Climatic Change (2010) 101:555–563 DOI 10.1007/s10584-009-9706-z

Trends in CO2 emissions in Israel—an international perspective Moshe Yanai · Jean Koch · Uri Dayan

Received: 16 June 2008 / Accepted: 26 August 2009 / Published online: 10 October 2009 © Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2009

Abstract As a Party to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Israel conducts a periodical inventory of greenhouse gases emissions. These data allowed the generation of time series of CO2 emissions per capita and per GDP for the period 1990–2004. It was found that CO2 emissions per capita increased dramatically from 1990 to 2000, reflecting the rapid economic growth that was initiated by the massive immigration wave at the beginning of the nineties. These emissions remained stable between 2000 and 2004, reflecting the economic stagnation caused by the uprising in the Palestinian Territories, as well as stagnation in the global economy. CO2 emissions per GDP (CO2 intensity) remained stable along the whole reviewed period. This stability can be explained by a shift in electricity consumption from the industrial sector towards the commercial and the residential sectors, corresponding to an increase in the standard of living in the same period. A comparison was held with countries considered as developed for many years represented by the five largest economies (G-5) and recently developed countries (RDCs). Although Israel exhibits emission levels within the range of the G-5 countries, it does not fit the patterns demonstrated by these countries. Trends observed in Israel resemble these observed in other RDCs, such as Spain or Greece, confirming the classification of Israel in this category.

M. Yanai Central Bureau of Statistics, 95464 Jerusalem, Israel J. Koch Soreq Nuclear Research Center, 81800 Yavne, Israel U. Dayan Department of Geography, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 91905 Jerusalem, Israel M. Yanai (B) 14 Daniel St., 65604, Tel Aviv, Israel e-mail: [email protected]

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1 Introduction Global climate change is nowadays considered a major environmental threat, accompanied by large-scale economic and social implications. It is very likely that global climate change is linked to enhanced greenhouse gases (GHGs) concentrations in the atmosphere, contributed by the increasing global anthropogenic emissions of GHGs (IPCC 2007). Carbon dioxide (CO2 ) is by far the major anthropogenic greenhouse gas, responsible for over 60% of the radiative forcing of all long-lived GHGs (CO2 , CH4 , N2 O and halocarbons) (IPCC 2007). Combustion of fossil fuels for energy production contributes over 90% of the total anthropogenic CO2 emissions (IPCC 2006). In order to compare CO2 emissions from countries of different population size, it is common to use CO2 per capita as a standard measure. In addition, since the economic activity is responsible for most of the CO2 emissions it is essential to employ a standard economic measure, such as CO2 per GDP, when comparing countries at different stages of development. Many studies have described the relationship between the economic stage of development and environmental degradation as an inverted “U” shaped curve, also known as “Environmental Kusnetz Curve” (EKC). However, CO2 is a global pollutant and its damages cannot be attributed solely to a specific country. The validity of the EKC type of relationship in case of CO2 is therefore disputed (Soytas et al. 2007; Galeotti and Lanza 2005) and this relationship will not be treated in this study. Due to the limited amount of available data, a descriptive analysis approach is used in order to focus on CO2 emissions in Israel and assess its position relative to other countries at a similar or higher stage of economic development. The data and their handling are presented in the methodological section (Section 2). Temporal trends in CO2 emissions in Israel, both per capita and per GDP, are analyzed in Section 3 and compared in Section 4 with trends in selected economies.

2 Methodology As a Party to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Israel is committed to “develop a national inventory of anthropogenic emissions and removals of greenhouse gases and to update it periodically”. The inventory is performed for the different sectors of the economy, enabling to identify the major contributions to GHG emissions. The national inventory was conducted according to the Guidelines of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for the years 1996, 2000, 2003 and 2004 (Koch et al. 2000; CBS 2006). A crude inventory was also estimated for the year 1990 (Koch et al. 2003), which is the base year of the UNFCCC. The 2004 inventory indicates that total emissions of the direct greenhouse gases (CO2 , CH4 and N2 O) amount to about 72 million tons of CO2 equivalent. Carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels to produce energy is by far the largest source, while the contribution of methane emissions from decomposition of landfilled municipal solid waste is second in importance (86% and 6% of total, respectively) (CBS 2006).

