Charikleia Karakosta

Does the CDM offer sustainable development benefits or not

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol has the explicit objective to both reduce greenhouse gases emissions and support sustainable development (SD) in developing countries. An important aspect that remains an open issue is how the CDM contributes to the three main dimensions of SD, namely environmental, social and economic. Although an extensive literature has emerged focusing on the different aspects of the CDM, the necessity for the sustainability assessment of the CDM projects still remains. Moreover, existing CDM analysis is dominated by studies of CDM projects in Brazil, Mexico, India and China. Within the thousands of CDM projects globally, Africa only has 251 projects in the CDM pipeline and accordingly limited research has been conducted. To cover this knowledge gap regarding sustainability performance in African countries, this paper presents a methodological approach for the SD benefits’ assessment of the CDM projects in developing countries. To this end, appropriate SD criteria and indicators were selected to measure the performance of the CDM projects according to SD dimensions. The proposed approach lays emphasis on the SD benefits of CDM projects in Kenya, which was selected as a priority country, in terms of its potential for CDM projects. The results from the SD benefits’ assessment of the CDM projects in Africa would be important, especially in policy-making and in countries where high CDM potential has been indicated.

Facilitating sustainable development in Chile: a survey of suitable energy technologies

Sustainable development in developing countries is the main aim of the Kyoto Protocols Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). However, in the present context, uncertainty prevails as to whether the CDM is actually achieving its aims in terms of achieving sustainable development and to what extent. Chile has several renewable energy and energy efficiency options with significant greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions abatement potential that are not yet financially and economically competitive. In order to be able to identify potential CDM projects and to formulate a series of possible investment strategies with a sustainable development component, it is crucial to establish a clear understanding of the host countrys needs and priorities and the suitable sustainable energy technologies to meet these needs. The main scope of this paper is to present results obtained from an elaborated stakeholder assessment on Chiles high priority energy needs and sustainable energy technologies fulfilling these needs in order to assist Chile in finding ways of encouraging technology transfer that would contribute to low-carbon sustainable energy development.

Understanding the absence of renewable electricity imports to the European Union

Purpose This paper aims to analyse reasons for the absence of renewable electricity (RE) imports to the European Union, for which the authors develop a multi-level heuristic. Design/methodology/approach The heuristic covers three sequential acceptance levels: political attractiveness (macro-level), the “business case” (micro-level) and civil society perspectives (public discourse level). Findings Numerous factors on all three levels determine the success/demise of renewables trade. So far, trade has failed on the macro-level, because European policymakers perceive that targets can be achieved domestically with significant co-benefits and because exporter countries have rapidly increasing electricity demand, limiting the realisable exports. As policymakers deemed it unattractive, they have not implemented policy-supported business cases. Public opposition against trade has not been an issue as no concrete plans or projects have been proposed. Research limitations/implications The authors show that the factors determining whether a RE programme is successful are plentiful and extend far beyond potential cost savings. This suggests that future research and the energy policy debate should better account for how cost savings are weighed against other policy aims and explicitly include the perspectives of investors and the public. Originality/value This paper adds the first holistic analysis of success/failure factors for RE trade to Europe. The three-level, sequential framework is new to energy policy analysis.

Foresight for Energy Policy: Techniques and Methods Employed in Greece

Robust strategic planning is considered crucial for the sustainability of the Greek energy sector, especially within the current highly volatile international environment. The application of multi-stakeholder foresight approaches facilitates the familiarization of key energy market players with the energy policy decision-making process. In this respect, aim of this article is the presentation of main foresight activities in Greece, the discussion of critical issues and lessons learnt and the identification of objectives, methodological potentials and concepts of participation.

Web tool for the quantification of oil and gas corridors' socio‐economic risks

Purpose – Greece is a net importer of oil and gas and is among the most vulnerable countries of the European Union (EU) on energy supply disruptions. Furthermore, is considered a “crossroad” of existing and forthcoming infrastructure for importing energy to the EU. The purpose of this paper is the presentation of the web tool that implements the developed methodology for the quantification of socio‐economic risks of oil and gas corridors. The tool is applied to the main present and future oil and gas corridors to Greece, and the related outcomes are discussed.Design/methodology/approach – A structured and coherent review on the future and present oil and natural gas (NG) corridors to Greece was elaborated, based on desk analysis and collection of the related data from national and international sources. Factor analysis was employed for the quantification of socio‐economic risks of each energy corridor. Particular emphasis was laid on the tools design, so as to be user‐friendly, combining intuitive menus ...

