Black Carbon and the Environmental Kuznets Curve
Today's New York Times reports that scientists have surprised themselves and learned that an unintended consequence of cooking and heating with low quality, dirty fuels such as wood and dung in the developing world is to increase the production of "black carbon" and increase greenhouse gas emissions. From the work of scholars such as Kirk Smith of UC Berkeley, we have known for a long time about the ambient air pollution caused by using these stoves. The EKC literature has argued that with economic development that people move up the energy ladder and use higher quality, cleaner fuels such as LPG and electricity.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/science/earth/16degrees.html?_r=1&ref=world
Here is my question. The CO2 EKC literature has argued that there is no turning point because of the free rider issue; GHG emissions just keep rising with respect to national per-capita income. If we now factor in Black Carbon into the GHG emissions, how does this change the GHG/per-capita income relationship in the cross-section? How much have we been under-stating developing nation's total GHG emissions because black carbon has not been factored in?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/science/earth/16degrees.html?_r=1&ref=world
Here is my question. The CO2 EKC literature has argued that there is no turning point because of the free rider issue; GHG emissions just keep rising with respect to national per-capita income. If we now factor in Black Carbon into the GHG emissions, how does this change the GHG/per-capita income relationship in the cross-section? How much have we been under-stating developing nation's total GHG emissions because black carbon has not been factored in?


0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home