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The population multiplier model (Ehrlich and Holdren 1971), also termed the IPAT model, provides an analytical framework for assessing the human impact on the environment. This model was already adopted by Schneider (1989) and Koch et al. (2003) to discuss global warming issues. According to the IPAT model, the human impact on the environment (I) is a product of three factors: the population (P), its affluence (A) and the technology (T). In the specific case of climate change, the impact is measured by the GHG emissions if the affluence is expressed as GDP per capita and the technology as GHG emissions per unit of GDP. Israel’s contribution to the global emissions is less than 0.5%. In addition, Israel underwent major changes in its population size and affluence during the study period. In order to better understand and compare the emission trends in Israel over time and in an international perspective, the measures of emissions per capita and per GDP were used. Accordingly, data regarding population (P) and GDP (A) in Israel were collected for the period 1990–2004 (CBS 2006). Both data sets allowed the generation of time series of CO2 emissions per capita and per GDP. With regard to the technology term (T), since electricity production is the main contributor to GHG emissions in Israel (approximately 50%), both production and consumption of electricity were addressed. First, an analysis of electricity generation by fuel type was conducted (IEC 2000, 2004). Thereafter, the identified emission trends were compared with trends in the electricity consumption of the major economic sectors (IEC 2004; CBS 2006). For the sake of international comparison, CO2 emissions, population and GDP data were also collected for two groups of countries: the five largest economies (“G-5”) and countries which experienced a rapid economic growth in recent years, similar to Israel, which will be called hereafter “recently developed countries” (“RDCs”) (OECD 2007; UNFCCC 2007). For the purpose of comparing different economies, the GDP adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) was used. PPP-adjusted GDP data were obtained from the Macroeconomics Department of the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics (Elkayam R., personal communication, 2007). CO2 emissions in Israel, both per capita and per GDP, were compared with emissions in other countries within each group (G-5 and RDCs). 3 Results and discussion 3.1 Trends in Israel Table 1 presents data regarding CO2 emissions, as calculated for the abovementioned years, along with the concurrent population and GDP data. Values of Table 1 CO2 emissions, population and GDP in Israel (1990–2004) Year CO2 (kt) Population (103 ) PPP-adjusted GDP ($ 106 )* GDP per capita ($ 103 )* * 1995 prices

1990

1996

2000

2003

2004

34,210 4,660 68,464 14.7

51,862 5,685 100,074 17.6

61,007 6,289 119,926 19.1

63,576 6,690 119,833 17.9

64,879 6,809 125,581 18.4

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1.0

10

0.8

8

0.6 6

0.4 4

CO2/capita

CO2/GDP

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

1999

1998

1997

1996

1995

1994

0.0 1993

0 1992

0.2

1991

2

ton/$1,000

12

1990

Fig. 1 CO2 emissions in Israel per capita and per PPP-adjusted GDP (1990–2004)

ton/capita

CO2 emitted per capita and per GDP were derived from these data and are presented in Fig. 1. Two distinctive periods can be identified regarding CO2 emissions per capita: The first period, from 1990 to 2000, shows a dramatic increase, whereas the second period (2000–2004) is characterized by a relative stability. The increase during the first period reflects the rapid economic growth that was initiated by the massive immigration wave to Israel from the former Soviet Union at the beginning of the nineties. The stability during the second period reflects the economic stagnation caused by the uprising in the Palestinian Territories, as well as stagnation in the global economy. CO2 per GDP measures the economic efficiency of CO2 emissions and can be referred as CO2 intensity. Figure 1 shows that the CO2 intensity has remained stable along the entire reviewed period, unlike CO2 emissions per capita. The difference in the trends of the CO2 per capita and the CO2 per GDP during the nineties can be explained by the impacts of the immigration to Israel during this period. The immigration wave added 20% to the population, exceeding by far the natural demographic growth rate. This immigration was accompanied by a major construction activity and caused consequently an economic boost, which was further fueled by large loans guaranteed by the US Government. The linkage between the immigration wave and the economic growth during the nineties is supported by Beenstock and Fisher (1997). In their study, dynamic simulations for that period using an econometric model showed a significant contribution of the immigration wave to several macro-economic variables, such as GDP. The rapid expansion in the economic activity (8% per year on average) involved various economic sectors and affected the entire population and not solely the immigrants. This led to a multiplicative economic impact that was reflected in a major increase of energy use and CO2 emissions, far beyond the population increase. Since 2000 the increase in population and GDP is moderate and the derived indicators remain rather stable. A significant change in the energy mix for electricity production may have caused this trend. However, an analysis of electricity generation by fuel type (Table 2) shows that the changes in the energy mix during the 2000s actually resulted in an increase in the CO2 emissions per energy produced. During the study period a shift from fuel oil to coal occurred and natural gas did not play any role until its modest introduction in 2004.

