For seventeen weeks, Umeå School of Business, Economics and Statistics will present their work in relation to the 17 Sustainable Development goals. For the first two goals, #1-No poverty and #2-Zero Hunger, we learn more about some of the research by CEREs Göran Bostedt.
Soleiman Mohammadi Limael, associate professor at the Department of forestry, University of Guilan, Iran visited CERE on September 20th, 2018 to discuss possible future collaborations between Sweden and Iran and foremost the universities SLU, Guilan and Umeå.
Jussi Lintunen and Jussi Uusivuori show in their winning article that an increase in the use of wood, despite it not being emission free, is optimal. However, this is so only if the biomass stock first increases. A subsidy on forest growth and tax on harvest leads to forest owners postponing their harvest, which increases biomass stock and carbon sequestration. As the rotation approaches its maximum level of sustainability, the harvest yield will increase and price on roundwood will fall, so that it can become optimal to use roundwood in energy generation.
Lintunen, J. and Uusivuori, J. (2016) On the economics of forests and climate change: Deriving optimal policies. Journal of Forest Economics 24, 130-156
(Click on headline to read the motivation)
“The atmosphere does not care from where the emissions stem. We need to get as much as possible from each invested krona.” Runar Brännlund in discussion with Ola Hansén, World Wide Fund for Nature, regarding where to focus the efforts in the struggle against climate change from the Swedish Radio program Studio ett (Studio one) August 16th, 2018. (only in Swedish)
Research by CERE PhD Brian Danley shows that the more a forest owner believes that the state is responsible for fulfilling environmental goals the less likely that their non-certified forest will contain set-asides. Owners of larger, non-certified properties are more likely to report that they have left set-asides. (Click on headline to read more)
Runar Brännlund, CERE, lists the five industries expected to be most affected by the changing climate on SvD.
Weather-dependent industries will to a greater extent be affected and calculations made by Runar show a tendency for a plus in the general economy. However, Runar points out that estimates on a 100-year term hold a lot of uncertainty and therefore difficult to do.
Read the full article ”Klimatförändringarnas vinnare – och förlorare” published on SvD.se August 2, 2018. (only in Swedish)
CERE is looking for a post doc in environmental and resource economics with specific focus on experimental economics.
Learn more and apply by June 30th.
CERE’s Runar Brännlund explains in an article on SvD debate what he considers to be political decisions comprised of a mess of more or less useless subsidies and taxes. Decisions discussed are the taxation on air travels introduced April 1st, 2018 and the bonus malus taxation on cars being introduced July 1st, 2018.
Runar calls the political decisions for green washing, only creating an image of powerful and effective measures but in practice it means costs and a redistribution of resources between different groups in society, without any real climate effect. If the objective is to reduce global emissions, then the EU ETS already in place, is a better tool and can be expanded to include more countries and sectors. Closer to home the carbon tax is a known effective tool and any revenue from it can be used to compensate for undesired distribution effects.
The article in SvD "Professor: Flygskatten och bonus-malus saknar effekt" was published online June 13, 2018. (only in Swedish)
Read the report that the article refers to; "En analys av svenska miljöskatters effektivitet" Svenskt näringsliv (Confederation of Swedish Enterprise) June 2018. (only in Swedish)
Preliminary results from PhD-student Golnaz Amjadis work show that the wish that “green jobs” could contribute to both challenges associated with climate change and high unemployment rate is not supported by the data. Golnaz Amjadi explains in this article. Click on headline to read more
