IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/sehrxx/v62y2014i3p243-265.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Counting carbon: historic emissions from fossil fuels, long-run measures of sustainable development and carbon debt

Author

Listed:
  • Jan Kunnas
  • Eoin McLaughlin
  • Nick Hanley
  • David Greasley
  • Les Oxley
  • Paul Warde

Abstract

This article examines how to account for the welfare effects of carbon dioxide emissions, using the historical experiences of Britain and the USA from the onset of the industrial revolution to the present. While a single country might isolate itself from the detrimental effects of global warming in the short run, in the long all countries are unable to free ride. Thus, we support the use of a single global price for carbon dioxide emissions. The calculated price should decrease as we move back in time to take into account that carbon dioxide is a stock pollutant, and that one unit added to the present large stock is likely to cause more damage than a unit emitted under the lower concentration levels in the past. We incorporate the annual costs of British and US carbon emissions into genuine savings, and calculate the accumulated costs of their carbon dioxide emissions. Enlarging the scope and calculating the cumulative cost of carbon dioxide from the four largest emitters gives new insights into the question of who is responsible for climate change.

Suggested Citation

  • Jan Kunnas & Eoin McLaughlin & Nick Hanley & David Greasley & Les Oxley & Paul Warde, 2014. "Counting carbon: historic emissions from fossil fuels, long-run measures of sustainable development and carbon debt," Scandinavian Economic History Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 62(3), pages 243-265, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:sehrxx:v:62:y:2014:i:3:p:243-265
    DOI: 10.1080/03585522.2014.896284
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/03585522.2014.896284
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/03585522.2014.896284?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Greasley, David & Hanley, Nicholas & McLaughlin, Eoin & Oxley, Les & Warde, Paul, 2012. "Testing for long-run "sustainability": Genuine Savings estimates for B ritain, 1760-2000," Stirling Economics Discussion Papers 2012-05, University of Stirling, Division of Economics.
    2. World Bank, 2011. "The Changing Wealth of Nations : Measuring Sustainable Development in the New Millennium," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 2252.
    3. Price, Richard & Thornton, Simeon & Nelson, Stephen, 2007. "The Social Cost of Carbon and the Shadow Price of Carbon: what they are, and how to use them in economic appraisal in the UK," MPRA Paper 74976, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nick Hanley & Louis Dupuy & Eoin McLaughlin, 2015. "Genuine Savings And Sustainability," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 779-806, September.
    2. Eoin McLaughlin & Cristián Ducoing & Les Oxley, 2024. "Tracing Sustainability in the Long Run: Genuine Savings Estimates 1850–2018," NBER Chapters, in: Measuring and Accounting for Environmental Public Goods: A National Accounts Perspective, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Fouquet, Roger, 2016. "Lessons from energy history for climate policy: technological change, demand and economic development," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 67785, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Greasley, David & Hanley, Nicholas & McLaughlin, Eoin & Oxley, Les, 2014. "The Emperor Has New Clothes: Empirical Tests of Mainstream Theories of Economic Growth," Stirling Economics Discussion Papers 2014-08, University of Stirling, Division of Economics.
    5. Blum Matthias & McLaughlin Eoin & Hanley Nick, 2019. "Accounting for Sustainable Development over the Long-Run: Lessons from Germany," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 20(4), pages 410-446, December.
    6. Matthias Blum & Cristián Ducoing & Eoin McLaughlin, 2016. "Genuine Savings in developing and developed countries, 1900-2000," Discussion Papers in Environment and Development Economics 2016-15, University of St. Andrews, School of Geography and Sustainable Development.
    7. Luke McGrath & Stephen Hynes & John McHale, 2022. "The Air we Breathe: Estimates of Air Pollution Extended Genuine Savings for Europe," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 68(1), pages 161-188, March.