Climatic Change (2010) 101:555–563 Table 2 Distribution of electricity production by fuel type (%)

559

Fuel type

Year 1990

1996

2000

2003

2004

Coal Fuel oil Gas oil Natural gas

52 46 2 –

72 27 1 –

71 24 5 –

79 17 4 –

78 10 3 9

Concerning electricity consumption Table 3 and Fig. 2 present its distribution among the residential, commercial and industrial sectors. Table 3 presents the average yearly change rates of the various sectors for the two above defined periods (1990–2000 and 2000–2004), based on data from the Israel Electric Corporation (IEC 2004). Table 3 shows a different yearly growth rate in electricity consumption between the two periods. The growth rate in electricity consumption in the 1990s ranged between 7% to 16% for the different sectors. It exceeded by far the population growth rate of 3.5% during the same period. Nevertheless, in the second period, the electricity consumption grew by only 2% to 5%, narrowing the gap with the population growth rate during that period (2%). The difference between the two periods corresponds to the behavior of the CO2 emissions per capita, as depicted in Fig. 1. Figure 2 shows a consistent increase in all sectors of electricity consumption. However, the increase in the industrial sector is smaller than the increase in the residential and commercial sectors. Whereas the industrial sector was the leading consumer in 1990, it became the least contributing sector to electricity consumption since 2000. As of 1996 the residential sector is the major consuming sector. It grew from 1990 to 2004 by about 150% as compared to a population growth of only 40% for the same period. The shift towards electricity consumption in the commercial and residential sectors corresponds to an increase in the standard of living in the same period, with widespread use of air conditioning as a significant contributor. This shift indicates a growing economic inefficiency of electricity use, leading to the above-mentioned stagnation in CO2 emissions per GDP. In summary, when considering the IPAT model components for the study period, it seems that both population and affluence growth, along with unimproved technology, were responsible for the trend in CO2 emissions. Population increased by 45%, GDP per capita increased by 30% and CO2 emissions per GDP remained stable. As a result, these components acted in concert and caused total CO2 emissions to almost double. 3.2 International comparison In order to gain a perspective on Israel’s position regarding its CO2 emissions, an international comparison of CO2 emissions per capita and per GDP was held for the Table 3 Average yearly change rate in electricity consumption by sector 1990–2000 2000–2004

Residential (%)

Commercial (%)

Industrial (%)

12.3 3.5

15.5 5.4

6.9 1.5

560 16

Electricity consumption [GWh]

Fig. 2 Electricity consumption by sector in Israel (1990–2004)

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14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 1990

1996

residential

2000

commercial

2004

industrial

period 1990–2004. The comparison was performed with selected Annex I countries which report their emissions on a yearly basis (Annex I countries are the developed and industrialized countries committed to reduce their emissions of GHGs under the UNFCCC). The countries were divided into countries considered as developed for many years represented by the five largest economies (G-5) and recently-developed countries (RDCs). The latter were characterized by a lower GDP per capita in 1990 ($12,000– 15,000) and higher growth rates of both GDP and emissions. It is worthwhile to note that countries which were classified in the 1990s as countries in transition to market economy were not included in this analysis. These countries were heavily industrialized in the past and therefore followed a different development path. The comparison with the G-5 countries can be seen in Figs. 3 and 4. Figure 3,

Fig. 3 CO2 emissions per capita for the G-5 and Israel (1990–2004)

25.0

15.0

10.0

5.0

95 19 96 19 97 19 98 19 99 20 00 20 01 20 02 20 03 20 04

94

19

93

19

92

19

91

19

19

90

0.0 19

Tons per Capita

20.0

United States of America Japan Germany

United Kingdom France Israel

Climatic Change (2010) 101:555–563 Fig. 4 CO2 emissions per PPP-adjusted GDP for the G-5 and Israel (1990–2004)

561 0.80 0.70

Tons per GDP

0.60 0.50 0.40 0.30 0.20 0.10

19

90 19 91 19 92 19 93 19 94 19 95 19 96 19 97 19 98 19 99 20 00 20 01 20 02 20 03 20 04

