45th Regional Science Association International - British and Irish Section Annual Conference

Description

Attended the 45th Annual Conference of the Regional Science Association International - British and Irish Section, where I presented in one of the conference's parallel sessions.

Environmental Multi- and Inter-Regional Input Output methods are commonly used tools to account for CO2 emissions generated by production of and demand for output of economic sectors in different countries and, crucially, to capture the impact of international trade. However, the need for harmonised data can result in a high level of aggregation, which reduces the detail on activity within a given economy and leads to biases and errors. Single Region Input Output analysis based on national/regional statistics can be significantly more detailed in terms of interactions between producing and consuming sectors within the region. The additional details on the regional level can be a useful tool for regional governments that aim to reduce the emissions generated within their borders. However, regional IO tables lose in terms of details and accuracy when it comes to interaction between producing and consuming sectors located in different regions/countries. This chapter argues that Single Region Input Output can be used as a follow on to the type of ‘hot-spot’ analysis reported in the previous chapter to provide the details lost through the greater level of sectoral aggregation imposed in an Inter-Regional Input Output framework. Moreover, taking the UK as a case study, we consider the implications of moving from an IRIO down to a SRIO analysis for a region where key polluting sectors have distinct pollution characteristics (e.g. Scottish electricity supply). Analysis of Scottish data reveals that the major Scottish direct emitting sectors form important but distinct parts of the aggregated top direct emitting UK sectors as identified using IRIO. However, we find that the emissions ‘hot-spots’ calculated for some of the Scottish sectors will be overestimated if region-specific emissions data for Scotland are not considered. We demonstrate how region-specific satellite emissions data are crucial to perform accurate calculations and that adjusting the emissions intensity of one sector using region specific data has an impact on the CO2 footprint of all the sectors in an economy.

Period	30 Aug 2016 → 1 Sept 2016
Event type	Conference
Location	Newquay, United KingdomShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International