Hydro energy: techno-economic and social aspects within new climate regime

Small hydro systems can provide electricity for: central-grid, isolated-grids, and/or remote power supplies. Small hydraulic power also provides an extra contribution to national electrical production in the case of consumption peaks. Although hydro is currently the second most used renewable energy source in the world, still there is a significant unexploited potential. The clean development mechanism (CDM) may act as an additional incentive for further diffusion in the developing world. This paper explains hydro energy techno-economics, followed by a description of the social and environmental implications of small-scale hydro. Moreover, the financing conditions for such projects are presented, as also an indicative set of case studies of small hydro projects in the developing world. Our research supports the argument that incorporating small hydro into an integrated sustainable energy strategy will serve the threefold energy policy objective of security of supply, environmental protection and competitiveness and significantly contribute toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals and sustainability.

Graph theory‐based approach for energy corridors network to Greece

Purpose – The European Union (EU) energy supply environment is changing significantly and in a dynamic way, establishing the issue of safe energy imports as main priority. Greece relies heavily on energy imports. Furthermore, Greece aims to be elevated into an energy cross road for the energy supply to the EU. In this respect, the aim of this paper is the investigation of the suitability of graph theory concepts on energy supply networks and its application to represent energy corridors to Greece.Design/methodology/approach – Supporting frameworks to represent and assess the vulnerability of the corridors satisfying the Greek demand in oil and gas are considered a crucial issue and are presented in this paper, based on the graph theory approach. In addition, a pilot application of the shortest path algorithm and the maximum flow at minimum risk algorithm for the oil and gas corridors to Greece is presented and discussed.Findings – This paper introduces the application of graph theory to energy policy anal...

Sustainable energy technology transfers through the CDM? Application of participatory approaches for decision making facilitation

The two big challenges for this century are world poverty and climate change. The clean development mechanism (CDM) has the potential to address both, through integrated programmes that will be in compliance with the needs and objectives of the host countries. Actual practice shows that CDM technology transfer is focused on reducing emissions at the lowest possible cost and less on the sustainable development priorities and objectives of the host countries. This paper discusses a participatory approach to facilitate energy decision makers and relevant stakeholders to define, evaluate and finally decide on the most suitable sustainable energy technologies to transfer and implement in a particular developing country through the CDM. Following an overview presentation of the methodology, the results from its application in Israel are presented and analysed. The last section comments on the case of Israel and provides insights of the adopted approach.

Shaping sustainable development strategies in Chile through CDM

Purpose – Sustainable development (SD) in developing countries is mentioned as one of the main aims of the Kyoto protocols clean development mechanism. However, in the present context, uncertainty prevails to whether the (CDM) is actually procuring its aims in terms of achieving SD and to what extent. Chile, which has an open market economy, could risk becoming “locked” into a carbon intensive future, due to the recently discovered coal reserves and plans of large utilities to move to coal technology and not necessarily clean‐coal technology. The aim of this paper is to assist Chile in finding ways of encouraging technology transfer of energy technologies that would contribute to a low‐carbon sustainable energy development.Design/methodology/approach – In order to be able to identify potential CDM projects facilitating SD in developing countries, through technology transfer from developed ones and, thus, to formulate a series of possible investment strategies with a SD component, it is crucial to establi...

Carbon market and technology transfer: statistical analysis for exploring implications

The impact of clean development mechanism (CDM) projects on climate change technology transfer (CCTT), which is essential for developing countries to achieve higher mitigation targets and move towards more sustainable paths, has been, until now, inadequately understood and analysed. The aim of this paper is to analyse the carbon market contribution to CCTT, mainly through the CDM, so as to stimulate developing countries towards the deployment and diffusion of low-carbon technologies that fulfil their sustainability goals. Indeed, relatively few studies deal with the assessment of the CDM contribution to CCTT, mainly through desk analysis and empirical evaluations on project design documents. To the best of our knowledge, there are no studies dealing with CCTT through CDM projects using statistical approaches. The added value of this article is the use of statistical analysis, time series analysis and multiple linear regression to analyse carbon market experiences in selected cross-representative developing countries. This assessment indicated the very heterogeneous CCTT across CDM project types, varying significantly in terms of reliance on imported technology, mix of equipment and knowledge and source countries for the technology.