Climate change
Utility function-based generalization of sum of ranking differences–country-wise analysis of greenhouse gas emissions
The utility function-based sum of ranking differences (uSRD) method is proposed as a utility function-based multi-criteria decision analysis tool. Our idea is that the transformation functions can be represented by a utility function that can be aggregated with multi-attribute utility functions. We present a framework incorporating utility values as the basis for three different but interconnected analyses. The exemplary application focuses on greenhouse gas emissions and economic indicators of 147 countries. First, the uSRD is applied to the utility values to uncover the hidden relationships of the 40 indicators. A ranking of countries is established to see which sample performs the best and the worst in both emissions and economy. Lastly, mitigation actions are delegated to countries through a three-stage assignment that connects emissions to utilities, sectors, and mitigation actions. The results show that the uSRD excels as a support tool for decision-making.
Post date: 28 February 2024
Sectoral Analysis of Energy Transition Paths and Greenhouse Gas Emissions
The Paris Climate Agreement and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals declared by the United Nations set high expectations for the countries of the world to reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and to be sustainable. In order to judge the effectiveness of strategies, the evolution of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide emissions in countries around the world has been explored based on statistical analysis of time-series data between 1990 and 2018. The empirical distributions of the variables were determined by the Kaplan–Meier method, and improvement-related utility functions have been defined based on the European Green Deal target for 2030 that aims to decrease at least 55% of GHG emissions compared to the 1990 levels. This study aims to analyze the energy transition trends at the country and sectoral levels and underline them with literature-based evidence. The transition trajectories of the countries are studied based on the percentile-based time-series analysis of the emission data. We also study the evolution of the sector-wise distributions of the emissions to assess how the development strategies of the countries contributed to climate change mitigation. Furthermore, the countries’ location on their transition trajectories is determined based on their individual Kuznets curve. Runs and Leybourne–McCabe statistical tests are also evaluated to study how systematic the changes are. Based on the proposed analysis, the main drivers of climate mitigation and evaluation and their effectiveness were identified and characterized, forming the basis for planning sectoral tasks in the coming years. The case study goes through the analysis of two counties, Sweden and Qatar. Sweden reduced their emission per capita almost by 40% since 1990, while Qatar increased their emission by 20%. Moreover, the defined improvement-related variables can highlight the highest increase and decrease in different aspects. The highest increase was reached by Equatorial Guinea, and the most significant decrease was made by Luxembourg. The integration of sustainable development goals, carbon capture, carbon credits and carbon offsets into the databases establishes a better understanding of the sectoral challenges of energy transition and strategy planning, which can be adapted to the proposed method.
