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Todos los Seminars & Other Activities
Tuesday, 30 de August de 2016
Seminar / Mintegia / Seminario |
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Demand and supply assessment of ecosystem services in the case of Japan
Lecturers:
This study focuses on the assessment of the provisioning potential of ecosystem services(ESs) and the demand assessment of ESs by GIS. The case study was conducted in Aichi prefecture, Japan, focusing on forest ESs. First, spatial distributions of forest ecosystem services were estimated by using process models at regional-scale. The process-based ecosystem model predicts quantitatively material cycles and growth of biomass with change of forest management. Second the demand and beneficiary spatial distributions were estimated by several questionnaire surveys. The study site included not only source forest towns but also surrounding municipalities for beneficiary distribution mapping. Third these results were overlying by utilizing GIS. After overlaying each ES map, the ES demand and supply relation were studied. Based on the results, a low-carbon policy can be suggested for promoting energy-use of woody biomass and carbon stock of buildings in socio-system.
Lecturers´ Biodata
Kiichiro Hayashi Personal Web Page: http://profs.provost.nagoya-u.ac.jp/view/html/100002276_en.html
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5th September, 15:00-16:00 BC3 offices * The Seminar will be in English. / Mintegia ingelesez burutuko da. / El seminario se realizará en inglés. |
Friday, 22 de July de 2016
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The Norwegian electric car policy; environmental friendly or an economic disaster?
Lecturer:
As a result of generous policies to increase the use of electric vehicles (EVs), the sales of EVs in Norway is rapidly increasing. Due to the subsidies, driving an EV implies very low cost to the owner on the margin, probably leading to more driving at the expense of public transport and cycling. Moreover, because most EVs´driving range is low, the policy gives Norwegian households incentives to purchase a second car, again stimulating the use of private cars instead of public transport and cycling. These effects are analysed in light of possible benefits of utilizing EVs versus conventional cars.
Personal profile of the lecturer
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27th July, 12:00-13:00 BC3 offices * The Seminar will be in English. / Mintegia ingelesez burutuko da. / El seminario se realizará en inglés. |
Monday, 20 de June de 2016
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Global fishery futures under contrasting management regimes and climate change
Lecturer: Abstract: Data from 4,713 fisheries worldwide, representing 78% of global reported fish catch, are analyzed to estimate the status, trends, and benefits of alternative approaches to recovering depleted fisheries. For each fishery, we estimate current biological status and forecast the impacts of contrasting management regimes on catch, profit, and biomass of fish in the sea. Our business-as-usual scenario projects divergence and continued collapse for many of the world's fisheries. Applying sound management reforms to global fisheries in our dataset could generate annual increases exceeding 16 MMT in catch, $53 Billion in profit, and 619 MMT in biomass relative to business as usual. We also find that with appropriate reforms, recovery can happen quickly, with the median fishery taking under 10 years to reach recovery targets. Our results show that common-sense reforms to fishery management would dramatically improve overall fish abundance while increasing food security and profits. We also examine the effects of climate change on global fisheries and what can be done to protect vulnerable stocks.
Biodata: Prof. Christopher Costello
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21st June, 12:00-13:00 BC3 offices * The Seminar will be in English. / Mintegia ingelesez burutuko da. / El seminario se realizará en inglés. |
Friday, 17 de June de 2016
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Diverging coal phase-out strategies and their implications for EU Climate & Energy policies
Lecturer: Abstract: Hanna will present the current state of her master thesis about the coal phase-out (or expansion) strategies of three representative EU states, namely the United Kingdom, Germany and Poland. To maintain the chance of limiting global warming to 1.5°C and to fulfil the EU's greenhouse gas reduction commitments, all countries will have to phase-out electricity generation from coal as soon as possible. Nevertheless, coal strategies diverge from phase-out to expansion, creating another divide between Eastern and Western European countries. The aim of the thesis is to analyse reasons for the disparate developments and to derive policy recommendations on how an EU-wide coal phase-out can be furthered.
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28th June, 12:00-13:00 BC3 offices * The Seminar will be in English. / Mintegia ingelesez burutuko da. / El seminario se realizará en inglés. |
Wednesday, 15 de June de 2016
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Beyond the targets: Assessing the political credibility of the NDCs under the Paris agreement
Lecturer: Abstract: This paper develops a framework for the analysis of the political credibility of nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to the Paris agreement. This framework is used to provide an initial assessment of the credibility of NDCs pledged by G20 countries.
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22nd June, 12:00-13:00 BC3 offices * The Seminar will be in English. / Mintegia ingelesez burutuko da. / El seminario se realizará en inglés. |
Tuesday, 07 de June de 2016
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City Resilience: just do it?
Lecturer: Abstract: In line with the recent threats and challenges framed around climate change adaptation and mitigation, the concept of resilience applied to cities navigated through a first successful wave of policy discourses and initiatives. However, after crashing against a recent but increasing number of critics, from different disciplines, a second wave is trying to re-establish the reliability of resilience by proposing a critical mass of city resilience assessment tools. These are providing indicators and weights for a more cautionary and effective way of building resilient cities. This talk speculates around the application of those metrics, explaining through different case studies (Barcelona, on critical infrastructures and L’Aquila, on post-disaster reconstruction governance) how integrated resilience metrics are often biased from, since based on, others concepts’ indicators, showing that i) resilience is still, after its first wave of metaphorical meanings success, an overall umbrella for different city policies and ii) resilience principles (mostly rooted in social, ecological sciences and engineering) still lack consistency for being operationalized in urban systems.
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14th June, 12:00-13:00 BC3 offices * The Seminar will be in English. / Mintegia ingelesez burutuko da. / El seminario se realizará en inglés. |
Tuesday, 07 de June de 2016
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Integrated spatial assessment of the water, energy and food dimensions of the sustainable development goals.
Lecturer: Abstract: Water is considered the bloodstream of the biosphere, but its management is one of the most important challenges for human development. In view of the sustainable water management, several approaches have been proposed: Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM), Adaptive Management (AM) and, more recently, Water-Energy-Food (WEF) Nexus. Considering these approaches, over the last few decades extensive efforts have been made to develop assessment methods and tools framed within the paradigm of sustainable development. As part of a holistic assessment of water resources, the recent approach based upon the WEF Nexus narrows down the consideration of intersectoral linkages to three dimensions that are of prominent interest, in particular in developing countries. This study presents a comprehensive indicator-based approach for the assessment of water, energy and food securities, with reference to the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. The main ambition of the proposed approach is to provide a tool to monitor progresses, compare different geographical areas, highlight synergies and conflicts amongst and within the three dimensions of the WEF Nexus, and provide support for improved – more effective – management strategies to meet the goals. The proposed approach has been applied to global data sets in a GIS environment and it is demonstrated in a forthcoming paper in the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM) River Basin in Asia and to the Po River Basin in Europe. The comparative analysis suggest that WEF security is currently rather low in the GBM basin compared to the other case study and other parts of the world, and allows the identification of which dimensions (indicators) require special attention on the part of local and global policy makers.
Personal profile of the lecturer https://scholar.google.it/citations?user=_wytBPoAAAAJ&hl=en
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9th June, 12:00-13:00 BC3 offices * The Seminar will be in English. / Mintegia ingelesez burutuko da. / El seminario se realizará en inglés. |
Friday, 03 de June de 2016
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Spatial and temporal
variabilities of land uses as affected by global change:
Lecturer: Abstract: Carlo Giupponi will present his role and the research and cooperation activities of the 2 institutions he's leading in Venice. At the global level, climate and socio-economic changes determine the patterns of the allocation and trade of resources in all markets. Top-Down computable general equilibrium (CGE) models look at the effects of global trends and generate trajectories of socio-economic indicators, such as prices of commodities in the global markets, volumes of trades, gross products per country and sectors. Those models are commonly used to analyse the evolution of global economies, under the pressure of climate change drivers, but their approach impose substantial simplifications in terms of spatial aggregation and interactions between socio-economic and environmental variables. When considering adaptation of social and ecological systems to climate change, their inherent complexity and non-linearity and their spatial and temporal variabilities put the usefulness of consolidated CGE approaches under question for long term projections. As a consequence, other methodological approaches are explored, and in particular more and more scholars explore Bottom-Up approaches, utilising mechanistic knowledge of physical/environmental phenomena and/or considering the behavioural diversity of economic agents, as a consequence of their diverse interactions with the surrounding environment and their bounded perceptions of the changing world. This work explores the potential for integration of the T-D and B-U approaches, with CGE models providing the macro-economic trends under the effects of global change scenarios and agent-based models (ABM) simulating grid-based land use change dynamics, with consideration of spatial (i.e. territorial) and temporal (e.g. climatic extremes and economic shocks) variabilities. We develop an approach that could be implemented worldwide as a means for zooming down from the global to the regional and local scale. The ABM prototype was developed and run with readily available global databases in three test areas around the Mediterranean Basin, in agricultural regions of Tunisia, Italy and Spain. Starting with extremely simplified and averaged settings; we sequentially introduce the available information about spatial and temporal variability and simulate the dynamics of water and land-use allocations and their consequences on economic performances. The coherency of the outcomes of ABM simulations with the macro trends provided by the CGE model is discussed in view of possible further developments in terms of improved integrated multi-scale simulation of global change scenarios and economic development.
Personal profile of the lecturer https://scholar.google.it/citations?user=_wytBPoAAAAJ&hl=en
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7th June, 12:00-13:00 BC3 offices * The Seminar will be in English. / Mintegia ingelesez burutuko da. / El seminario se realizará en inglés. |
Wednesday, 01 de June de 2016
An overview of energy-economy-environment (E3) systems analysis
Lecturer: Dr. Michael Carbajales-Dale (Clemson University, Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences)
Tuesday, 12 de April de 2016
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Understanding ecosystem responses under a mosaic of land sparing and sharing
Lecturer: Abstract:
In an era when biodiversity is highly threatened by changes in climate and land use, it is unclear whether our past conservation efforts will remain effective, and we do not know whether they have been effective so far. Reconstructing conservation and restoration histories provide a framework to answer this question through the digital development of conservation and restoration actions, and subsequent analysis and interpretation of the process of conservation and management of natural resources. Here I present two case studies: (i) reconstructing California conservation history and (ii) Putting bison to work, which illustrate the process of conservation and restoration at two spatial scales. These two case studies also illustrate what have been the goals for conservation and restoration actions, which are the stressors and what external factors limit their success. The conclusion is that effective conservation and restoration is dependent on the legacy of policies and activities on the ground. It is important to ally conservation and restoration as while much area has been conserved, much still needs to be done once conservation status is attributed. Future conservation decisions are not independent of the history of the conservation practice, as conservation is influenced by what has already been accomplished. Personal website of the lecturer http://www.uu.nl/staff/MJFerreiraDosSantos .
