Abstract
The question of whether or not biofuels help mitigate climate change has attracted much debate in the literature. Using a global computable general equilibrium model that explicitly represents land-use change impacts due to the expansion of biofuels, our study attempts to shed some light on this question. Our study shows that if biofuel mandates and targets currently announced by more than 40 countries around the world are implemented by 2020 using crop feedstocks and if both forests and pasture lands are used to meet the new land demands for biofuel expansion, this would cause net release of GHG emissions to the atmosphere until 2043 as the GHG emissions released through land-use change exceeds the reduction of emissions due to replacement of gasoline and diesel. On the other hand, if the use of forest lands is avoided by channeling only pasture lands to meet the demand for new lands, the net release of GHG emissions would cease by 2021, a year after the full implementation of the mandates and targets.
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Abbreviations
- AEEI:
-
Autonomous energy efficiency improvement
- AEZ:
-
Agro-ecological zone
- AT:
-
Announced targets
- CDE:
-
Constant difference of elasticities
- CES:
-
Constant elasticity of substitution
- CET:
-
Constant elasticity of transformation
- CGE:
-
Computable general equilibrium
- CO2 :
-
Carbon dioxide
- ECA:
-
Eastern Europe and Central Asia
- EAP:
-
East Asia and Pacific
- EFTA:
-
European Free Trade Association
- ET:
-
Enhanced targets
- EU:
-
European Union
- GDP:
-
Gross domestic product
- GHG:
-
Greenhouse gases
- GTAP:
-
Global trade analysis project
- IPCC:
-
Intergovernmental panel on climate change
- LAC:
-
Latin America and Caribbean
- MENA:
-
Middle East and North Africa
- ND:
-
Non-energy intermediate demand
- SA:
-
South Asia
- SAM:
-
Social accounting matrix
- SSA:
-
Sub-Saharan Africa
- UK:
-
United Kingdom
- US:
-
United States
- VAE:
-
Value added and energy
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Timilsina, G.R., Mevel, S. Biofuels and Climate Change Mitigation: A CGE Analysis Incorporating Land-Use Change. Environ Resource Econ 55, 1–19 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10640-012-9609-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10640-012-9609-8