The study uses Cost Effectiveness Analysis (CEA) as a method to analyse the economicand environmental impact of carbon dioxide (CO2e) emission abatement projects in theCanadian residential sector. It includes the more traditional environmental andeconomic criteria, yet it incorporates a behavioural component to the analysis. Adetailed account of the environmental specifications, emission reductions, and economicconsiderations of 11 abatement projects are used as input for the CEA. In addition,behavioural variables, such as disposable income, home ownership, and home repairskills, are taken into account to complement the study.The results indicate that the implementation of several of these carbon abatementprojects, such as insulating hot water pipes, replacing incandescent light bulbs,installing a programmable thermostat, etc. can bring about large emission reductionstogether with a net economic benefit, and in most cases, without altering the levels ofcomfort. This method can serve as a template for the evaluation of other related projectswithin the climate change mitigation context in Canada and in other countries, in anattempt to increase adoption rates of such projects.

This research focuses on carbon emission-reduction issues in an area where the government imposes emission-reduction policies on local manufacturers. Policymaking problems for the government and production planning problems for the manufacturers are investigated with Operations Research/Management Science (OR/MS) approaches. Two types of emission-reduction policies, including emission-cap regulation policy and emission cap-and-trade scheme, are addressed. We first discuss manufacturers' long-term strategic decision problem under the government-imposed emission-cap regulation policy. With the objective of maximizing the manufacturers' profits, Stackelberg game model is formulated to optimize their decisions on carbon footprint, wholesale price and retailer selection. The problem is proven to be NP hard and a hybrid algorithm is developed to solve the model. We then investigate manufacturers' medium-term production planning to minimize the total production and inventory holding cost, by considering emission-reduction constraints through technology selection, some of the technologies being green. The problems are shown to be polynomially solvable. Based on these results, we study the government's policymaking problems to maximize the social welfare of the area. Stackelberg game models are formulated to optimize the emission-reduction policies by anticipating manufacturers' operational decisions in response to the governmental policies. Hybrid algorithms are developed to solve the problems. For each studied problem, numerical analyses are conducted to evaluate the algorithms. The computation results show that the algorithms developed in this research are effective. Some interesting and valuable managerial insights are drawn from computational results and sensitivity analyses.

Cette étude porte sur la réduction de l’émission de gaz à effet de serre dans une région où le gouvernement cherche à établir des politiques de régulation des industriels locaux. La définition de politiques de régulation pour le gouvernement et la planification de la production pour les industriels sont étudiées à l’aide des méthodes issues de la recherche opérationnelle et de la science de management (OR/MS). Nous considérons deux types de politiques de régulation : la politique de quotas et la politique de droits d’émission échangeables sur le marché. Nous considérons d’abord le problème stratégique d’un industriel soumis à un quota d’émission. Afin de maximiser son profit, nous construisons des modèles de jeux de Stackelberg pour optimiser l’empreinte carbone du produit, le prix de gros et la sélection de détaillants. Le problème est démontré NP-difficile et un algorithme hybride est développé pour le résoudre. Nous étudions ensuite la planification de la production en moyen terme pour minimiser le coût total de production et de stockage, en prenant en compte les contraintes liées à la réduction d’émission à travers une sélection de technologies dont certaines sont vertes. Nous démontrons que ces problèmes peuvent être résolus en temps polynomial. A partir de ces résultats, nous étudions la définition de politiques de réduction d’émission par le gouvernement afin de maximiser le bien-être sociétal de la région. Des modèles de jeux de Stackelberg sont formulés pour optimiser les paramètres de ces politiques, en anticipant les décisions opérationnelles des industriels locaux en réaction à ces politiques. Des algorithmes hybrides sont proposés pour résoudre le problème. Pour chaque problème étudié, nous menons des expériences numériques pour évaluer les algorithmes développés. Les résultats expérimentaux montrent l’efficacité de ces algorithmes. Ils permettent aussi, grâce à des analyses de sensibilité, de tirer des renseignements managériaux intéressants. / This research focuses on carbon emission-reduction issues in an area where the government imposes emission-reduction policies on local manufacturers. Policymaking problems for the government and production planning problems for the manufacturers are investigated with Operations Research/Management Science (OR/MS) approaches. Two types of emission-reduction policies, including emission-cap regulation policy and emission cap-and-trade scheme, are addressed. We first discuss manufacturers’ long-term strategic decision problem under the government-imposed emission-cap regulation policy. With the objective of maximizing the manufacturers’ profits, Stackelberg game model is formulated to optimize their decisions on carbon footprint, wholesale price and retailer selection. The problem is proven to be NP hard and a hybrid algorithm is developed to solve the model. We then investigate manufacturers’ medium-term production planning to minimize the total production and inventory holding cost, by considering emission-reduction constraints through technology selection, some of the technologies being green. The problems are shown to be polynomially solvable. Based on these results, we study the government’s policymaking problems to maximize the social welfare of the area. Stackelberg game models are formulated to optimize the emission-reduction policies by anticipating manufacturers’ operational decisions in response to the governmental policies. Hybrid algorithms are developed to solve the problems. For each studied problem, numerical analyses are conducted to evaluate the algorithms. The computation results show that the algorithms developed in this research are effective. Some interesting and valuable managerial insights are drawn from computational results and sensitivity analyses.

