Additional precision provided by region-specific data: The identification of fuel-use and pollution-generation coefficients in the Jersey economy

Abstract

Turner K. (2006) Additional precision provided by region-specific data: the identification of fuel-use and pollution-generation coefficients in the Jersey economy, Regional Studies 40, 347–364. A debate is currently ongoing in the UK regarding the need to collect and report data at the regional level. One specific area of this debate is the extent to which region-specific economic and environmental data are required to carry out analyses of devolved sustainability policy issues. This paper uses the Jersey economy as a case study to assess the added precision from using good-quality region-specific data compared with adjusted national UK data. It is found that, due to differences in polluting technology between Jersey and the UK, estimates based on national emissions intensities produce results that are misleading in terms of both absolute pollution levels and the relative contribution of different activities to total emissions in the economy. While Jersey may be regarded as atypical in many ways relative to other UK regions, it is argued that, the results show that regional environmental accounts must reflect differences in polluting technology in different locations. Moreover, accounting for differences in polluting technology is even more crucial in light of current policy interest in tracing the actual resource use and pollution generation in any one region's or country's imports to measure the global impact, or ecological footprint, of economic activity.

Turner K. (2006) La précision supplémentaire que fournissent les données spécifiques à une région: l'identification des coefficients de la consommation d'énergie et de la production de pollution dans l'économie de Jersey, Regional Studies 40, 347–364. A l'heure qu'il est, il se déchaîne un débat sur la nécessité de ramasser et de signaler des données au niveau régional. Une question qui se pose est la suivante: dans quelle mesure faut-il des données économiques et environnementales spécifiques à une région, afin d'analyser des questions de politique quant au développement durable régionalisé? A partir d'une étude de cas de l'économie de Jersey, cet article cherche à évaluer la précison supplémentaire que fournissent des données spécifiques à une région et qui sont plus fiables comparées à des données ajustées pour le Royaume-Uni ramassées au niveau national. Il s'avère que des estimations calculées à partir des taux d'émission nationaux laissent voir des résultats trompeurs en termes des niveaux de pollution absolus et de la contribution relative des diverses activités aux émissions globales dans l'économie à cause des différences de la technologie polluante en Jersey par rapport au Royaume-Uni. Tandis que l'on peut considérer Jersey à bien des égards comme atypique par rapport aux autres régions du Royaume-Uni, les résultats de cette étude laissent voir que des comptes régionaux environnementaux devraient refléter les différences de la techologie polluante dans des emplacements différents. En outre, expliquer les différences de la technologie polluante s'avère capital à la lumière de l'intérêt actuel pour la détermination de l'emploi de ressources et de la production de pollution réels dans les importations de toute région ou de tout pays afin de mesurer l'effet global, ou la tracée écologique, de l'activité économique.

Comptes régionaux Tableaux d'échanges environnementaux NAMEA Tracées écologiques

Turner K. (2006) Zusätzliche Präzision durch regionspezifische Daten: die Identifizierung von Koeffizienten von Brennstoffverbrauch und Umweltverschmutzungsursachen in der Wirtschaft der Insel Jersey, Regional Studies 40, 347–364. Im UK ist z.Zt. eine Debatte über die Notwendigkeit im Gange, Daten auf Regionalebene zu sammeln und darüber Bericht zu erstatten. Ein spezifisches Gebiet dieser Debatte betrifft das Ausmaß, in dem regionsspezifische Daten betreff Wirtschaft und Umwelt für Analysen der Fragen der den Regionen übertragenen Nachhaltigkeitsbestrebungen erforderlich sind. In diesem Aufsatz wird eine Fallstudie anhand der Wirtschaft der Insel Jersey durchgeführt, um die zusätzliche Genauigkeit zu berechnen, die sich aus regionalspezifischen Daten im Vergleich zu entsprechend angepassten überregionalen Daten des UK ergeben. Die Autorin stellt fest, daß infolge verschmutzungstechnischer Unterschiede zwischen der Insel Jersey und dem UK, Berechnungen, die auf überregionalen Emmissionsintensitäten beruhen, Ergebnisse zeitigen, die, sowohl in Bezug auf absolute Höhe der Verschmutzung wie auf den relativen Beitrag verschiedener Unternehmen zur Gesamtmenge der Emissionen, irreführend sind. Obschon die Insel Jersey in vieler Hinsicht im Verhältnis zu anderen Regionen des UK als atypisch angesehen werden kann, vertritt die Autorin den Standpunkt, daß die Ergebnisse dieser Studie zeigen, daß regionale Umweltsangaben die Unterschiede der Verschmutzungstechnologie an verschiedenen Standorten widerspiegeln müssen. Angesichts des gegenwärtigen politischen Interesses am Aufspüren tatsächlicher Resourssennutzung und der Verursachung von Verschmutzung in den Importen irgendwelcher Regionen oder Länder ist Rechenschaft über Unterschiede in Verschmutzungstechnologie noch wichtiger für das Messen globaler Auswirkung oder ökologischer Spuren wirtschaftlicher Unternehmen ist.

