A Comparative Analysis of Global-Regional Trends in Causality and Carbon Emissions

Will Ferriby

Will Hannon

Nick Thornburg

Chris ValachEECE 449, Spring 2010

Project Objectives

• Quantified causality model of data from 60 world countries and US for future project use

• National causality trend analysis of carbon emissions of specific world countries

• Comparison of the causal commonalities within and among different regions

• Proof that no such "master formula" of predicting carbon emissions exists

• Comprehension of global and regional patterns of carbon dioxide emissions over time for insight into the driving forces of climate change

Approach and Methodology

• Individual case studies of world countries with diverse causal factors and geographical uniqueness

• Estimation of global-regional carbon footprints for Europe, Southeast Asia, and South America via causality framework analysis of driving factors: population, GDP/Person, Energy/GDP, Carbon/Energy.• Identification of trends in driving forces

Cause of carbon emissions and footprint• Extension of regional analysis to US as additional world

region, with internal comparison among states.

Causality Factors for Saudi Arabia

• Increases in Population and Energy/GDP

•Decrease in GDP/Person and CO2/Energy

•The Population and Energy/GDP both drive Carbon emissions up while GDP/Person and CO2/Energy drive it down.

•Increase in Population and GDP/Person

•Decrease in Energy/GDP and CO2/Energy

•Now the forces driving CO2 up are GDP/Person and Population while Energy/GDP and CO2/Energy drove it down.

Case Study: South Africa

• South Africa is a country that has gone through political and economic turmoil during the 1980s and 1990s and has only begun to rebound

• Yet through this rebound they have begun to expand in a sustainable way with their emissions per energy and energy per GDP actually decreasing during the 2000s

More Trends of Indicators: South America

Explanation

European Carbon per Capita Trends

• The European countries can be seen to converge to two points of carbon per Capita Emissions

• Looking at the line graphs we see that the Eastern European Countries have been decreasing their emissions to get to these points.

• Western European countries have been staying relatively the same in their Carbon/Capita emissions

Regional Causality: South AmericaCountries Analyzed: Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela

Principal Causality Driving Factor: GDP/Person• GDP/Person: skyrocketing trend from 1960-2005

• Agricultural economy Export-based industrialization• Shift toward democratization and increase in standard of living

• Energy/GDP: net decrease

over 35 year time period.• Internal energy resources in

export-based agriculturalism

• CO2/Energy: relative stability,

near-zero trend evolution• Transition to new-age

renewable energy resources;

domestic resources

Regional Causality: Southeast Asia

• Overall this region has very much come alive economically over the time period 1960-2005

• China has emerged as a huge economic power especially during the late 1990s

• Japan was the second largest economy during the 1950s and continued to grow until a recession in the 1990s

• Other countries have followed similar trends, just not to the extent of these two

• Unfortunately along with these economic has been large increases in carbon dioxide emissions

• Except for Japan most of these countries have become less efficient overtime

• This area is a place where growth will continue but some measure of sustainability could be introduced in order for emission to not increase indefinitely

Trends of Indicators: Southeast Asia

Analysis of the United States

The general analytical methods applied to the global regions and countries were applied to US States

This allowed us to break down the emission driving trends within regions of the country via four main categories

– Population growth– GDP per capita– Energy/GDP– Carbon/Energy

Results

Overall US States emissions changes were as a result of a few main trends:

– GDP explosion, especially early– Decrease in Energy/GDP

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Selected States

Regional Variations

Southern and Western states experienced a significant increase in population

This driver caused the states to increase emissions more than their northeastern counterparts

The southern areas also experienced a larger drop in Carbon per Energy

– Fought against previous trend– Was not as significant

Summary and Conclusions

• Regional causality frameworks and case studies of countries prove strong socioeconomic and historical dependence of causal factors• No such “master formula” for causality analysis• Intrinsic relationship with economic development• Establishment of framework for sustainable future

• Parallel of trends and driving factors in the US

References1. http://www.google.com/publicdata/overview?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_

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Case Study: Canada

GDP/Person:• Most notably variant• 1970’s: Auto trade;foreign investment

Energy/GDP:• Oil reserves• National Energy Program• Largest decadal decreases

CO2/Energy:• Decreasing trend• Only 64% rise in totalCO2 emissions• Energy efficiency• Technological advancements

768% increase in 35 years!

Drastic decadal decreases