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14th April, 11:00-12:00 BC3 offices * The Seminar will be in English. / Mintegia ingelesez burutuko da. / El seminario se realizará en inglés. |
Monday, 25 de January de 2016
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Climate risk management for the Loss & Damage Debate: Acting on principles of distributional and compensatory justice
Lecturer: Abstract: The Warsaw Loss and Damage Mechanism holds high appeal for transforming action on mitigation and responses for dealing with climate-related risks. The terrain is extremely contested, as ‘Southern countries’ at risk demand climate justice, while OECD negotiators have been unwilling to even consider such framing and related action; while compensation is currently ruled out via the Paris agreement, those countries are willing to support comprehensive risk management, as evidenced by debates based on moral responsibility that informed the approval of the Sendai Framework of Action on disaster risk reduction earlier in 2015. At the same time, the science behind climate-related risks relevant for the Loss and Damage debate is equally complex. It has made great leaps forward as summarized in recent IPCC reports. Yet, while attribution of events, such as heat and drought, with anthropogenic climate change has been partially successful, risk attribution has not been achieved due to the role of human agency involved in shaping risks, thus hampering the application of the principle of strict liability for climate risks. We are suggesting an actionable way forward for the deliberations based on the concept of climate risk management and principles of distributional and compensatory justice. The approach involves in a needs-based perspective, support for risk management beyond countries ability to absorb risk; in a rights-based perspective it upholds a consideration for liabilities attributable to climate change. We support our suggestions with country-level stress-test modelling and good practice examples of disaster risk management using the CATSIM model. The calculated cost for absorbing high-level climate-related risk are in the billions of USD, but if efforts are well linked to risk reduction incentives, such an approach may lead to helping to reduce the adaptation, which for many contexts is large already today. Importantly, our analytics provide an entry point for understanding the physical and socio-economic limits to adaptation and risk coping, and thus send a strong signal to the mitigation discussion underlining the strong need for decarbonization, but also harnessing synergies of development-centred approaches for mitigation and building resilience.
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27th January, 10:00-11:00 BC3 offices * The Seminar will be in English. / Mintegia ingelesez burutuko da. / El seminario se realizará en inglés. |
Monday, 23 de November de 2015
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Smart mature resilience: towards more resilient cities in Europe
Lecturer: Abstract:
The 21st Century has been termed "the century of disasters" (Jan Egeland, former United Nations Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, February 2011). Worldwide there were twice as many disasters and catastrophes in the first decade of this century as in the last decade of the 20th Century. Europe is no exception: our continent is affected directly and indirectly. And the trend continues, fuelled by climate change and social dynamics.
About Jose Mari Sarriegi
Short CV Jose Maria Sarriegi (PhD) is Industrial Engineer by TECNUN (School of Engineering, University of Navarra). He has been principal investigator of a large number of local, national and international projects. He is currently Coordinator of the SMR (Smart Mature Resilience) European H2020 project. Jose Maria has numerous publications in international journals and conferences. He lectures on Information Systems, Modelling, and Simulation. Additionally, he is currently the Director of the Department of Industrial Management at TECNUN.
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15th December, 11:00 BC3 offices * The Seminar will be in English. / Mintegia ingelesez burutuko da. / El seminario se realizará en inglés. |
Friday, 12 de June de 2015
Green accounting in a multi-sector model with terrestrial ecosystems
Lecturer: Itziar Ruiz de Gauna Ruiz de Loizaga (Instituto de Políticas y Bienes Públicos, CSIC)
Wednesday, 20 de May de 2015
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The Global Change Assessment Model: An overview and future directions
Lecturer: Abstract: The Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM) is an integrated assessment model with a long history initially focusing on Climate Change mitigation by reducing GHG emissions from the energy system. This model is under continual development to the Joint Global Change Research Institute in College Park, Maryland and has been made freely available and open source since 2011. The current version is 4.0 and is a global model that projects global energy use, land use, and the resulting emissions in 5 year increments until the end of the century.We start this seminar by briefly explaining the path along which the model has evolved focusing on what research questions we hoped to address. Share some of the significant projects the model has participated in: including being one of five integrated assessment models to participate in the IPCC's RCP process, integrated earth systems model, the platform for regional integrated assessment modeling and analysis. Highlight some interesting recent findings: abundant natural gas, global water demands and scarcity. Finally we give some insights about the future directions of the modeling effort. These include expanding detail in China, spatially explicitly analysis, balancing water supplies and demands, and including more climate feedbacks.
Personal webpage address of the lecturer:
http://www.globalchange.umd.edu/
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28th May, 12:00-13:00 BC3 offices * The Seminar will be in English. / Mintegia ingelesez burutuko da. / El seminario se realizará en inglés. |
Monday, 27 de April de 2015
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Climate change during the Collapse of the Maya Civilization: No hurricanes?...bad news!
Lecturer: Abstract:
In light of their power and precipitation fluxes, tropical storms and particularly hurricanes are agents of significant societal stress. Cyclone precipitation fluxes, conversely, could play a positive societal and environmental role during times and locations with a tendency towards dryness. New evidence from speleothems suggests that shifts in the frequency and intensity of tropical storms explain precipitation variability in the Yucatan Peninsula lowlands during the disintegration and collapse of the Maya civilization. Referenced paper:
Medina-Elizalde M. and Rohling E.J. Classic Maya civilization collapse related to modest reduction in precipitation, Science 335, 956 (2012).
Personal webpage address of the lecturer:
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21st May, 12:00-13:00 BC3 offices * The Seminar will be in English. / Mintegia ingelesez burutuko da. / El seminario se realizará en inglés. |
Monday, 27 de April de 2015
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Global past climate changes and their regional impact
Lecturer: Abstract: Geological archives show that during the last million years, the Earth’s climate underwent repeated changes between glacial (cold) and interglacial (warm) periods approximately every 41,000 or 100,000 years, with the present-day interglacial starting 12,000 years ago. These orbitally-induced glacial-interglacial cycles were punctuated by millennial-scale climatic variability. During the last glacial period (~100,000-15,000 years ago), the amplitude of the warming events in Greenland, Dansgaard-Oeshger (D-O) events, oscillated between 6 and 16°C, and occurred in few decades. In the North Atlantic huge freshwater pulses triggered by the fragmentation of the North American ice caps, the so-called Heinrich events, lead to abrupt sea surface cooling, changes in deep water conditions and open vegetation expansion in Europe. Both D-O and Heinrich events were associated with changes in the strength of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, rapid temperature changes in Antarctica and had a global impact as observed in the CO2 and CH4 concentration records. Since the identification of the rapid climatic variability a number of questions however remain still open such as its regional impact, the oceanic and atmospheric processes underlying this variability and how other forcing such as the orbital parameters modulate the amplitude of this variability. Based on micropaleontological (pollen and foraminifera) and geochemical analyses of several sedimentary sequences collected in the western European margin I will show that: a) vegetation-derived atmospheric changes parallel changes in sea surface temperatures and that there is a dynamic equilibrium between vegetation and climate for short periods of forcing, b) the magnitude of the change in vegetation and climate is regionally specific and is not a simple function of the magnitude of the change in climate as registered in Greenland ice cores. Changes in the Mediterranean region below 40°N were modulated by precession while above 40°N the largest temperature increases occurred during maxima in obliquity1. At global scale, data show that northern extratropics were particularly affected by the millennial-scale variability while in the tropics vegetation records show changes corresponding to Heinrich events but the response to the D-O oscillations is less marked2. These studies have thus revealed a tight coupling between oceanic and atmospheric temperatures to rapid climate changes. However, new results show that this ocean-atmosphere coupling is not a pervasive feature throughout time, and that in the eastern North Atlantic, a contrasting situation is evident during periods of rapid ice growth leading to a glacial period when strong thermal gradients developed between a warm ocean and cold landmasses3. 1. Sánchez Goñi, M.F., Landais, A., Fletcher, W.J., Naughton F., Desprat, S., Duprat, J. (2008). Contrasting impacts of Dansgaard-Oeschger events over a western European latitudinal transect modulated by orbital parameters, Quaternary Science Reviews, 27, 1136-1151. 2. Harrison, S.P., Sánchez Goñi, M.F. (2010). Global patterns of vegetation response to millennial-scale variability and rapid climate change during the last glacial period. Quaternary Science Reviews 29, 2957-2980. 3. Sánchez-Goñi, M.F., Bard, E., Landais, A., Rossignol, L., d’Errico, F. (2013). Air-sea temperature decoupling in Western Europe during the last interglacial/glacial transition. Nature Geoscience, DOI: 10.1038/ngeo1924.
Personal webpage addresses of the lecturer: http://www.ephe-paleoclimat.com/
http://scholar.google.fr/scholar?hl=fr&q=sanchez+goni&btnG=&lr&q=sanchez+goni&btnG=&lr=
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6th May, 12:00-13:00 BC3 offices * The Seminar will be in English. / Mintegia ingelesez burutuko da. / El seminario se realizará en inglés. |
Friday, 17 de April de 2015
Species interaction networks, global change and restoration
Lecturer: Dr. Daniel Montoya, Life Sciences Building, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom
Monday, 23 de February de 2015
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Effective Climate Agreements under Uncertainty
Lecturer: Abstract: Meaningful international cooperation on climate change requires countries to overcome a social dilemma; collectively, countries are better off reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, but individually they are better off increasing their emissions. An effective climate agreement must motivate sovereign countries to both voluntarily agree to reduce their emissions and then comply with their commitments. Moreover, this must take place under a great deal of uncertainty regarding the damages from climate change. Our existing institutions designed to manage climate change have failed. Here we use experimental methods to test a climate agreement structure that, in theory, encourages meaningful participation and compliance. One of the defining features of the agreement is that it requires members to pay refundable deposits upon ratification. Our results show that this agreement structure can be successful at significantly reducing emissions. Most importantly, the agreement remains highly effective even in the face of uncertainty regarding the damages from a changing climate. Our results suggest that making ex ante deposits, even relatively small ones, serves as a coordination device that allows countries to achieve meaningful climate cooperation.
Referenced paper: Effective Climate Agreements under Uncertainty (with Todd L. Cherry)
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7th May, 12:00-13:00 BC3 offices * The Seminar will be in English. / Mintegia ingelesez burutuko da. / El seminario se realizará en inglés. |
Thursday, 27 de November de 2014
Title: Vertical Fiscal Externalities and the Environment
Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Christoph Böhringer (Chair of Economic Policy Department of Economics, University of Oldenburg)
November 27th, 12:00 - 13:00, BC3 offices
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Vertical Fiscal Externalities and the Environment
Lecturer: Abstract: We show that imposition of a state-level environmental tax in a federation crowds out preexisting federal taxes. We explain how this vertical fiscal externality can lead unilateral state-level environmental policy to generate a welfare gain in the implementing state, at the expense of other states. Using a computable general equilibrium model of the Canadian federation, we show that vertical fiscal externalities can be the major determinant of the welfare change following environmental policy implementation by a state government. Our numerical simulations indicate that - as a consequence of vertical fiscal externalities - state governments can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by over 20 percent without any net cost to themselves.