Regionale Berichterstattung Umweltsaufwand/Ertrag NAMEA ökologische Spuren

Turner K. (2006) Precisión adicional obtenida por datos específicos para regiones: identificación del uso de combustible y los coeficientes de la producción de contaminación en la economía de Jersey, Regional Studies 40, 347–364. En la actualidad se está llevando a cabo un debate en el Reino Unido sobre la necesidad de recoger y registrar datos a nivel regional. Un campo específico de este debate es conocer en qué medida son necesarios los datos económicos y medioambientales específicos de cada región para llevar a cabo análisis de problemas políticos en torno a la sostenibilidad descentralizada. En este ensayo utilizo la economía de Jersey como estudio práctico para valorar la precisión añadida que se obtiene al usar datos de buena calidad específicos de regiones, comparado con el uso de datos nacionales ajustados del Reino Unido. Observo que debido a las diferencias en la tecnología contaminante entre Jersey y el Reino Unido, los cálculos basados en las intensidades de emisiones nacionales producen resultados engañosos en cuanto a los niveles absolutos de contaminación y la contribución relativa de las diferentes actividades a las emisiones totales en la economía. Mientras que Jersey se podría considerar como atípico en muchos modos comparado con otras regiones británicas, sostengo que los resultados de este estudio demuestran que las cifras medioambientales por regiones deben reflejar las diferencias en cuanto a la tecnología contaminante según el lugar. Asimismo es de suma importancia tener en cuenta las diferencias en la tecnología contaminante dado el interés de la política actual de localizar el uso real de los recursos y la producción de contaminación en las importaciones de una región o un país determinado para poder medir el impacto global o la huella ecológica de la actividad económica.

Cuentas regionales Aportes y resultados medioambientales NAMEA Huellas ecológicas

Keywords:

• Regional accounting
• Environmental input–output
• National Accounting Matrix including Environmental Accounts (NAMEA)
• Ecological footprints

Acknowledgements

The research reported here was part of a PhD thesis sponsored by the Policy and Resources Committee of the States of Jersey. The author thanks the staff at the States of Jersey, and all the Jersey firms and residents who contributed information that went into the construction of the IO table and environmental accounts used here. The author is particularly grateful to Dr David Coley, Centre for Energy and the Environment, University of Exeter, for input and advice on estimating pollution generation in Jersey, and the author's PhD supervisors, Kim Swales and Peter McGregor, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, for ongoing input and advice. The author is also indebted to Michael Romeril, (formerly) Environmental Adviser to the States of Jersey, Rocky Harris (formerly) at ONS, Lynn Graham and Antje Branding at the Scottish Executive, and Nick Hanley, University of Stirling, for comments and advice regarding this and related environmental work. The author is also grateful for comments on earlier versions of this paper from participants at a meeting of the ESRC Urban and Regional Study Group, Strathclyde Business School, Glasgow, UK, January 2002, and from the anonymous referees who commented on the initial submission of the paper.

Notes

1. Jersey is not strictly a region of the UK (or any other larger nation). It is an independent self-governing state. However, the Jersey economy is very closely integrated with that of the UK, sharing its language, currency, exchange and interest rates. Moreover, the majority of Jersey's trade flows are with the UK. Therefore, in the absence of Jersey-specific data, the UK would seem to be the natural choice of a proxy national economy from which to draw estimates of parameter values (where appropriate UK data exist).