O novo cenário da macroeconomia e os freqüentes alertas daqueles que estudam o meio ambiente trazem a luz outros fatores que devem ser respeitados num processo de tomada de decisão para qualquer investimento a ser realizado. Neste sentido vem se consolidando o Mercado de Crédito de Carbono no mundo, que se por um lado viabiliza a implantação de um empreendimento por admitir a compensação ambiental, por outro pode viabilizá-lo disponibilizando recursos para a sua instalação e operação. A geração de Crédito de Carbono, isto é, Redução Certificada de Emissões (RCE) e o aporte de recursos no sistema empreendimento em função da negociação dos créditos no Mercado de Carbono, pode se caracterizar em fonte de funding de empreendimentos de geração de energia elétrica no Brasil. Sendo assim, o objetivo desta pesquisa é a montagem de um protótipo de Pequena Central Hidrelétrica - PCH, tendo por base o project finance, enquanto estratégia de investimento e estrutura de negócio e adequado aos padrões do MDL no Brasil visando verificar a viabilidade de utilização das RCEs para compor o funding desses empreendimentos e, consequentemente, a validação de investimentos em geração de energia. Dessa forma, fornecerá as referências necessárias para a análise econômica e financeira do investimento em empreendimentos dessa tipologia. Após a análise dos indicadores da qualidade do protótipo é possível afirmar que com a criação do MDL e outros mecanismos promovidos por ele, os empreendimentos de geração de energia o tipo PCH tornaram-se atrativos para investidores típicos que buscam renda estável e de longo prazo, e o setor elétrico brasileiro sofreu mudanças em sua matriz, onde o crescimento de investimentos em fontes alternativas de energia é uma realidade. / The new scenery of macroeconomics and the alerts frequents of those that study the environment brought up other factories that must be respected in a decision process in any investment to be carried through. In this direction it is coming to consolidate the Market of Carbon Credit in the world, that if on the other hand makes possible the implantation of an venture for admitting the environmental compensation, for another one it can make possible have the resources available for its installation and operation. The generation of Carbon Emission Reduction (CERs) and input of resources in the enterprise system according to the trading of credits at the Carbon Market can be characterized source of funding for projects to generate electricity in Brazil. Therefore, the objective of this research is the assembly of a prototype of small hydroelectric - PCH, based on project finance, as investment strategy and business structure and appropriate standards of the CDM in Brazil to check the feasibility of using CERs to compose the funding of these projects and hence the validation of investment in power generation. Thus, it will provide the necessary references to the economic and financial analysis of investment in projects of this type. After analyzing the indicators of the quality of the prototype is possible to say that with the creation of the CDM and other mechanisms promoted by him, the development of power generation type SHP became attractive to the typical investors who seek steady income and long-term and the Brazilian electric sector has undergone changes in their type, where the growth of investments in alternative energy sources is apparent.

O novo cenário da macroeconomia e os freqüentes alertas daqueles que estudam o meio ambiente trazem a luz outros fatores que devem ser respeitados num processo de tomada de decisão para qualquer investimento a ser realizado. Neste sentido vem se consolidando o Mercado de Crédito de Carbono no mundo, que se por um lado viabiliza a implantação de um empreendimento por admitir a compensação ambiental, por outro pode viabilizá-lo disponibilizando recursos para a sua instalação e operação. A geração de Crédito de Carbono, isto é, Redução Certificada de Emissões (RCE) e o aporte de recursos no sistema empreendimento em função da negociação dos créditos no Mercado de Carbono, pode se caracterizar em fonte de funding de empreendimentos de geração de energia elétrica no Brasil. Sendo assim, o objetivo desta pesquisa é a montagem de um protótipo de Pequena Central Hidrelétrica - PCH, tendo por base o project finance, enquanto estratégia de investimento e estrutura de negócio e adequado aos padrões do MDL no Brasil visando verificar a viabilidade de utilização das RCEs para compor o funding desses empreendimentos e, consequentemente, a validação de investimentos em geração de energia. Dessa forma, fornecerá as referências necessárias para a análise econômica e financeira do investimento em empreendimentos dessa tipologia. Após a análise dos indicadores da qualidade do protótipo é possível afirmar que com a criação do MDL e outros mecanismos promovidos por ele, os empreendimentos de geração de energia o tipo PCH tornaram-se atrativos para investidores típicos que buscam renda estável e de longo prazo, e o setor elétrico brasileiro sofreu mudanças em sua matriz, onde o crescimento de investimentos em fontes alternativas de energia é uma realidade. / The new scenery of macroeconomics and the alerts frequents of those that study the environment brought up other factories that must be respected in a decision process in any investment to be carried through. In this direction it is coming to consolidate the Market of Carbon Credit in the world, that if on the other hand makes possible the implantation of an venture for admitting the environmental compensation, for another one it can make possible have the resources available for its installation and operation. The generation of Carbon Emission Reduction (CERs) and input of resources in the enterprise system according to the trading of credits at the Carbon Market can be characterized source of funding for projects to generate electricity in Brazil. Therefore, the objective of this research is the assembly of a prototype of small hydroelectric - PCH, based on project finance, as investment strategy and business structure and appropriate standards of the CDM in Brazil to check the feasibility of using CERs to compose the funding of these projects and hence the validation of investment in power generation. Thus, it will provide the necessary references to the economic and financial analysis of investment in projects of this type. After analyzing the indicators of the quality of the prototype is possible to say that with the creation of the CDM and other mechanisms promoted by him, the development of power generation type SHP became attractive to the typical investors who seek steady income and long-term and the Brazilian electric sector has undergone changes in their type, where the growth of investments in alternative energy sources is apparent.