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27th November, 12:00-13:00 BC3 offices * The Seminar will be in English. / Mintegia ingelesez burutuko da. / El seminario se realizará en inglés. |
Tuesday, 17 de February de 2015
Organizers
This course in jointly organized and financed by the Doctoral Program in Economics (Instruments of the Economic Analysis), the Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3) and the Research group on Economics and the Environment (UPV/EHU, Gobierno Vasco, IT-799-13).
Description of the Course
This course applies input-output analysis to issues on trade, on environment, and on growth. For the production of commodities and services, industries depend on other industries for their intermediate products. More and more, such linkages between industries cross borders. Input-output analysis is a tool that takes such inter-dependencies in the production structure into full account. It has been applied to a wide variety of topics, ranging from agricultural and development economics to disciplines dealing with energy and environmental issues. The course will focus on three of such topics.
Typical questions are the following. How much high-skilled labor in the US is involved in satisfying the demand for cars by households in Australia, reflecting trade in production factors? What is the greenhouse gas footprint of China, or how large are the Chinese "exports" of greenhouse gas emissions? What percentage of the growth in German GDP between 1995 and 2009 was due to the increased household consumption in the rest of the EU? To analyze these questions, the World Input-Output Database will be used.
Dates and Timetable
March 9-13, 2015
Timetable: 10:00h – 13:00h.
Venue
Faculty of Economics and Business, Sarriko, University of the Basque Country ( Bilbao)
Outline of the Course
This course (for which some basic knowledge of matrix algebra is indispensable) discusses recent developments in input-output analysis with applications to issues on trade, on environment, and on growth. For the production of commodities and services, industries depend on other industries for their intermediate products. More and more, such linkages between industries cross borders. Input-output analysis is a tool that takes such inter-dependencies in the production structure into full account. It has been applied to a wide variety of topics, ranging from agricultural and development economics to disciplines dealing with energy and environmental issues. The course is centered around some of my own research topics. That is, I will discuss a set of papers (some of which have recently been published, are forthcoming, are in the process of completion, or are still work in progress). I will start the course by briefly “revisiting” the common toolbox in input-output economics. The lectures are given in five daily sessions, each taking 3 hours, and the schedule is as follows.
Outline of the Doctoral Course_Trade, Growth and the Environment
Faculty
Prof. Erik Dietzenbacher (U. Groningen)
Personal Profile: http://www.rug.nl/staff/h.w.a.dietzenbacher/
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Monday, 02 de February de 2015
What seaweeds are telling us on climate change?: A view from a local to a European perspective.
Lecturer: Jose M. Gorostiaga, PhD Marine Botanist Laboratory of Botany, Faculty of Science and Technology University of the Basque Country
Wednesday, 31 de December de 2014
Title: End-to-end assessment of ocean warming and acidification on fisheries: from experiments and models to economic and social impacts
Lecturer: Jose A. Fernandes, MSc, PhD (Plymouth Marine Laboratory).
January 9th, 12:00 - 13:00, BC3 offices
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End-to-end assessment of ocean warming and acidification on fisheries: from experiments and models to economic and social impacts
Lecturer: Abstract: An assessment of the potential biological impacts and economic consequences of ocean warming and acidification is needed for sustainable ocean resources management. Here, we use new theory, observations, experiments and modelling to quantify (in terms of catches, monetary value and equivalent jobs) the combined effects of acidification and warming on commercial fish and shellfish under different CO2 emission scenarios. The UK is used as a case study area but the methods and key messages will be transferable across a broad range of settings. Incorporation of combined acidification and warming experimental data into the model scenarios consistently resulted in greater modelled changes than use of warming data alone. Shellfish species were impacted the most across the scenarios tested. This translates in a decrease in total potential landings in most UK administrative areas and particularly for the small vessels fleet. We also calculate the economic equivalent direct and indirect impacts in terms of income and jobs when using the results from this work projection considering the total fisheries related economy. The economic and social impacts could be further exacerbated in communities with economies highly dependent on fishing which are considered particularly vulnerable if there is a lack of a diversified economy. Keywords: climate change; multi-stressor; ocean acidification; ocean warming; shellfish; demersal species; fisheries; economic impact; employment; input-output modelling; economic resilience http://www.researchgate.net/publication/236460806_Modelling_the_effects_.... http://www.researchgate.net/publication/263542570_Scaling_up_experimental... Lecturer´s Biodata: Jose A. Fernandes is Computer Engineer from the University of Deusto (Spain), MSc in Computer Systems Security from the University of Glamorgan (Wales). He has performed his PhD thesis at AZTI-Tecnalia fundation (Spain) in collaboration with the Department of Computer Science and AI at University of Basque Country (Spain) from 2007 to 2011. Ph.D. in the field of Supervised Classification applied to fisheries research, mainly in plankton automatic classification and probabilistic forecasting, focusing on develop machine learning methodologies to applied problems in marine science and ecological modelling. Part of his work has been on performing robust evaluation and selection of modelling methodologies. After working in University of Helsinki (Finland) in the FEM group performing water quality framework modelling, he moved to University of East Anglia (UK) working on bioclimate envelop models and integration of different models for long-term forecasting in the EURO-BASIN project. Now moving to a more holistic view looking at the impacts of climate change and human interaction in ecosystem services and its socio-economic consequences at Plymouth Marine Laboratory. Lecturer´s web profile: http://www.sc.ehu.es/ccwbayes/members/jafernandes/ About the Lecturer´s research: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jose_Fernandes13/contributions/?ev=prf_act
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9th January, 12:00-13:00 BC3 offices * The Seminar will be in English. / Mintegia ingelesez burutuko da. / El seminario se realizará en inglés. |
Thursday, 27 de November de 2014
Title: Environmental and ecological modeling with non-parametric smoothing techniques
Lecturer: Dr. Dae-Jin Lee (BCAM - Basque Center of Applied Mathematics).
December 11th, 12:00 - 13:00, BC3 offices
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Environmental and ecological modeling with non-parametric smoothing techniques
Lecturer: Abstract: Non-parametric regression or smoothing is a form of regression analysis in which the predictor does not take a predetermined form but is constructed according to information derived from the data. There is a wide range of smoothing techniques in the literature, penalized splines are a very popular tool for smoothing due to their flexibility and ability to incorporate more complex structures such as additional covariates, correlations or hierarchical structures and multidimensional settings. In this talk I will introduce some basic concepts and techniques together with several examples from environmental and ecological applications.
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11th December, 12:00-13:00 BC3 offices * The Seminar will be in English. / Mintegia ingelesez burutuko da. / El seminario se realizará en inglés. |
Thursday, 27 de November de 2014
Title: Vertical Fiscal Externalities and the Environment
Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Christoph Böhringer (Chair of Economic Policy Department of Economics, University of Oldenburg)
November 27th, 12:00 - 13:00, BC3 offices
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Vertical Fiscal Externalities and the Environment
Lecturer: Abstract: We show that imposition of a state-level environmental tax in a federation crowds out preexisting federal taxes. We explain how this vertical fiscal externality can lead unilateral state-level environmental policy to generate a welfare gain in the implementing state, at the expense of other states. Using a computable general equilibrium model of the Canadian federation, we show that vertical fiscal externalities can be the major determinant of the welfare change following environmental policy implementation by a state government. Our numerical simulations indicate that - as a consequence of vertical fiscal externalities - state governments can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by over 20 percent without any net cost to themselves.
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27th November, 12:00-13:00 BC3 offices * The Seminar will be in English. / Mintegia ingelesez burutuko da. / El seminario se realizará en inglés. |
Monday, 24 de November de 2014
Title: Environmental and ecological modeling with non-parametric smoothing techniques
Lecturer: Prof. Alejandro Cardenete (Full Professor at the University Loyola,Sevilla)
November 26th, 11:00 - 12:00, BC3 offices
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MCDM and CGE Models Applied for Environmental Issues
Lecturer: Abstract: The goal of this presentation is to analyze two complementary approaches to include not only macroeconomic indicators if not to include environmental issues. Therefore we use MCDM - multicriteria decision making- techniques to capture different goals, economics and non-economics, in the same objective function. This approach is included in CGE models - computable general equilibrium- where you have all agents, institutions and sectors in the same model. So, linking these two models we apply them looking for different objectives as to increase GDP and to decrease CO2 emissions at the same time, for example. To see the potentiality of this approach we present different published papers where we can explore this one.
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26th November, 11:00-12:00 BC3 offices * The Seminar will be in English. / Mintegia ingelesez burutuko da. / El seminario se realizará en inglés. |
Wednesday, 05 de November de 2014
Emission Tax, Health Insurance and Crowding out of Energy Conservation Behavior: An Experiment
Lecturer: Dr. Pallab Mozumder Department of Earth & Environment, Department of Economics and Social Science Laboratory, International Hurricane Research Center, Florida
Wednesday, 21 de May de 2014
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Methodologies to analyze Urban Climate and improve thermal comfort from a planning perspective: the case of Bilbao
Lecturer: Abstract: Despite development of cities are including more sustainable aspects (e.g. reduction of energy consumption), urban climate still needs to be consolidated as an important variable in urban planning. In this sense, the analysis of urban climate requires a multi-scale approach. Results for Bilbao (Spain) are presented. In the mesoscale, an Urban Climate Map (UC-Map) is developed using a method based on GIS calculations, specific climatic measurements and urban climate expert knowledge. All the information is grouped in 5 information layers (building volume, building surface fraction, urban green areas, ventilation paths and slopes). The final UC-Map presents areas with relative homogeneous climate variables (i.e. climatopes) that are classified in terms of thermal comfort. Urban planning recommendations are defined. In the microscale, thermal comfort results extracted specofoc modelling in four urban spaces show the influence of regional climate conditions and the urban development type of each area. In both spatial scales, climate modelling should include specific measurement campaigns to validate results.
About Dr. Juan Angel Acero PhD in Natural Sciences from the University of Kassel (Germany); Title of the thesis: "Modelling the urban climate. Development of evaluation methods of the urban climate urban planning purposes". Since his incorporation in the Environmental Department of TECNALIA in 1999, he has focused his work in Atmospheric Pollution, taking part and being responsible of a great number of studies in air quality. The more important are atmospheric pollution diagnosis, evaluation of air quality impact due to urban traffic, modelling pollutants dispersion (traffic, industry), meteorological analysis and odour studies. During the last years he has focused on urban climate and thermal comfort at different spatial scales, analysing effects of vegetation, urban morphology and typology. In this sense, he has developed the first Urban Climate Map for Planning Purpose in Bilbao. He has several relevant publications in international journals and has participated in more than 20 communications to National and International Conferences.
