Determinants of greenhouse gases emission growth in Spain (1990-2007)

The growth of greenhouse gas emissions in Spain is far larger than the Kyoto Protocol target. This paper analyses the different factors that have contributed to the important increase in energy greenhouse gas emissions in Spain during 1990-2007. The factorial decomposition methodology used allows a perfect distribution (without residuals) of the change in emissions into different effects (carbonization effect, transformation effect, intensity effect and scale effect). The results clearly show that the scale effect -the change in production level- has been determinant in explaining emission increase, while the contribution of the other effects, which should be the on that changed the growth trend of emission, has not moderated this increase. A remarkable negative contribution is the one attributable to the intensity effect, which indicates the change in the final energy intensity of GDP, as it had even contributed to increase emissions. The transformation effect, the impact attributable to energy transformation, would have contributed to moderate total emission increase. The paper discusses the implications of the results.