    8. Greasley, David & Hanley, Nick & McLaughlin, Eoin & Oxley, Les, 2014. "The Emperor Has New Clothes: Empirical Tests of Mainstream Theories of Economic Growth," 2007 Annual Meeting, July 29-August 1, 2007, Portland, Oregon TN 2015-01, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    9. Roger Fouquet, 2015. "Lessons from energy history for climate policy," GRI Working Papers 209, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Greasley, David & Hanley, Nicholas & Kunnas, Jan & McLaughlin, Eoin & Oxley, Les & Warde, Paul, 2012. "How Environmental Pollution from Fossil Fuels can be included in measures of National Accounts and Estimates of Genuine Savings," Stirling Economics Discussion Papers 2012-16, University of Stirling, Division of Economics.
    2. Cairns, Robert D. & Martinet, Vincent, 2021. "Growth and long-run sustainability," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 26(4), pages 381-402, August.
    3. Glenn-Marie Lange, 2014. "Environmental accounting," Chapters, in: Giles Atkinson & Simon Dietz & Eric Neumayer & Matthew Agarwala (ed.), Handbook of Sustainable Development, chapter 21, pages 319-335, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Simplice Asongu & Uduak S. Akpan & Salisu R. Isihak, 2018. "Determinants of foreign direct investment in fast-growing economies: evidence from the BRICS and MINT countries," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 4(1), pages 1-17, December.
    5. Pezzey, John C.V. & Burke, Paul J., 2014. "Towards a more inclusive and precautionary indicator of global sustainability," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 141-154.
    6. Matthias Blum & Eoin McLaughlin & Nick Hanley, 2019. "Accounting for Sustainable Development over the Long‐Run: Lessons from Germany," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 20(4), pages 410-446, November.
    7. Yu, Yun & Lei, Yalin, 2017. "China's provincial exhaustible resources rent and produced capital stock—Based on Hartwick's rule," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 114-121.
    8. Fred Gault, 2013. "Innovation indicators and measurement: challenges," Chapters, in: Fred Gault (ed.), Handbook of Innovation Indicators and Measurement, chapter 19, pages 441-464, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    9. Michael S. Christian, 2017. "Net Investment and Stocks of Human Capital in the United States, 1975-2013," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 33, pages 128-149, Fall.
    10. Stephen C. Newbold & Charles Griffiths & Chris Moore & Ann Wolverton & Elizabeth Kopits, 2013. "A Rapid Assessment Model For Understanding The Social Cost Of Carbon," Climate Change Economics (CCE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 4(01), pages 1-40.
    11. Nick Hanley & Louis Dupuy & Eoin McLaughlin, 2015. "Genuine Savings And Sustainability," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 779-806, September.
    12. Andrea Cori & Salvatore Monni, 2014. "The Resource Curse Hypothesis: Evidence from Ecuador," SEEDS Working Papers 2814, SEEDS, Sustainability Environmental Economics and Dynamics Studies, revised Oct 2014.
    13. Auping, Willem L. & Pruyt, Erik & de Jong, Sijbren & Kwakkel, Jan H., 2016. "The geopolitical impact of the shale revolution: Exploring consequences on energy prices and rentier states," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 390-399.
    14. Fred Gault (ed.), 2013. "Handbook of Innovation Indicators and Measurement," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 14427, March.
    15. repec:ipg:wpaper:2014-491 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Beck, Thorsten & Poelhekke, Steven, 2023. "Follow the money: Does the financial sector intermediate natural resource windfalls?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    17. Hideyuki Mizobuchi, 2014. "Measuring World Better Life Frontier: A Composite Indicator for OECD Better Life Index," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 118(3), pages 987-1007, September.
    18. Evangelos Grigoroudis & Vassilis S. Kouikoglou & Yannis A. Phillis & Fotis D. Kanellos, 2021. "Energy sustainability: a definition and assessment model," Operational Research, Springer, vol. 21(3), pages 1845-1885, September.
    19. Cockx, Lara & Francken, Nathalie, 2014. "Extending the concept of the resource curse: Natural resources and public spending on health," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 136-149.
    20. Georges Enderle, 2018. "How Can Business Ethics Strengthen the Social Cohesion of a Society?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 150(3), pages 619-629, July.
    21. Wei, Chu & Löschel, Andreas & Liu, Bing, 2013. "An empirical analysis of the CO2 shadow price in Chinese thermal power enterprises," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 22-31.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:sehrxx:v:62:y:2014:i:3:p:243-265. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/sehr20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.