Referenced papers:
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If you are interested in attending the Seminar, please register yourself clicking here
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17thJune, 10:30, BC3 offices * The Seminar will be in English. / Mintegia ingelesez burutuko da. / El seminario se realizará en inglés. |
Seminar / Mintegia / Seminario |
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Methodologies to analyze Urban Climate and improve thermal comfort from a planning perspective: the case of Bilbao
Lecturer: Abstract: Despite development of cities are including more sustainable aspects (e.g. reduction of energy consumption), urban climate still needs to be consolidated as an important variable in urban planning. In this sense, the analysis of urban climate requires a multi-scale approach. Results for Bilbao (Spain) are presented. In the mesoscale, an Urban Climate Map (UC-Map) is developed using a method based on GIS calculations, specific climatic measurements and urban climate expert knowledge. All the information is grouped in 5 information layers (building volume, building surface fraction, urban green areas, ventilation paths and slopes). The final UC-Map presents areas with relative homogeneous climate variables (i.e. climatopes) that are classified in terms of thermal comfort. Urban planning recommendations are defined. In the microscale, thermal comfort results extracted specofoc modelling in four urban spaces show the influence of regional climate conditions and the urban development type of each area. In both spatial scales, climate modelling should include specific measurement campaigns to validate results.
About Dr. Juan Angel Acero PhD in Natural Sciences from the University of Kassel (Germany); Title of the thesis: "Modelling the urban climate. Development of evaluation methods of the urban climate urban planning purposes". Since his incorporation in the Environmental Department of TECNALIA in 1999, he has focused his work in Atmospheric Pollution, taking part and being responsible of a great number of studies in air quality. The more important are atmospheric pollution diagnosis, evaluation of air quality impact due to urban traffic, modelling pollutants dispersion (traffic, industry), meteorological analysis and odour studies. During the last years he has focused on urban climate and thermal comfort at different spatial scales, analysing effects of vegetation, urban morphology and typology. In this sense, he has developed the first Urban Climate Map for Planning Purpose in Bilbao. He has several relevant publications in international journals and has participated in more than 20 communications to National and International Conferences.
Referenced papers:
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17thJune, 10:30, BC3 offices * The Seminar will be in English. / Mintegia ingelesez burutuko da. / El seminario se realizará en inglés. |
Wednesday, 21 de May de 2014
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Remote sensing of trace gases from ground and space based instruments
Lecturer: Abstract:
Remote sensing of the atmosphere is an invaluable tool to understand the earth’s atmosphere. The talk gives an introduction to state of the remote sensing in the ultraviolet to the short wave infrared spectral region. Many key players of atmospheric chemistry can be measured, which includes e.g. O3, NO2, SO2, HONO, HCHO, Halogen compounds, Glyoxal, CO, CO2 and CH4. Applications are discussed at the example of measurements of volcanic plumes, Arctic bromine explosion and Ozone depletion events, as well as observation of greenhouse gases from space.
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21th May, 12:00, BC3 offices * The Seminar will be in English. / Mintegia ingelesez burutuko da. / El seminario se realizará en inglés. |
Thursday, 08 de May de 2014
Assessment climate change adaptation policies for surface water availability in Mediterranean Europe
Lecturer: Prof. Luis Maria Garrote,Full Professor at the Technical University of Madrid (UPM), Dept. of Civil Engineering; Hydraulic and Energ
Tuesday, 06 de May de 2014
Direct and Indirect CO2 Emissions of Households: A Dynamic Consumption Model in an Input-Output Framework
Lecturer: Prof. Kurt Kratena Austrian Institute of Economic Research - WIFO
Thursday, 24 de April de 2014
"Certezas e incertidumbres sobre el impacto de los extremos térmicos sobre la salud y de otros factores ambientales asociados a las altas temperaturas"
Dr. Julio Díaz, Instituto de Salud Carlos III
Date: 30th of April, 2014
Time: 10:00
Venue: BC3 offices
Language: Spanish
Es evidente que desde que se produjo la ola de calor del año 2003 en
Europa se ha producido un gran avance en el conocimiento de cómo los
extremos térmicos afectan a la salud de la población, pero aún sigue
habiendo discrepancias en el seno científico que afectan a cuestiones
tan básicas como la propia definición de ola de calor. Este mayor
conocimiento ha traído en paralelo el planteamiento de cuestiones de
gran importancia para el establecimiento de los Planes de Prevención
como medida de adaptación ante estas temperaturas extremas: ¿Las
temperaturas a las que se articulan los Planes de Prevención se
mantienen constantes en el tiempo? ¿Cambian los impactos en salud como
consecuencia de las variaciones sociodemográficas? Por otro lado, y para
el caso del calor extremo, se está avanzando en el conocimiento de los
impactos que otros factores ambientales, concomitantes con las altas
temperaturas, pueden tener sobre la salud de la población como es el
caso de las intrusiones de polvo sahariano o la advección de material
particulado como consecuencia de la combustión de biomasa en los
incendios forestales. Ante el cambio climático presente urge dar
respuestas a estos interrogantes que se plantean y que van a ser claves a
la hora de articular las medidas preventivas necesarias para minimizar
los efectos que estos factores ambientales tienen sobre la salud de la
población.
Thursday, 10 de April de 2014
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The molecular structure of ice grain boundaries and its role in the dynamics of polar ice sheets
Lecturer: Abstract: The polar ice sheets that cover Greenland and Antarctica play a crucial role in the global climate system. Discharge of ice into the ocean by massive creep flow affects global sea level and the ocean/atmospheric circulation patterns that govern the climate of Earth. During the past two decades, several deep ice drilling projects have been conducted in Greenland and Antarctica, in order to investigate the physical and chemical properties of polar ice. From these investigations it transpires that molecular processes occurring within polycrystalline ice and at its grain boundaries play a decisive role in the dynamics of polar ice sheets, because they may determine the dominant deformation mechanisms of ice in situ. The fact that the creep of ice sheets occurs at extreme conditions (stresses lower than 100 kPa, temperatures down to −50ºC, strain rates about 10−12 s−1, and total shear strains exceeding 1000%) makes it very difficult to reproduce and clarify the mechanisms of polar ice deformation in laboratory. For these reasons, we decided to investigate the mechanics of ice sheets by understanding the microscopic behavior of water molecules within ice grains and at their boundaries. In this seminar I will talk about the physical properties of the grain boundaries of polar ice and their role in the dynamics of polar ice sheets. To this aim I present our recent experimental results of ultra-slow ice-creep tests by using a modified phase modulation homodyne interferometer and the results of creep tests with very fine polycrystalline ice obtained by a new method that exploits ice polymorphism.
Speaker’s Short Vita (By S.H. Faria, BC3): Prof. Nobuhiko Azuma is Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Executive Director/Vice-President of the Nagaoka University of Technology, Nagaoka, Japan. He earned his Dr.Eng. degree in 1986 from the Department of Applied Physics, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan, under the supervision of Prof. Akira Higashi. After that he worked as Research Assistant at the Department of Geological Sciences, State University of New York at Buffalo, USA, where he started his career as an ice core physicist in the group of Dr. Chester C. Langway, Jr., a pioneer of ice core research. Then, he returned to the Department of Applied Physics, Hokkaido University, Japan, to participate in the Japanese project of deep ice drilling at Dome Fuji, Antarctica. In the period 1988–1994 he visited Antarctica and Greenland several times performing tests and experiments for the deep drilling project and in 1994 he effectively started the deep drilling at Dome Fuji over the winter (deep drilling at Dome Fuji successfully finished in 2007, after retrieval of two deep ice cores amounting to more than 5 km of ice). In 1990 he was appointed Associate Professor of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Nagaoka University of Technology, and became full professor in 2004. His research interests include ice core analyses, ice physics and ice drilling technology. He is regarded today as one of the leading names of polar ice physics worldwide.
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If you are interested in attending the Seminar, send an email to events@bc3research.org |
30th April, DIPC offices (Paseo Manuel de Lardizabal, 4 SAN SEBASTIÁN) * The Seminar will be in English. / Mintegia ingelesez burutuko da. / El seminario se realizará en inglés. |
Friday, 14 de March de 2014
Putting the break on belching ruminants: strategies to reduce methane emissions
Lecturer: Dr. David R. Yáñez-Ruiz Animal Nutrition Institute (CSIC)
Wednesday, 04 de December de 2013
Coping with and Adapting to Global Change. Challenge for Society, Households and Individuals
Lecturer: Barbora Duzi- PhD Student, Global Change Research Centre The Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic
Household Adaptation Strategies to Climate Extremes and Population Consequences in Rural Areas in the Czech Republic
Lecturer: Robert Stojanov. Dr. en Geografía Medioambiental. Global Change Research Center, The Academy of Sciences. Rep. Checa.
Friday, 04 de October de 2013
Effects of international trade of food and feed and human diet shifts on food security and environmental safety: global and regional perspectives
Lecturer: Dr. Luis Lassaletta. UMR Sisyphe, CNRS/Université Pierre et Marie Curie.Paris (France)
Thursday, 26 de September de 2013
Biodiversity for Transgenics? Pursuit of Indian Farmers for Higher-Yielding, Lower-Risk Production Alternatives
Lecturer: Dr. Vijesh V. Krishna, Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, Georg-August University of Goettingen, Germany
Friday, 13 de September de 2013
Experiment on non-governmental norm enforcement (presentation of planned design).
Lecturer: Christiane Reif, Researcher at Centre for European Economic Research, Department of Environmental and Resource Economics, Environmental Management (Germany)
Friday, 16 de August de 2013
Friday, 30 August 2013(12:00 at BC3 offices)
Re-examining the Past and Rethinking the Future at Mount Mulanje Forest Reserve, Malawi: New Directions for Local Engagement
Lecturer: Mary C. Thompson (Bioversity International, Post-doctoral Research Fellow)
Abstract
Since the 1980s, broad recognition has been given to the need for and the benefits of aligning the protection of biodiversity in threatened forest ecosystems with measures to address the needs and desires of people living near and depending on those ecosystems. With this research project I focus on one such ecosystem found at the Mulanje Mountain Forest Reserve (MMFR) in southern Malawi. Large amounts of money and time have been put forth by local, national, and international donors and conservation organizations to support the goals of biodiversity conservation and social development at MMFR. In order to explore how managers of MMFR have failed to successfully realize both of these overarching goals, I focus on inadequate engagement of forest managers with local populations and the effects of this deficient engagement on the health of the reserve. As part of the analysis I emphasize how certain local social contexts have been left unexamined in project design and how these neglected contexts translate into ineffective project implementation and outcomes. Furthermore I highlight how these unexamined contexts continuously reinforce the superficial nature of the connection between local community members and those charged with managing the reserve
There are valuable lessons to be learned from this case study that can be extended not only to other areas surrounding MMFR, but also to the managers of protected areas worldwide who, in the face of changing global climates and associated policy implications, are seeing the necessity for increasingly meaningful relationships with local communities and individuals.
Monday, 20 de May de 2013
Innovation and Aesthetics of On-Site Solar.