2. Indirect pollution generation embodied in final consumption can also be accounted for in an economic–environmental IO or SAM framework. The paper will return to this issue below.

3. It may be preferable to relate non-fuel-related emissions to some variable other than total activity, as defined by the value of output or total expenditure, where more appropriate data are available.

4. For the UK NAMEA accounts, see http://www.nationalstatistics.gov.uk

5. The 76-sector NAMEA breakdown of activities maps to the 128-sector classification of the UK IO accounts, with some IO sectors aggregated and some disaggregated in the NAMEA to focus on key polluting sectors and/or energy users.

6. Despite this, inconsistencies and incompatibilities remain between the Scottish and UK IO accounts (Ferguson et al., 2004).

7. The study by Salway et al. (2001) is not in the public domain. It was carried out by AEA Technology, a commercial body that constructs the UK National Air Emissions Inventory, and was co-funded by Defra, the National Assembly for Wales, the Scottish Executive and the Department of the Environment, Northern Ireland. However, the Scottish Executive kindly made the report available to the author for use in another study to construct a partial NAMEA framework for Scotland with CO₂ emissions reported at the sectoral level (Turner, 2003).

8. The following assumes that region-specific data on sectoral activity levels, X_i , and final demands, C_z , or other appropriate economic data, are available in all cases. However, it is commonly the case in the UK that the regional economic data required under the NAMEA approach, i.e. in the form of region-specific IO tables, will not be available on sectoral activity levels.

9. For example, in a recent study where an interregional environmental IO and SAM framework for Scotland and the rest of the UK are constructed, focus is on incorporating region-specific data for the Scottish electricity sector (McGregor et al., 2004c).

10. Here, emissions intensities are stated in terms of gross sectoral output and total final consumption expenditure. However, emissions intensities could be stated in terms of other variables that can be measured for both economies (although this would not strictly be consistent with standard NAMEA accounting conventions).

11. For a detailed description of the construction of the 1998 economic and environmental accounts for Jersey, see Turner (2002).

12. Another type of motive fuel combustion that is not covered in the present study, but which leads to the generation of emissions, is shipping activities. Coley (1994) does not make any attempt to identify fuel used in shipping activities due to problems of data availability. A previous study of energy supply and use in Jersey (Burek, 1988) had found that shipping represents a relatively small proportion of fuel use in the economy. Moreover, as with the case of air transport, there are problems in determining how much of the fuel supplied to marine users can actually be classified as being combusted within the economy's borders. However, when appropriate data do become available, emissions from shipping and marine fuel use should be separately identified and accounted for in Jersey.

13. This allocation may not be entirely satisfactory: Jersey Aero Club (part of the ‘Total Recreation, Culture & Sport’ (TRCS) sector) and private flyers (both local and non-local) also purchase aviation gas and fly in and out of Jersey Airport. Therefore, some aircraft movements should really be allocated to TRCS, Jersey households and tourists. However, no information is available on how many aircraft movements these groups account for, and, due to the problem discussed above, it is not possible to make an allocation based on shares in fuel purchases. This is a problem that should be rectified if and when better data become available.

14. Details on the composition of each production sector identified here (according to 1992 SIC classification) are available on request from the author.

15. For attribution analyses for pollution generation in Jersey, see McGregor et al. (2004d).

16. In terms of modelling, note that, unlike the UK-adjusted coefficients, the Jersey-specific data do not limit one to the application of fixed IO-type Leontief output-pollution coefficients. Where region-specific, or partially region-specific, data are available to estimate pollution generation using equations (1) and (2), it is possible to model changes in pollution generation due to technology and input substitution effects. However, if one relies on equations (3) and (4), or on (7) and (8), only changes in pollution due to changes in the scale and composition of economic activity can be captured. Learmonth et al. (2002) apply the latter to the case of Jersey.

17. Gas oil is technically the same fuel as the diesel used for automotive purposes; however, it is standard practice to define and record the supply of gas oil used for automotive purposes separately as ‘diesel’ (or ‘derv’).