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Ireland's Sustainable Development ModelThe Economic and Social Research Institute, with financial support from the Environmental Protection Agency, has developed a Sustainable Development Research Model for Ireland: ISus. The purpose of this model is to forecast environmental emissions (to air, soil and water) and natural resource use (energy, land, water) until 2025. Version 0.1 of the model used an environmental input-output model to forecast emissions, waste and water use out to 2020 (O’Doherty and Tol, 2007). Currently, the operational version of the model is version 0.3. This version projects emissions to air, energy use, and waste generation, driven by the Recovery Scenarios for Ireland. Version 0.2 also projected emissions and resource use out to 2025, driven by the medium-term scenarios from the Medium-Term Review 2008-2015. Information on the model and its structure is outlined below. Input dataData are the starting point for any operational model. ISus uses two types of data: environmental and economic. The environmental data used in ISus comes from a variety of sources, documented in Lyons et al. (2008). The ISus model is driven by forecasts of output, prices and labour produced by the HERMES model. Population and household forecasts are generated by the ESRI’s demographic model. Details of these forecasts can be found in the Medium-Term Review 2008-2015. ConcordancesAn issue that arises when trying to reconcile data from different sources and different models is the concordance of sectors. The ISus model presents output at 2-digit NACE code level. The NACE code system is the European standard for industry classifications. Data from the EPA generally follows the NACE classification with a few minor differences. The concordances used in this case are detailed here. The categories used in the MTR are less disaggregated than the ISus categories. The concordance table used to move from these categories to categories compatible with ISus can be found here. Two further concordance tables were used. The first aggregates the CSO's NACE-based IO table to ISus categories. The second links the categories used in the household demand projections to the MTR sectors (and hence to ISus). Model computationsThe ISus model generates emission and waste forecasts for 19 production sectors, and the residential sector. Emissions are then attributed to final demand categories: households, charities, government, investment, inventories and trade (exports). Production sector emissions are forecasted using emission intensities. ISus uses the median change in the past emission intensities per sector and substance to project future emission intensities. ISus further uses the projected sectoral output from the HERMES model, downscaled to the 19 sectors in the ESRI Environmental Accounts (Lyons, Mayor and Tol, 2008). Two exceptions to this are emissions of carbon dioxide from power generation which are taken from IDEM and emissions for methane from landfill which are taken from the waste model. Furthermore, scope is given for adjustments to be made to certain sectors to account for ad hoc adjustments to the system, for instance identified technological change in a sector. For residential emissions, we use the estimated income elasticities of emission per capita and the number of people as projected by the demographic model. Solid waste emissions include a wide range of materials with varying physical and economic characteristics. We group these materials into three broad types: hazardous waste, biodegradable municipal waste (BMW) and other waste. Because the environmental and economic effects of solid waste emissions may be significantly different depending upon how the material is managed, we further divide the waste categories by disposition, including whether it was sent to landfill, recycled, incinerated or where the disposition is not known. Waste generation forecasts are based on behavioural relationships. The parameters are detailed here. Emissions are attributed to final demand using an environmental input-output model (O’Doherty and Tol, 2007). The CSO's 2000 input-output table is updated with the RAS method (Parikh, 1979) using the projected production from HERMES and the projected consumption. Consumption expenditure is based on an Almost Ideal Demand System analysis of the Irish economy by Lyons, Mayor and Tol (2007). Virtual CO2 imports for 2001 are taken from Peters (2008) and projected using non-energy imports according to HERMES assuming that the CO2 intensity of imports fall by 1 per cent per year. References
CSO (2006), 2000 Supply and Use and Input-Output Tables, Central Statistics Office, Cork.
Lyons, S., K. Mayor and R.S.J. Tol (2007), ‘Convergence of Consumption Patterns during Macroeconomic Transition: A Model of Demand in Ireland and the OECD’, ESRI Working Papers, No. 205, ESRI.
Lyons, S., K. Mayor and R.S.J. Tol (2008), ‘Environmental Accounts for the Republic of Ireland’, ESRI Working Papers, No. 223, ESRI.
O’Doherty, J. and R.S.J. Tol (2007), ‘An Environmental Input-Output Model for Ireland’, The Economic and Social Review, Vol. 38, No.2. Parikh, A. (1979), ‘Forecasts of Input-Output Tables using the RAS Method’, Review of Economics and Statistics, 61 (3), 477-481. Other ESRI research in environment and natural resources, energy, and transport.
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