Lecturer: Amelia Amon (Alt.Technica, Ltd., New York, NY, USA)
Monday, 20 de May de 2013
Integrated challenges to achieving global prosperity for everyone: energy, climate, economics, and resources.
Lecturer: Prof. Tyler Volk (Dept. of Biology, NYU, New York, NY, USA)
Friday, 12 de April de 2013
Addressing climate change challenges from a multidisplicinary perspective.
8th - 10th July, 2013 Donostia - San Sebastián
This year the 2013 summer school (July 8th, 9th, 10th) entitled “Addressing Climate Change Challenges from a Multidisciplinary Perspective” will be structured similarly to IPCC (International Panel for Climate Change) assessment reports. For this purpose, we have invited researchers that can help us to better understand the biophysical part behind the economics of climate change. The course will have three main sessions/days, each of them focusing in one of the subjects of the IPCC Working Groups: climate science, adaptation and impact and mitigation of climate change. An IPCC-member scientist will be a keynote lecture for each session. After that, top leading invited speakers will cover in more detail the main key issues in the climate change research agenda.
The topics that will be covered this year are: artic sea ice dynamics, ocean circulation models and its implications for state-shift events, see level rise projections and implications, impacts of climate change on water, food and health, mitigation options, technologies and cost, climate policies at global level and economic instruments.
The school is open to Master students, PhD students, postdoctoral fellows and other researchers as well as policy makers interested in acquiring a deep understanding of climate change and the policies designed to fight it.
PhD students and postdoctoral participants will have the opportunity to present their work in a specific poster session and get feedback from the faculty.
Friday, 05 de April de 2013
Study of mechanisms of greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture at different scales
Lecturer: Dr. Laura Cardenas - Rothamsted Research
Friday, 05 de April de 2013
Improving Global Public Goods Supply Through Conditional Transfers - The International Adaptation Transfer Riddle
Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Karen Pittel - Ifo Institute for Economic Research, Munich (Head of Department Energy, Environment and Exhaustible Resources)
Wednesday, 16 de January de 2013
Useful work accounting in Portugal from 1856 to 2009. Intensities and recent European patterns
Lecturer: André González Cabrera Honório Serrenho - PhD student and researcher (IN+, Center for Innovation, Technology and Policy Research, and Department of Mechanical Engineering, Instituto Superior Técnico, Technical University of Lisbon)
Tuesday, 11 de December de 2012
The Value of Adaptation: Climate Change and Timberland Management
Lecturer: Prof. Christopher Costello - Research Professor at Bren School of Environmental Science & Management (UC Santa Barbara)
Monday, 10 de December de 2012
Climate policy negotiations with incomplete information
Lecturer: Professor Kai A. Konrad - Managing Director at the MaxPlanck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance ( Munich)
Wednesday, 05 de December de 2012
Impact of climate policy and external shocks on innovation in renewable energy technologies
Lecturer: Dr Pia Weiss, Lecturer for Industrial Economics (Nottingham University Business School)
Friday, 16 de November de 2012
A Water Agency faced with Quantity-Quality Management of a Groundwater Resource
Lecturer: Katrin Erdlenbruch (Research Fellow, Irstea, Montpellier, France)
Tuesday, 06 de November de 2012
An early warning system for desertification
Lecturers:
Dr. Javier Ibáñez Puerta - Dpto de Estadística y métodos de gestión en agricultura, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid
Dr. Jaime Martínez Valderrama - Estacion Experimental Zonas Aridas, CSIC
Monday, 05 de November de 2012
Large Scale Integration of Renewables in Power Systems: Flexibility Assessment and Market Rules Design
Lecturer: Fernando de Sisternes (PhD Candidate, Engineering Systems Division, Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Tuesday, 25 de September de 2012
From Theory to Practice: The Science and Field Implementation of Ecosystem Services
Lecturer: Dr. Rosimeiry Portela (Conservation International)
Thursday, 12 de July de 2012
Theoretical issues and operational challenges in ecosystem services valuation
Lecturer: Erik Gómez-Baggethun (Institute of Environmental Science and Technology, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
Valuing the Water Purification/Filtration Service of Temperate Coastal Rainforests in Southwestern British Columbia: A Stochastic Production Function Approach
Lecturer: Duncan Knowler Simon Fraser University (jointly with Ashley Page)
Thursday, 12 de July de 2012
The "slash-and-burn" solution to climate change
Lecturer: Jacob Phelps (National University of Singapore)
Tuesday, 10 de July de 2012
Integrated Assessment Modeling: Climate Science and Economics for Low-Carbon Growth Pathways in Mexico
Lecturer: Claudia Octaviano Phd candidate, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Co-director of the MIT-Electricity Students Research Group MIT-Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change
Monday, 04 de June de 2012
Past climate change recorded in polar ice cores and Deep ice core drilling, polar ice-sheet flow and its implications for climate change
Lecturers: Prof. Kumiko Goto-Azuma and Prof. Nobuiko Azuma
Monday, 14 de May de 2012
Market-based valuation of transmission network expansion. A heuristic application in GB.
Lecturer: Prof. Jose Manuel Chamorro
Tuesday, 27 de March de 2012
Voluntary and Information Based Approaches to Environmental Management: An Impure Public Good and Club Theory Perspective.
Lecturer: Prof. Matthew Kotchen. Associate Professor of Economics (Yale University) School of Forestry & Environmental Studies
Monday, 26 de March de 2012
Integrating biophysical and socioeconomic issues regarding adaptation to climate change in California.
Lecturer: Prof. Louise Jackson (Univ. California, Davis)
Monday, 19 de March de 2012
Altering Hydrology due to a Changing Climate and the Perception of these Changes: Examples from the Mountains of Colorado and Mongolia.
Lecturer: Prof. Steven R. Fassnacht (ESS-Watershed Science, Warner College of Natural Resources, Colorado State University)
Tuesday, 17 de January de 2012
Spatial green accounting for terrestrial ecosystems: from theory to practice
Lecturer: Prof. Alejandro Caparrós, Institute for Public Goods and Policies (CSIC)
Thursday, 27 de October de 2011
Precaution and proportionality in the management of global environmental change
Lecturer: Prof. Charles Perrings (School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University)
Tuesday, 04 de October de 2011
Tuesday, 27 de September de 2011
Tuesday, 27 de September de 2011
From regulatory policies to ecosystem services: political ecology in the Amazon
Lecturer: Professor Xavier Arnauld de Sartre
Monday, 11 de July de 2011
The benefits and costs of heat waves prevention in a context of rising temperatures.
Seminar given by Gerardo Sanchez (PhD. student, UPV/EHU)
Date: July 13th
Location: Faculty of Sarriko, 12:00 Room B.015
Heat waves are a serious threat to communities? health, particularly in urban settings. Heat-related health risks are increasing due to current trends of population ageing, fast urbanization and rising temperatures related to climate change.
However, public health prevention of heat waves is still not widespread, mainly because of resource constraints and uncertainty about the costs incurred and benefits achieved. Several available health valuation techniques can provide the basis for a cost-benefit or cost-effectiveness analysis framework of this type of prevention.
While there is no standardized procedure for such analysis as yet, even an exploration of methodological steps could prove useful for public health authorities considering the implementation of heat prevention plans. Ultimately, only cost-beneficial and/or cost-effective adaptation options are likely to be adopted in a context of multiple competing public health priorities.
Friday, 17 de June de 2011
"Selecting random parameters in discrete choice experiment for environmental valuation: A simulation experiment" P. Mariel, A. de Ayala, D. Hoyos, S. Abdullah
Seminar given by Amaia de Ayala, Phd Student at the University of the Basque Country
Date: June 24th
Location: Sarriko, B.015, 12:00
This paper examines various tests commonly used to select random parameters in choice modelling. The three most common procedures for selecting random parameters are: the Lagrange Multiplier test as proposed by McFadden and Train (2000), the t-statistic of the deviation of the random parameter and the log-likelihood ratio test. The identification of random parameters in other words the recognition of preference heterogeneity among population is based on the fact that an individual makes a choice depending on her/his: tastes, perceptions and experiences. A simulation exercise was carried out based on a real case study where cross-sectional and two different structures of panel data settings were used to examine the empirical size and power of the three tests. The key results indicate that the power of these tests depends importantly on the spread and type of the parameter
distribution.
Thursday, 03 de March de 2011
Local and Global Externalities, Environmental Policies and Growth
Seminar given by Prof. Dr. Karen Pittel (Head of Department Energy, Environment and Exhaustible Resources Ifo Institute for Economic Research, Munich)
Date: June 2nd
Location: Sarriko, B0.XX, 13:00
The paper analyzes the implications of local and global pollution when two types of abatement activities can be undertaken. One type (e.g., use of particulate matter filters) reduces solely local pollution while the other (e.g., application of fuel saving technologies) mitigates global pollution as well. In the framework of a 2-country endogenous growth model, the implications of different assumptions about the degree to which global externalities are internalized are analyzed. Subsequently, we derive policy rules adapted to the different scenarios as well as to implement the first-best solution. Special attention is paid to pollution, growth and optimal policy in the case of asymmetric internalization.
Thursday, 28 de April de 2011
Looking into the future of water and agriculture
Seminar given by Dr. Ana Iglesias (Department of Agricultural Economics and Social Sciences, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain.)
Date: May 20th
Location: Sarriko, B0.XX, 13:00
This presentation analyses the broad question of how climate change science may provide some insights about the future for agriculture. It presents and defends three assertions aimed at exploring the future of agriculture in a changing climate. (1) Understanding the uncertain impacts of climate change is useful for facing agricultural challenges. (2) Understanding and reducing vulnerability does not demand accurate predictions of the impacts of climate change. (3) It is politically difficult to justify vulnerability reduction on economic grounds. Pressures on land and water resources are expected to intensify the existing risks in low latitude areas and in regions with current water scarcity, and create new opportunities in some northern temperate areas. We show that global change is a major source of uncertainty for today’s vulnerable societies and that adaptation to uncertain conditions is a challenge as climate change comes in conjunction with high development pressure, increasing populations, water management that is already facing conflicts and agricultural systems that are often not adapted (any more) to local conditions. These two aspects are evaluated across world regions to synthesise the reasons for concern for agriculture and provide some thoughts on policy development.
Tuesday, 05 de April de 2011
"Synergy between organic waste management by composting and agronomy to reduce greenhouse gases emissions"
Prof.Raul Moral (Catedrático Edafología y Química Agrícola - Universidad Miguel Hernández de Elche)
The general topic of this seminar is around the role of organic waste management by composting as a key tool to balance the emission of agricultural GHG and as a way to restore fertility of the soils and enhance C sinks in Mediterranean soils. Exploring the potential role in intensive agriculture of substitution of perlite and peat substrates by high quality compost will be presented as an example of case study.
