that can enhance the policy makers understanding of the structure and the drivers of the emissions generated throughout the economy. This additional information on the emissions structure, when combined with familiar IO analysis on employment and value-added for example, has the potential to lead to more targeted/focused policies, which result in significant emissions reduction with the minimum employment, resources and value-added cost.

By implementing Albert O. Hirschman’s theory about reactions, the purpose of this thesis is to analyse the arguments against carbon offsetting presented in Swedish media. More specifically, I will structure and analyse the counter-arguments I find in the articles about carbon offsetting presented by the Swedish paper Dagens Nyheter between October 2019 and January 2020. Hirschman’s theory of the reactionary rhetoric is based on the notion that every social action is followed by a reaction. To illustrate this, Hirschman introduces three types of theses –arguments -deployed by those who oppose a new idea or reform. The three principal arguments Hirschman identifies is the futility thesis, the perversity thesis and the jeopardy thesis. The futility thesis suggests that an action aiming to improve the society in any way won’t have any effect, the perversity thesis claims that the action will result in the opposite outcome of what was intended and the jeopardy thesis implies that the action will result in intolerable consequences in other areas. Hirschman suggests that a debate where any of these theses are present both is a danger for democracy and is likely to result in suffering in other ways as well. In that way, his theory provides a tool for identifying dangerous arguments in order to take a step towards a more democracy friendly discussion. By analysing 85 arguments against carbon offsetting I find that 51 of them easily can be categorized as either one of the theses, while 22 can’t be categorized at all. The remaining 12 arguments can either partly or in full be placed in the model. The majority of the 51 arguments fitting in Hirschman’s model are futility theses, which implies that the Swedish debate in this area largely consists of arguments claiming that carbon offsetting doesn’t make any difference. My conclusion based on Hirschman’s theory and the analysis of the arguments is that the Swedish debate about carbon offsetting unarguably contains signs of the polarized discussion Hirschman claims to be a democratic danger and that both the debate itself and the climate overall probably would benefit from a more nuanced and balanced debate.

The aim of this study is to describe and analyze the opinions of tour operators and travel agencies regarding carbon offsetting in air travel. Since it is known already that the number oif participants among travelers in voluntary carbon offsetting is low, the study also aims to examine the travel companies' perceptions of who is responsible for increasing the number of carbon offsetts in air travel. The study was conducted on the basis of qualitative methods. Four semi-structured interviews were held with four different travel companies, of which two of these were travel agencies and two were tour operators. Thematic anaysis was used to analyze the collected data. The results are discussed in relation to previous research which lies behind the research questions. The study shows that there are two different types of values that support why companies offer voluntary carbon offsetting to their customers during air travel; environmental value and market value. Further, the findings highlights the importance of managing carbon offsetting in relation to other environmental sustainable development. To get more travelers involved in participating in carbon offsetting means engaging in overall environmental management at different levels of society. The travel companies mean that they can themselves provide the option for customers to carbon offset, and inform and communicate about this. In addition, school must strenghten knowledge about environmental issues among the people of society and politicians must direct these people towards more climate friendly actions. This will lead to a process of change in overall environmental behaviour, which is needed for more people to want to participate in activities such as carbon offsetting.