Since the 19th century the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere hasincreased by 40 percent as an effect of the use of fossil energy sources.Increased concentration of CO2 will likely lead to increased temperature,changes in precipitation, rising sea level and increased frequency of extremeweather like storm events. A step to reduce emissions of CO2 and mitigateclimate change, for the property of Tagel, can be to adopt new silviculturalstrategies and analyse which is the most effective. As a result of that, threescenarios was produced, business-as-usual (BAU), increased set aside landand energy. An introduction of windpower at Tagels estate (property) andeffects on carbon balance was also examined. By using the Heureka systemand LCA-analysis in this study, it showed that the scenario of increased setaside land was the most efficient way to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2)emissions for the analysed period of 100 years. The effect of substitution(replacing for example fossil fuel or energy consuming building materials,with renewable raw material such as biomass) didn’t give the result that waspredicted. It appears that the use of pulpwood is very important, if it goes tothe pulp industry no substitution effect occurs, but if all pulp will be used forbioenergy purposes, the energy scenario will be the best in terms of overallcarbon balance. The stored carbon in tree biomass over and in roots wasaffected by all scenarios. The soil carbon was almost the same for allscenarios. In the future the property of Tagel can still use the alternativeBAU as an effective way to mitigate climate change but then explore thepossibilities to use the pulp for bioenergy purposes instead and to set asidemore land at the property. This study considered to have high credibilitybecause the Heureka-analyses, LCA and the substitution model were carriedout by experts in area of research.

Global warming is currently a major challenge faced by the world. Reduction of carbon emissions is of paramount importance in the context of global warming. There are widespread ongoing efforts to find satisfactory ways of surmounting this challenge. The basic objective of all such efforts can be summarized as conception and formation of protocols to reduce the pace of global carbon levels. Countries and global companies are now engaged in understanding systematic ways of achieving well defined emission targets. In this dissertation, we explore the specific problem faced by a global industry or global company in allocating carbon emission reduction units to its different divisions and supply chain partners in achieving a required target of reductions in its carbon reduction program. The problem becomes a challenging one since the divisions and supply chain partners are often autonomous and could exhibit strategic behavior. Game theory and mechanism design provide a natural modeling tool for capturing the strategic dynamics involved in this problem. DSIC (Dominant Strategy Incentive Compatibility), AE (Allocative Efficiency), and SBB (Strict Budget Balance) are the key desirable properties for carbon reduction allocation mechanisms. But due to an impossibility result in mechanism design, DSIC, AE, and SBB can never be simultaneously achieved. Hence in this dissertation, we offer as contributions, two elegant solutions to this carbon emission reduction allocation problem. The first contribution is a mechanism which is DSIC and AE. We first propose a straightforward Vickrey-Clarke-Groves (VCG) mechanism based solution to the problem, leading to a DSIC and AE reverse auction protocol for allocating carbon reductions among the divisions. This solution, however, leads to a high level of budget imbalance. To reduce budget imbalance, we use redistribution mechanisms, without affecting the key properties of DSIC and AE. The Cavallo-Bailey redistribution mechanism, when applied to the above reverse auction protocol leads to reduced budget imbalance. To reduce the imbalance further, we propose an innovative forward auction protocol which achieves less imbalance when combined with the Cavallo-Bailey redistribution mechanism. The forward auction protocol also has the appealing feature of handsomely rewarding divisions that reduce emissions and levying appropriate penalties on divisions that do not participate in emission reductions. The second contribution is a DSIC and SBB mechanism. Even though the first mechanism tries to reduce the budget imbalance, there is always a surplus which cannot be distributed among divisions and is wasted. So, in this part, by slightly compromising on efficiency, we propose a mechanism which is DSIC and SBB. The SBB property guarantees that there is no need for any monetary support from an external agency for implementing the mechanism and there is no leakage of revenue.