Location: Chamber of Commerce Bilbao (Alameda Recalde 50) Room 2.09.,12:00
* The Seminar will be in English. / Mintegia ingelesez burutuko da. / El seminario se realizará en inglés.
Friday, 01 de April de 2011
Aggregative Environmental Games
Seminar given by Prof. Richard Cornes (Professor of Economics and F H Gruen Chair in Economics, Research School of Economics, Australian National University)
Date: April 1st
Location: Sarriko, B0.14, 13:00
At the heart of the subdiscipline of environmental economics is a judgement, shared by this author, that even in the absence of the other standard sources of "market failure", a decentralized market equilibrium is likely to be inefficient as a consequence of various externalities, or spillovers, that are generated by production and consumption activities. These links, that are not mediated through the system of voluntary exchange, and may be variously categorized as pollution, congestion, resource depletion, over-exploitation, have quantitatively significant implications for human welfare. The tasks of environmental economists include the attempts to quantify these externalities, explore their role in generating inefficient equilibria, and to suggest implementable mechanisms that overcome, or at least mitigate, the inefficiency. This paper is concerned with the issue of how best to analyze situations involving reciprocal externalities. I consider two basic models, and various extensions of those models. The first - the voluntary pure public good contribution model - captures the essential features of situations involving positive, or beneficial, reciprocal externalities. The second - the open access resource model, or the tragedy of the commons - captures the essential features of situations involving negative, or detrimental, reciprocal externalities.
Thursday, 17 de March de 2011
Flexibility in Engineering Design: Creating Value in Technological Enterprises Using Flexibility to Exploit Uncertainties
Seminar given by Richard de Neufville (Prof. of Engineering Systems and of Civil and Environmental Engineering, MIT)
Date: March 17th
Location: Sarriko, B0.14, 13:00
Monday, 31 de January de 2011
Biodiversidad, que es y por qué conservarla.
En esta tertulia los investigadores hablarán sobre qué es la biodiversidad como concepto y cuáles son sus componentes; desde las grandes especies y ecosistemas como elefantes y desiertos, a comunidades casi desconocidas pero imprescindibles para la vida como las bacterias intestinales.
Trataremos los motivos que históricamente se han argüido para su conservación y puesta en valor, y como estos han ido cambiando con el tiempo y descubriremos por qué el mantenimiento de una sociedad como la nuestra depende directa e indirectamente de la biodiverisdad y qué efecto tendría perder una u otra especie aparentemente insignificante.
Por último, una vez vistos algunos de los valores que le son atribuidos por la sociedad, los investigadores charlarán sobre las distintas posibilidades y aproximaciones existentes a la hora de poner un valor a la biodiversidad como apoyo a la toma de decisiones. Es decir, cúal es el proceso que podemos seguir para estimar qué coste económico tendría perder una especie o un ecosistema y cómo incorporar esa información en la gestión de la biodiversidad.”
Ponentes:
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Dr. Jabi Zabala (Jefe de poyectos Área de Cambio Climático y Biodiversidad de Ihobe)
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Dra Elena Ojea (Investigadora Postdoctoral Economía de la Biodiversidad BC3, Basque Centre for Climate Change)
Organiza: Eureka Café
Fecha: 15 de Febrero de 2011 a las 19:30
Fuente: Hika Ateneo
Friday, 28 de January de 2011
Iberian forests against global change: projected impacts and adaptation mechanisms.
Seminar given by Prof. Miguel A. Zavala (Director CIFOR-INIA)
Date: February 2nd
Location: Sarriko, B03, 12:00
Global Change is one of the main threats for the maintenance of biological diversity and key ecosystem services. In Spain, land use transformations and climate change are two main drivers of Global Change. During the 1990-2000 period, land use changes have driven an important reconfiguration of forest areas, including a slightly decrease in forest surface and an increase in fragmentation (OSE, 2007). Aside from this, changes in phenology and species distribution have also been documented and are caused by climate change (Peñuelas y Boada 2003). Forecasting the future, a drastic decrease in potential forest occupation area is predicted, especially for mountainous species, together with a progressive decrease in productivity in middle and South Iberian peninsula (OSE 2007; Benito Garzón et al. 2008), Bioclimatic models provide a first approach to the study of species under a changing climate, but they avoid key biological mechanisms such as local adaptation, plasticity or the species dispersal capabilities. First, forest species can have an intra-specific genetic variability, as a consequence of their movements since last glaciations (Hampe y Petit, 2005). Therefore, preliminary results show how local adaptation can derive into important intra-specific divergences in the forest species response to climate change. Equally, in distribution models, the species dispersal capability provides more realistic estimations for the species distribution. Stochastic plot occupation models (SPOM) parameterized with more than 70,000 observation points from the second and third National Forestry Inventories (IFN) (which differ in a temporal gap of approximately 10 years) suggest that fragmentation bears to a significant decrease in the number of species as related to species distribution model results. However, it also shows that specific dispersion paths are related to an increase in the community resilience (Montoya et al. 2008). Finally, we discuss the relevance of conservation and restoration strategies in ecosystems as key policies that can lead to counteract the effects of global change effects (Rey Benayas et al., 2009). Particularly, the development of models that allow us to add critical thresholds to the resilience of communities with the aim of assuring the restoration success and optimizing conservation strategies.
Wednesday, 26 de January de 2011
Social Preferences about Climate Change: Evidence from Spain.
Seminar given by Prof. Maria Loureiro (Associate Professor at the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela).
Date: January 27th
Location: Sarriko, B01, 13:00
Spain faces a complex situation regarding its climate change policies. On the one hand, greenhouse gas emissions have shown an important increase since 1990, being far from the Kyoto commitments. On the other hand, Spain is likely to suffer important impacts from climate change. However, there has been a rather limited application of corrective policies, particularly in the field of energy prices. Indeed, although Spanish citizens generally show a large concern towards climate change, price increases in energy goods have been traditionally opposed. In this paper we try to offer an explanation to this phenomenon, and a possible hint for future policies in the field, by showing how Spanish households strongly favour the application of energy programs that makes electricity and car fuels more expensive to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The article presents the basic results from the application of a contingent valuation survey that provides information on households’ willingness to pay and attitudes regarding different alternatives to reduce greenhouse gases.
Thursday, 20 de January de 2011
Evaluation of externalities. The corporate ecological footprint: MC3 methodology and application
Seminar given by Ingrid Mateo Mantecón (Departamento de Economía,Universidad de Cantabria).
This communication presents an analysis of the main results of the calculation of the ecological footprint and carbon footprint (or CO2 emissions into the atmosphere) produced by the economic activity of a Port Authority of the North Coast of Spain, using a compound financial accounts method (MC3). Furthermore, the results will be compared with those obtained for Gijón Port Authority in 2006. For the Spanish port authorities, environmental protection and sustainable development are a commitment and part of their strategic actions. Some eco-efficiency indicators for the companies under analysis are also calculated,compared and analyzed.
January 14th, Sarriko, B01, 13:00
Tuesday, 14 de December de 2010
Workshop-Session on System Dynamics and Environmental Economics and UPV-EHU / BC3 Seminar.
Lecturer: Professor Erling Moxnes (Systems Dynamic Group, University of Bergen, Norway).
Date: 3rd December, 2010
Location: Sarriko
11:00 - 12:30
Workshop – Session on System Dynamics and Environmental Economics.
"Environmental problems: How can System Dynamics complement Economics?"
Dynamics complicate understanding. It took 2000 years before Newton corrected Aristotle’s misunderstanding of velocity. Economic systems are harder to understand than the velocity of objects, and it is not surprising that dynamics are still not well understood in economics. I will concentrate on two dynamic phenomena, cycles and overshoots.
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13:00 - 14:00
UPV-EHU / BC3 Seminar.
"Misperceptions of the dynamics of climate change and of policy instruments"
There is a wide gap between recommendations and actual reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases. Decisions to reduce emissions rely on politicians and their electorates. They may have good reasons to delay initiatives, however, they may also be confused by contradictory information and they may unable to perceive consequences of neither emissions nor policy initiatives. One challenge is to consider causes of climate change in addition to observations. Another is to realize that the climate problem is coupled to the problem of fossil energy depletion. A third is to understand the consequences of delays both when it comes to effects of emissions and to development of alternative technologies. Regarding policies, one major challenge is to understand how environmental taxes work. Most misperceptions seem to bias policies towards inaction. In my analysis of misperceptions I will draw on laboratory experiments, simulation models and observations of debates and policy making.
For further information regarding Professor Moxnes and System Dynamics methodology you can visit:
- http://www.ifi.uib.no/staff/erling/
- http://www.uib.no/rg/dynamics/publications/about-system-dynamics
Wednesday, 01 de December de 2010
“Challenges and perspectives in ecosystem services assessment and valuation: towards a new science of integrated human/natural systems.”
Seminar given by Dr. Ferdinando Villa, Research Professor in BC3.
Date: 1st December, 2010
Location: Science Faculty in Leioa
Despite the wide recognition of the notion of ecosystem services as an instrument to support the fair accounting of natural capital and an important aid in informing sustainable development, the science to quantify their provision, usage and flow between natural producers and human beneficiaries has developed slowly. A large part of Dr. Villa's career has been dedicated to developing scientific instruments to overcome the natural inertia of the mainstream conceptualization and to promote a quantum leap in the science of ecosystem services, allowing the notion to become a sound base for policy.
One of the results of the research carried on by Dr. Villa and his team is the ARIES (ARtificial Intelligence for Ecosystem Services) technology, which will be the focus of the seminar. Using a formal knowledge base and automated machine reasoning, ARIES studies all the data relevant to specific ecosystem service assessment questions in a given area and constructs a cause-and-effect, ad-hoc picture of how ecological and economic factors interact. The result of an ARIES user session is a dynamic environmental asset analysis that spatially quantifies the provision, use, and dynamics of flow of ecosystem services in the area. Users can explore effects of policy changes and external pressures (such as climate change) through a scenario analysis module. ARIES incorporates a valuation module to assess potential and realized economic values and a biodiversity module to estimate values of protected areas for human well-being and threats to protected species. An ARIES analysis includes documentation and references that document and justify operations, datasets, and models used to create it.
Tuesday, 14 de December de 2010
“Climate Challenges for European Critical Infrastructure Protection: Nuclear Power and Water Supply.”
Seminar given by Dr. Stefan Vögele (senior researcher at the Forschungszentrum Jülich in Germany)
Date: 15th October, 2010
Location: Sarriko
During the heat waves in 2003 and 2006 nuclear power plants in several European countries had to reduce or shut down production due to reduced access to cooling water, regulation on maximum temperature of the return water and other limitations in the cooling system. Such nuclear power supply disruptions may have a significant impact on the energy supply security in Europe as nuclear power accounts for 28% of total power supply, each nuclear reactor accounts for a considerable amount of power and nuclear reactors are typically located in the same geographical area with access to the same source of cooling water. One way of addressing this risk of energy supply disruptions is through the application of supranational legislation and action plans, such as those developed in the European Programme for Critical Infrastructure Protection (EPCIP) and the corresponding legislation. In the 2005 Green Paper on the EPCIP, the need to help reducing threats directed towards critical infrastructures such as for example energy and water supply was acknowledged. Such threats may come from terrorism, natural disasters and accidents. In our study we build a case for including climate-induced disruptions of electricity supply in the EPCIP and suggest how EPCIP should be amended to better cope with such threats.