0.00

United States of America Japan Germany

United Kingdom France Israel

which presents CO2 emissions per capita, shows that Israel does not fit the patterns demonstrated by the G-5 countries. Whereas some countries display a rather stable record (US, France and Japan) or a minor decline (Germany and UK), reflecting to some degree the implementation of the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol, Israel shows an increase during the nineties, followed by a subsequent leveling off. This increase coincides with the rapid population growth in Israel during that period. It is worthwhile to mention that the US emits far more CO2 than all other studied countries (approximately 20 t/capita), due to its higher and inefficient consumption of energy per capita. It can also be seen that in 1990, Israel and France displayed similar levels of emissions (ca. 7 t/capita). Whereas France maintained the same level throughout the studied period, due to its extensive reliance on nuclear energy, Israel already reached the level of Japan and the UK by 2000 (around 10 t/capita). When comparing the CO2 emissions per GDP (i.e., CO2 intensity) as presented in Fig. 4, it can be seen that Israel exhibits again a different pattern than the G-5 group. Whereas the CO2 intensity declines in all the latter, Israel shows a relative stability. The decline observed by the G-5 group can be explained either by a structural change in the economy (e.g. the industrial restructuring caused by the reunification of Germany or the transfer of major manufacturing industries to developing countries) or by a change in the energy mix (e.g. the shift from coal to natural gas in the U.K.). These findings are consistent with the historical experience of high-income countries as described by Lindmark (2004). The stability in the CO2 intensity in Israel is partially explained by a sharp increase in the electricity consumption by the residential sector that has a low impact on the economic efficiency. Nevertheless, the trends observed in Israel for both emissions per capita and emissions per GDP resemble those observed in the RDCs, confirming the classification of Israel in this category. With respect to CO2 emissions per capita (Fig. 5), the RDCs as well as Israel display a significant increase along the reviewed period, reflecting the rapid economic expansion and increase in the standard of living experienced by these countries. Regarding CO2 emissions per GDP (Fig. 6), Spain, Greece and Israel show stability

562

Climatic Change (2010) 101:555–563 14.0

Tons per Capita

12.0 10.0 8.0 6.0 4.0 2.0 0.0 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 Spain

Greece

Ireland

Israel

Fig. 5 CO2 emissions per capita for RDCs and Israel (1990–2004)

within a close range for the period 1990–2004. Ireland, however, presents a different picture of a sharp decline. This trend can be explained by the success of Ireland in decoupling its outstanding economic development from an increase in CO2 emissions, partially caused by an intensive replacement of coal by natural gas for electricity generation. By 2004, Ireland reached a level similar to the lower end of CO2 intensity exhibited by the G-5 group. It can be seen that Spain and Greece show similarities to Israel, in their CO2 emissions both per capita and per GDP. Spain displays almost parallel trends to

0.70 0.60

Tons per GDP

0.50 0.40 0.30 0.20 0.10 0.00 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 Spain

Greece

Ireland

Israel

Fig. 6 CO2 emissions per PPP-adjusted GDP for RDCs and Israel (1990–2004)

Climatic Change (2010) 101:555–563

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Israel with lower values. Greece resembles Israel with respect to the values of both parameters, but shows slightly different trends. During the 2000s CO2 emissions per GDP in Israel are among the highest for the reviewed countries (both G-5 and RDCs). This finding is explained by an inefficient use of energy, a delayed introduction of natural gas, a very low share of renewable energy and the absence of hydroelectricity and nuclear power.

4 Conclusion This study shows that Israel, which was not classified as an Annex I country in 1992, reached in 2004 a level of CO2 emissions similar to that of many Annex I countries. Although Israel exhibits different trends from those of the G-5 countries and is more similar to other recently-developed countries, its level of CO2 emissions is among the highest of the reviewed countries and reflects an inefficient use of resources. Therefore, we believe that the negotiations for the post-Kyoto era that began in Bali, Indonesia in December 2007 will inevitably lead to the inclusion of Israel among the countries committing themselves to significantly reduce their emissions. Consequently, Israel should soon take practical steps to participate in the global effort to reduce GHG emissions and enhance the priority it gives to global environmental issues. This conclusion may be applicable to other recentlydeveloped countries that were not included in Annex I, allowing them to show higher environmental responsibility.

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