In Cam Pha city (Quang Ninh province) there existes a lot of vegetation having a high degree of degradation. Findings of the research plots located in 4 years (2012-2015) have shown that, vegetation IC has the largest biomass (biomass fresh: 78.70 tons / ha; dry biomass: 36.65 tons / ha), followed by the grass vegetation (fresh biomass: 62.08 tons / ha; dry biomass: 25.67 tons / ha ). Vegetation IA has the lowest biomass (biomass fresh: 33.73 tons / ha; dry biomass: 15.18 tons / ha). The average amount of accumulated carbon in the biomass of vegetation IC is 18.33 tones / ha, in that vegetation IA was 7.60 tones/ ha, in the grass vegetation is 12.84 tones / ha. During the ecological succession, vegetation IC showed an increase in the ability to accumulate carbon (the amount of biomass carbon accumulation of vegetation IC in the 4th year was 21.97 tons / ha). In addition, the paper also proposed the suitable methods of using degraded vegetation in Cam Pha city, Quang Ninh province. / Ở thành phố Cẩm Phả, tỉnh Quảng Ninh tồn tại nhiều thảm thực vật có mức độ thoái hóa cao. Kết quả nghiên cứu trong các ô nghiên cứu định vị trong 4 năm (2012 - 2015) cho thấy, thảm cây bụi IC có sinh khối lớn nhất (sinh khối tươi: 78,70 tấn/ha; sinh khối khô: 36,65 tấn/ha), tiếp đến là thảm cỏ (sinh khối tươi: 62,08 tấn/ha; sinh khối khô: 25,67 tấn/ha). Thảm cây bụi IA có sinh khối thấp nhất (sinh khối tươi: 33,73 tấn/ha; sinh khối khô: 15,18 tấn/ha). Giữa các thảm thực vật này còn khác nhau về cấu trúc sinh khối và tỷ lệ sinh khối khô / sinh khối tươi. Lượng cacbon trung bình được tích lũy trong sinh khối của thảm thực vật cây bụi IC là 18,33 tấn/ha, ở thảm cây bụi IA là 7,60 tấn/ha, ở thảm cỏ là 12,84 tấn/ha. Trong quá trình diễn thế, thảm cây bụi IC có sự tăng lên về khả năng tích lũy cacbon (Lượng cacbon được tích lũy trong sinh khối của thảm cây bụi IC ở năm thứ 4 là 21,97 tấn/ha). Ngoài ra, bài báo còn đề xuất phương thức sử dụng hợp lý các thảm thực vật thoái hóa ở thành phố Cẩm Phả, tỉnh Quảng Ninh.

This thesis addressed the need for improved analysis and interpretation of primary meter half-hourly energy consumption data. The current work offers a novel benchmarking technique that was tested for 6 types of municipal buildings. This approach is different from conventional annual benchmarking mainly because it uses electricity and gas data in half-hourly periods, together with outside temperature data. A survey to European local authorities’ metering and monitoring practices was conducted in order to assess municipal energy managers' current procedures and needs in terms of data analysis to assess building energy performance and to identify potential energy saving opportunities. The benchmarking approach was developed considering the energy managers’ needs, but also the state-of the art in terms of building energy monitoring techniques, particularly building energy signatures, and the analysis techniques used on electricity grid demand forecasting. The benchmarking approach is based on the use of a metric composed of several indicators that are related to the load demand shape profile and the building energy signature. The comparison of indicators for buildings of the same type using standard scores identifies uncommon load demand profile characteristics and/or gas dependency on outside temperature in specific buildings. The metric is able to support the identification of potential energy wastage, which is linked to the detection of opportunities to save energy. The benchmarking technique was tested in 81 municipal building owned by Leicester City Council. This methodology can be applied to any non-domestic building equipped with primary meters for registering half-hourly electricity and gas consumption. In theory, this approach can also be applied to residential buildings, and to other short time series data types, for example quarter-hourly or 10 minutes interval data. The main contribution of this thesis is to improve the objectivity of building primary meter half-hourly electricity and gas consumption data analysis and interpretation by using quantitative parameters, instead of subjective visualisation techniques. The interpretation of building consumption data in short time series periods can now be streamlined, automated and perhaps incorporated in existing energy analysis software. This thesis raises questions that can lead to future research projects aiming to improve the metric and also to enlarge the scope of its application to national and European scale, to other building types and to other utilities.