Tuesday, 14 de December de 2010
“A system dynamics approach to waste management: the case of Naples.”
Seminar given by Dr. Maria Federica Di Nola (UPV/EHU).
Date: 4th October, 2010
Location: Sarriko
The problem of waste management is complex in nature, involving major issues such as the increasing production of waste, the generation of a wide variety of emissions, impacts on human health and environmental threats. In this paper a system dynamics model is proposed to better understand this complex problem, taking Naples as a case study. The aim of the model is to explain the underpinning reasons behind the waste crisis the city is experiencing and to assess the costs derived from the emergency. With this purpose the model considers (a) demographic variables; (b) alternative waste treatment options; (c) costs associated with each option; (d) environmental awareness and (e) institutional constraints.
Wednesday, 26 de May de 2010
Date: 26th May, 2010
Location: Sarriko
12:00 - 13:00
Steffen Kallbekken (CICERO)
"Pigou versus Confucius: The effect of experience on the acceptability of Pigouvian taxes in a lab experiment"
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13:00 - 14:00
David R. Heres del Valle (BC3) jointly with Cynthia Lin, UC Davis
"Quantity and price controls for the correction of externalities under uncertain damages: Evidence from a laboratory experiment"
Monday, 17 de May de 2010
“Evaluación del impacto y adaptación al cambio climático en los sistemas agrícolas de la Península Ibérica".
La Dra. Margarita Ruiz-Ramos es Ingeniera Agrónoma por la Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM, Doctorado Europeo), investigadora del programa “Juan de la Cierva” en el Instituto de Ciencias Ambientales de la Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, miembro del grupo de Investigación MOMAC (UCLM, grupo dedicado a la modelización de clima) y miembro asociado del grupo AgSystems (UPM, grupo dedicado al estudio de los sistemas agrarios). Experta en modelación de cultivos y sistemas agrarios. Su estudio se ha centrado en los impactos del cambio climático en la agricultura; en particular en los Proyectos Europeos PRUDENCE Y ENSEMBLES.
Abstract:
Los sistemas agrícolas del siglo XXI están sujetos a presiones crecientes para aumentar su productividad en un contexto de mayor competencia y necesidad de conservación de los recursos, incluido el suelo. El Cambio Climático es un factor más que intensifica esta presión. Este trabajo muestra proyecciones de impacto del cambio climático en la Península Ibérica sobre cultivos de referencia, utilizando para ello una cadena de modelización desde los modelos regionales de clima o RCMs hasta los impactos de primer orden obtenidos con modelos de simulación de cultivos. La cuantificación de la incertidumbre que se va acumulando en dicha cadena de simulación se hace posible al trabajar con “ensembles” de modelos, y es clave para la interpretación de las proyecciones. La metodología utilizada permite evaluar estrategias de adaptación singulares y combinadas en los casos en los que los impactos negativos son dominantes. Por último, se muestra un ejemplo de transferencia de resultados me diante una herramienta desarrollada para “Scientific Support to Policies”.
Monday, 26 de April de 2010
"The DICER model: methodological issues and initial results of calibration”
Seminar given by Dr. Ramon Arigoni Ortiz.
Date: 28th April, 2010
Location: Sarriko
This paper introduces DICER, a model for the integrated assessment of climate – economy interactions within an optimal growth framework developed upon the structure of the DICE2007 model. We present the methodological differences introduced so far in DICER and some preliminary results on the calibration of its deterministic version. We observe interesting results comparison to other IAMs, such as (i) lower peak temperatures; (ii) radiative forcing differences; (iii) differences in control rates; and (iv) sensitivity of results to parameters such as climate sensitivity. However, given the current stage of development of DICER, we regard these preliminary results with caution. We also indicate some methodological issues that need to be dealt with in the near future in DICER.
Wednesday, 24 de March de 2010
"Valuing reliability of electricity services in rural Kenya" (Dr. Sabah Abdullah)
Seminar given by Dr Sabah Abdulah
Date: 26th March, 2010
Location: Sarriko
Modern forms of energy are an important vehicle towards poverty alleviation in rural areas of developing countries. Most developing countries households rely heavily on wood fuel, which impacts on their health and socio-economic status. To ease such a dependency, other modern forms of energy, namely electricity, need to be provided. However, the quality of the electricity service, namely reliability, is an important factor in reducing this dependency. This paper discusses a choice experiment valuation study conducted among electrified rural households located in Kisumu, Kenya, in which the willingness to pay (WTP) to avoid power outages or blackouts was estimated.
A mixed logit estimation was applied to identify the various socio-economic and demographic characteristics which determine preferences in reducing power outages among a householder users. In conclusion, several of the socio-economic and demographic characteristics outlined in this paper were identified and can assist service differentiation to accommodate the diverse households? preferences towards the improvement of the electricity service.
Monday, 08 de March de 2010
"The Long Run Demand for Lighting (1711-2008): The Effects of Economic Development and Technological Innovation".
Seminar given by Roger Fouquet, Ikerbasque Research Professor- BC3.
Date: 24th of February
Location: Sarriko
Before the mid-eighteenth century, most people lived in near-complete darkness except in the presence of sunlight and moonlight. Since then, the provision of artificial light has been revolutionized by a number of innovations in appliances, fuels, infrastructures and institutions. The real price of lighting has fallen dramatically (i.e. 4,000-fold since 1800). Coupled with the growing demands of economic development, per capita consumption of lighting is 16,000 times greater than in 1800. This paper presents estimates of the income, real price and efficiency (i.e. rebound effect) elasticities of demand for lighting, and how they have changed over time. This paper provides a first case study of the long run effects of economic development and technological innovation on the demand for energy services, which are vital for a better understanding of energy behavior and forecasting of greenhouse gas emissions.
Monday, 08 de March de 2010
"Market Power and Competition in the Iberian Electricity Market" (Jointly with Aitor Ciarreta)
Seminar given by Shariyar Nasirov.
Date: 3rd of February
Location: Sarriko
Thursday, 19 de November de 2009
"Global costs of climate change adaptation in the industrial and municipal water supply sector"
Seminar given by Luke Brander, researcher of the Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM) of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (The Netherlands).
Title: "Global costs of climate change adaptation in the industrial and municipal water supply sector".
Date: 27th of October
Location: Sarriko
To date there has been little research on the costs of adaptation to climate change in the water sector at the global scale, which hampers planning and negotiations with regards to the financial resource allocations necessary for effective adaptation. To address this lack of research, we carried out a global study to estimate the costs of climate change related adaptation in the industrial and municipal water supply sector. In this study, we develop and apply a methodology that combines information from models on climate, hydrology and economics to estimate the cost of providing enough water to meet future industrial and municipal water demand, based on demand projections until 2050 at country level. Increased water demand between present and the future scenarios is assumed to be met primarily through reservoir yield by increasing the capacity of surface reservoir storage. The additional reservoir storage capacity required to meet future water demand is calculated using storage-yield curves, which show the storage capacity needed to provide a firm yield and reliability of water supply over the course of a year. For developed countries we estimated the net annual cost of climate change related adaptation in water supply to be $1-2 billion p.a. The costs for developing countries are higher at around $10 billion p.a.
Tuesday, 20 de October de 2009
"Investments in energy efficiency under climate policy uncertainty"
Seminar given by Jose Manuel Chamorro and Luis Mª Abadie.
Title: "Investments in energy efficiency under climate policy uncertainty".
Date: 16th of October
Location: Sarriko
Efficiency gains have put a limit on fuel consumption growth in the past. In addition to energy savings, these improvements have another basic impact, namely the avoiding of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that go hand in hand with fossil fuel combustion. To the extent that there is a price for these emissions, curbing them has economic value for firms that operate in an emissions-constrained environment. This holds also where no such price exists currently but there is a chance that climate restrictions will be imposed in the future.
There is a broad consensus that energy efficiency can play a significant role in curbing GHG emissions while paying for itself. However, investments that at first glance seem worthwhile are frequently not undertaken. This situation can be traced back in part to the challenge of attracting sufficient interest from the investment community. Fortunately, though, energy-efficiency investments lend themselves to financial analysis. We analyse investments in efficiency (and savings in energy) from the viewpoint of a firm or individual that behaves rationally, i.e. in his/her best economic interest.
The investment or project is valued as a (real) option that is only exercised at the optimal time and is irreversible (the firm cannot disinvest should market conditions turn). The return on this investment is highly uncertain. Uncertainty emanates from energy prices and emission allowance prices, but regulatory uncertainty may top them all. We aim to determine the optimal time to invest or, in other words, to learn the conditions under which the investment should be made.
Our theoretical model comprises two stochastic processes for fuel (say, natural gas) price, and emission (say, carbon) allowance price, respectively. With regard to the carbon price, we consider a standard geometric Brownian motion (GBM) in two different scenarios: within a given commitment period (e.g., 2008-2012), and between two successive periods (i.e. the current one and the immediate post-Kyoto period), presumably separated by a change in climate regulation with an ensuing jump in carbon prices. As for the natural gas price, we assume a mean-reverting process in which the long-term equilibrium level grows deterministically over time. The key underlying parameters in these processes are estimated from actual market prices. We can then assess energy-efficiency investments in a fairly realistic setting. As a case study, we consider a potential investment in either of two different gas-fired power stations that differ in their efficiency levels. In particular, we derive the total return to an increase of a percentage point in thermal efficiency as a function of the plant's production factor or availability rate.
Friday, 20 de November de 2009
Madrid, España,15 de Octubre de 2009
Presentacion de libro editado por Mª Carmen Gallastegui, Catedratica de Fundamentos del Analisis Economico (Universidad del Pais Vasco) y Mikel Gonzalez-Eguino, investigador en el BC3-Basque Centre for Climate Change, dentro del acto de presentacion del numero 121 de la revista Papeles de la Economia Española que lleva por titulo: "Economia y Cambio Climatico".
Wednesday, 24 de June de 2009
"Economic Valuation of Forest Ecosystem Services: Methodology and Values".
Seminar given by Aline Chiabai, Research Professor in BC3.
Title: "Economic Valuation of Forest Ecosystem Services: Methodology and Values".
