The Effectiveness of Climate Change Policies for Decarbonization

Abstract

Climate change has been largely attributed to global temperatures rising over the years. This has been further mitigated by the increased usage of fossil fuels, deforestation, increased livestock farming, and chemical emissions, as a result of the large-scale industrialization of developing nations, combined with the increased consumption of goods and services all across the world (Steffen et. al., 2018). While separate research can be conducted in individual fields, it has become increasingly apparent that interdisciplinary research is imperative. The Kaya Identity was formulated by Yoichi Kaya to form a relationship between carbon emissions and economic and technological factors, particularly in the form of ‘growth factors’ in this thesis. The Kaya Identity has since been a mainstay of analyzing carbon emissions by internationally acclaimed bodies like the United Nations. To specify the research objectives a few research questions were asked: What form have policies to curb carbon emissions taken until now and what are the main points of differentiation between developed and developing countries? Using the Kaya Identity framework, what have been the main trends in energy efficiency and carbon intensity, thus identifying the main factors that policies have been aimed at correcting? What are the trends in energy efficiency and carbon emissions in each of the main sectors of the economy: transport, industry and manufacture, energy and heat, and buildings? What are the main deep decarbonization pathways which can be implemented by a developing economy (India) and a developed economy (the United Kingdom)?
To find answers to these questions, metadata over a period of thirty years was decomposed over the different sectors in India and the United Kingdom. The results of the decomposition showed that while the United Kingdom showed a decreasing trend in carbon emissions over time, India has shown an opposite trend. Also, technological factors have had a sufficient impact in offsetting carbon emissions in the United Kingdom, shown by negative growth percentages. Similar trends are observed in most individual sectors in the UK, except for the building sector, where the technology factor has not sufficient to offset the scale factor, showing us that it is a sector which needs particular focus. In India it is evident that the effect of technological factors needs to be enhanced, since the scale factors will. In each of the chapters, policies which were implemented for corresponding sectors looked at as well.
A regression analysis was then done till the year 2050 to predict the future trends of carbon emissions, followed by a stakeholder analysis of a possible technology in each sector. A two-phase solution is suggested since the demand for energy will never cease; first by integrating carbon capture technologies into existing industrial methods, followed by large-scale investments into the research and development of technologies with a much higher efficiency which have a greater chance of mass acceptance into society and industry without discounting important stakeholder values. This will reduce the rate of carbon emissions released into the environment till a truly sustainable result can be achieved.