Date: 19th of June
Location: Sarriko
Ecosystem services are expected to be strongly affected in the near future stressed by climate change. Far from being a mere accountability issue, the crucial issue under debate is the impact of this loss on the welfare of current and future populations, as well as wider ethical questions on the role of humans in the stewardship of the planet’s natural resources. The seminar will present the methodological framework for economic valuation of selected ecosystem services for world forest biomes and the potential total economic losses from policy inaction. Results suggest that any attempt to provide a monetary estimation of the services provided by the ecosystem still represents a very challenging task for researchers. On the one hand this task is made difficult due to the partial lack of original valuation studies that provide reliable estimates of the WTP for forest ecosystem values. On the other hand, the worldwide approach adopted here will need to be reinforced by taking into consideration uncertainty and a lack of information on local ecosystem conditions.
Monday, 25 de May de 2009
"WTP for global and ancillary benefits of climate change mitigation".
Seminar given by David Hoyos, researcher from the ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMICS UNIT of the UNIVERSITY OF THE BASQUE COUNTRY (UPV-EHU).
Title:"WTP for global and ancillary benefits of climate change mitigation"
Date: 22nd of May
Location: Sarriko
Recent studies have looked at the willingness to pay (WTP) of the general population for climate change mitigation benefits.This paper contributes to this literature by investigating, in addition to global benefits, the ancillary benefits of climate change mitigation, by considering local and personal benefits arising from climate change policies.The Contingent Valuation Method is used to elicit the WTP for ancillary and global benefits of climate mitigation policies in the Basque Country, Spain. According to our results, WTP estimates are 40% higher when ancillary benefits are considered.
Wednesday, 29 de April de 2009
San Sebastian, 8th May 2009
Climate change has an economic cause and economic measures must be part of the solution. What are these and could they possibly work? Anil Markandya will analyze the international economic context of global warming and the different policies that we should introduce to avoid its major economic consequences.
Haitzen Hitza is a group of conferences scheduled to take place in San Sebastian from 4th to 8th of May in order to submit questions related to the history of climate, life and human beings.
More information: Haitzen Hitza , Interview Balairon & Anil Markandya (spanish)
Wednesday, 29 de April de 2009
Barcelona, Spain 8th May 2009
La Estrategia tiene el compromiso de afrontar los grandes retos del futuro y orientar la acción de gobierno hacia escenarios de mayor sostenibilidad. A lo largo de la sesión se presentarán estrategias de sostenibilidad emblemáticas y el reconocido economista ambiental Dr. Markandya expondrá los argumentos por los cuales la modernización ecológica de la economía se ha posicionado en la primera línea en la agenda política mundial.
Thursday, 30 de April de 2009
“Planning for Adaptation to Climate Change in India: Methodology and Some Results".
Seminar given by Aline Chiabai, Elena Ojea and Julia Martín-Ortega from BC3, and Arabinda Mishra, Suruchi Bhadwal and Ranjan Ghosh from The Energy Research Institute (TERI).
Date: 30th of April
Location: Sarriko
Title:“Planning for Adaptation to Climate Change in India: Methodology and Some Results".
The impacts of climate change are already being felt in the Indian Sub-continent and in many areas they are expected to get worse. It is crucial therefore to evaluate different adaptation options and to select those that can be justified in economic and social terms. This seminar will present a methodology for evaluating adaptation options in the areas of health, water (including flooding), agriculture and biodiversity. The aim is to estimate the costs of the programs needed, so that resources can be allocated in the short to medium term. The methodology side will be presented by BC3 researchers and the empirical side by researchers from The Energy Research Institute (TERI), a leading research centre in India.
Friday, 11 de September de 2009
Piacenza, Italy, 22nd April,2009
Prof. Anil Markandya gave a lecture at the Catholic University of Milan.
Friday, 11 de September de 2009
Milan, Italy, 17th April,2009
Prof. Anil Markandya gave a lecture at the ENI Corporate University in Milan.
Monday, 23 de March de 2009
Paris, France, 3rd April, 2009
Should economic rent be charged for access to genetic resources and what is the justification for or against such a rent?
Professor Anil Markandya attended the 7th meeting of the Convention of Biological Diversity Ad Hoc Open-ended Working Group on Access and Benefit Sharing. UNESCO.
Monday, 23 de March de 2009
Paris,France,27th March, 2009
Guest speaker at the OECD.
Wednesday, 18 de March de 2009
“Convergence validity between revealed and stated recreation demand data: some empirical evidence" by David Hoyos
Seminar given by David Hoyos, researcher from the ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMICS UNIT of the UNIVERSITY OF THE BASQUE COUNTRY (UPV-EHU).
Date: 27th of March
Location: Sarriko
Title: “Convergence validity between revealed and stated recreation demand data: some empirical evidence"
In a travel cost exercise, reported past visits to mount Jaizkibel, a natural area located in the Basque Country, are compared for convergence validity to stated intended future trips under the assumption that the natural resource’s conditions will remain the same. In line with the results obtained by other studies, the empirical evidence of this application suggests that revealed preference (RP) and stated preference (SP) data do not produce consistent data, i.e. do not achieve convergent validity. The paper attempts to update the convergence validity literature in continuous-choice studies by taking advantage of the recent developments in parametric estimation models for recreation data. Difference in welfare estimates is tested using a convolution method.
Thursday, 26 de March de 2009
Bilbao, 25 de marzo de 2009
1º Sesión “UNA MIRADA AL CAMBIO CLIMÁTICO”
El BC3 participa como ponente en la 1 sesión del Ciclo de Cine organizado por la Oficina contra el Cambio Climático de Bilbao.
PROGRAMA:
19:00 – 19:05: Presentación de la película
19:05 – 20:45: Proyección de la película “Tierra”
20:45 – 21:25: Intervención de los ponentes
21:25 – 21:45: Preguntas del público
INFORMACIÓN SOBRE LA PELÍCULA:
TÍTULO ORIGINAL: Love Earth
GÉNERO: Documental
AÑO: 2007
PAÍS: Inglaterra
DURACIÓN: 98 minutos
DIRECCIÓN Y GUIÓN: Alastair Fothergill, Mark Linfield
Monday, 23 de March de 2009
Zurich,Switzerland, 16th March,2009
Professor Anil Markandya was invited to speak at a research Seminar at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.
Tuesday, 03 de March de 2009
Bilbao, 3 de marzo de 2009
BC3 ha organizado un seminario a manos del Dr Herguera sobre “Tiempo y modos de variabilidad oceanográfica de la Corriente de California preservados en registros sedimentarios de alta resolución".
El Dr. Herguera, geólogo y doctor en oceanografía, actualmente es Investigador en “CICESE - Centro de Investigación Científica y de Educación Superior” de México, Coordinador del Posgrado en Ecología Marina del mismo centro e Investigador Asociado en la institución “Scripps Institution of Oceanography” de la Universidad de California en San Diego, USA. El seminario se centrará en su programa de investigación actual, el cual trata de comprender cómo funciona el océano a partir de la historia de su variabilidad preservada en los sedimentos que tapizan los fondos de cuencas costeras, márgenes continentales y mar abierto. Es decir, su investigación está enfocada a reconstruir la variabilidad natural de la circulación y productividad oceánicas y sus interacciones con el ciclo del carbono, su respuesta y retroalimentación al clima para períodos anteriores al registro instrumental a escalas decadales a milenarias.
BC3k mintegi bat aurkeztu du Dr Hergueraren esku. Mintegiaren izenburua:"Erresoluzio handiko sedimentu erregistroetan gordeta dauden Kaliforniako Korrontearen Aldakortasun ozeanografikoaren denbora eta moduak”.
Gaur egun, Dr. Herguera, geogologoa baina ozeanografian doktoratua, Mexikon kokatutako “CICESE - Centro de Investigación Científica y de Educación Superior” zentruko Ozeanologia dibisioko Ikerlari titularra da, zentru bereko Itsas Ekologia graduondoko programaren koordinatzailea eta San Diegon (AEB) dagoen, Kaliforniako Unibertsitateko “Scripps Institution of Oceanography”-ko Ikerlari asoziatua. Mintegia bere ikerketa programan oinarrituko da, Ozeanoaren funtzionamendua azalduz, sedimentuek estalitako kostaldeko arro, kontinente muga eta itsas zabaleko hondoetan gordeta dagoen historiaren aldakortasunetik abiatuta. Bere ikerketa beraz, ozeanoen zirkulazioa eta produktibitatearen aldakortasuna ikastean datza, eta baita ozeano eta karbono-zikloaren arteko elkarreraginaren ikasketan, klimarekiko duen erantzuna eta erretroelikadura, erregistro instrumentalaren aurreko aroetarako.
Wednesday, 11 de February de 2009
Granada, Spain 13th february 2009
The talk covered the area of development of systems modelling approaches (e.g. SIMSDAIRY and NGAUGE) to understand, mitigate, optimise and predict consequences of the interactions between dairy farm management, genetics and site conditions (e.g. climate and soil) for impacts on:
(i) Nutrient cycling (e.g. N).
(ii) environmental losses [atmosphere (GHG: N2O, CH4), NH3 and NOx and water diffuse pollution: (NO3 – phosphorus, FIOs and sediments).
(iii) productivity (e.g. secondary: through animals and primary: plant production) in current and future livestock systems (e.g. accounting for interactions between climate changes, socio-economics, etc.).
(iv) Other aspects that affect farm sustainability: economics, soil quality, animal welfare, biodiversity, landscape aesthetics and product quality (e.g. milk).
Fuente: CSIC
Tuesday, 27 de January de 2009
Cordoba, 19 de enero de 2009
El trabajo de Julia Martín-Ortega, que ha sido galardonado con el premio anual del Centro de Estudios Andaluces a la mejor tesis doctoral de Andalucía, es pionero en Europa y se ha realizado durante cuatro años en paralelo a la implementación de la Directiva Marco del Agua de la Unión Europea.
El trabajo, basado en técnicas de valoración ambiental y en un amplio trabajo de campo de encuestas, explicita "que en Andalucía existe un interés social evidente" por el Guadalquivir, al que se le considera un elemento de vertebración territorial "y por el buen estado de sus aguas".
FUENTE: ABC Cordoba
Informacion de interes: Diario de Sevilla, ABC de Cordoba,
Thursday, 22 de January de 2009
Washington DC, 15th January 2009
Dr. Markandya presented economic modeling results on the role of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) as part of a global carbon market, including impacts on carbon prices, policy costs, and incentives for technological change. This analysis is based on the World Induced Technical Change Hybrid Model (WITCH) and is part of a collaboration between EDF and the Fondazione Eni-Enrico Mattei (FEEM) in Italy.
Tuesday, 13 de January de 2009
Washington, USA, 13th January, 2009
Seminar at the World Bank as part of the series of the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery.
Presentacion Libro
Madrid, España,15 de Octubre de 2009
Presentacion de libro editado por Mª Carmen Gallastegui, Catedratica de Fundamentos del Analisis Economico (Universidad del Pais Vasco) y Mikel Gonzalez-Eguino, investigador en el BC3-Basque Centre for Climate Change, dentro del acto de presentacion del numero 121 de la revista Papeles de la Economia Española que lleva por titulo: "Economia y Cambio Climatico".