Abstract

The World Bank Group (WBG) has focused on reducing the environmental impacts of its internal operations and improving corporate environmental practices since 2002, when the WBG President announced WBG's commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). The objective of this document is to summarize the actions WBG has taken thus far to reduce environmental impacts from internal operations and present an action plan to further integrate sustainability into WBG's internal operations. Although this work focuses on the environmental impact associated with WBG daily operations, the links between WBG policies and actions related to environmental management and the financial/social considerations are significant. The International Finance Corporation (IFC) footprint and World Bank corporate responsibility teams facilitate the sustainability commitment of the WBG and monitor and track its progress. These teams provide technical information and research support to a dedicated group of champions throughout the WBG who implement emission reduction activities. Budget for these activities flows primarily through the environment department, the general services department, and IFC facilities management and administration. The environment department and IFC facilities management each resource one staff member to provide back-up research support and to monitor and report on environmental metrics, with building engineers and managers and project officers from across the WBG contributing. Document type: Book

Abstract

The Tool for Rapid Assessment of City Energy (TRACE) is used for conducting rapid assessments of energy use in cities. It helps prioritize sectors with significant energy savings potential, and identifies appropriate energy efficiency interventions across six sectors-transport, municipal buildings, water and waste water, public lighting, solid waste, and power and heat. It is a simple, low-cost, user-friendly, and practical tool that can be applied in any socioeconomic setting. While this work focuses on the growth poles in Romania, the analysis was limited to the boundary of the center city of Brasov, due to the difficulty of collecting individual indicators for all the constituent localities of a metropolitan area. The report details the analysis carried out and the recommendations derived as a result, for district heating maintenance and upgrade, non-motorized transport, public transport development, parking restraint measures, municipal buildings audit and retrofit, street lighting timing program, and active leakage of water and pressure management. Document type: Book

Abstract

This internal background paper has been prepared to help inform the 2010 environment strategy with respect to a proposed way forward on use of country systems. The World Bank Group environment strategy is built on three pillars: leveraging natural resources for growth and poverty reduction; managing the environmental risks to growth and development; and transforming growth paths. As part of its exploration of these three pillars, the strategy considers the question of environmental co-benefits of climate change actions. In particular, it poses the question of potential trade-offs between actions to address climate change and other local and regional environmental priorities, and considers how to maximize co-benefits arising from climate action. The primary objective of this background paper is to assess the potential for climate change mitigation and adaptation actions to provide environmental co-benefits, particularly in the quality of environmental media, flow of ecosystem services, and maintenance of biodiversity. To accomplish this, the paper is organized in five sections: section one gives provision of an organizing framework to identify and classify potential co-benefits; section two gives summary of the external literature on co-benefits; section three gives review of examples from the World Bank portfolio; section four presents initial thoughts on creation of enabling conditions for co-benefit provision; and section five gives review of implications for the environment strategy. Document type: Book

Abstract

The operations policy on Development Policy Lending (DPL), approved by the Board in August 2004, requires that the Bank systematically analyze whether specific country policies supported by an operation are likely to have "significant effects" on the country's environment, forests, and other natural resources. The implicit objective behind this requirement is to ensure that there is adequate capacity in the country to deal with adverse effects on the environment, forests, and other natural resources that the policies could trigger, even at the program design stage. DPL operations are associated with a whole array of policies such as macro policy reforms, fiscal policies, and specific sectoral policies, particularly in key sectors such as agriculture, health and education, energy, etc. In some cases, the operation may deal directly with reforms in certain environmentally sensitive sectors such as energy, transport, water and sanitation, agriculture, and forestry. In these cases, there is an obvious need for careful analysis of environmental, natural resource, and forestry impacts. In other cases, such as public sector reform and governance, there is less potential for likely significant impacts on the natural environment and natural resources. The toolkit is designed to be concise and user-friendly. It consists of three specific modules. The first module identifies relevant transmission channels through which the proposed reform would have a likely effect on the identified environmental, forest, and other natural resource priorities. The second module provides assistance in identifying key environmental issues in the country, regions, or sectors likely to be influenced by the DPL program. The third module presents different tools and methodologies for rapid assessment of the likely significant effects of each reform.

Abstract

Thailand needs to avoid the high-carbon growth path of many developed countries and, instead, take a low-carbon growth path. A green low-carbon growth path is in Thailand's own interest as it can simultaneously tackle local environmental degradation, global climate change, and energy security challenges. It can also position Thailand as a regional leader in green, sustainable growth. Green low-carbon growth in Thailand could focus on the following four pillars: 1) maintaining rapid economic growth while adjusting the country's economic structure toward a less energy, and carbon-intensive economy; 2) achieving greater urbanization while shifting toward green livable low-carbon cities; 3) meeting the huge thirst for energy while transforming the energy sector toward one of high energy efficiency and widespread diffusion of low-carbon technologies; and 4) improving quality of life while shifting toward a resource-efficient and sustainable lifestyle.

Abstract

In 2012, the World Bank signed five agreements with MRDPA for advisory services, out of which one relates to the growth poles policy and to its improvement for the programming period 2014-2020. This agreement has three components: 1) an analysis of the growth poles policy, 2) energy efficiency studies for each growth pole; and 3) a review of the Integrated Development Plans prepared by the growth poles for the period 2007-2013. In this context, South Muntenia Regional Development Agency, through the coordinator of Ploiești Growth Pole, requested the World Bank, under a project funded by ERDF through the Technical Assistance Operational Program 2007-2013, to support the Growth Pole in implementing the recommendations stemming from the previous analysis with: 1) updating the Integrated Development Plan for 2014-2020; and 2) proposing an improved institutional framework for coordinating the planning, implementation and monitoring of projects under this plan. The current document of the Integrated Development Plan belonging to Ploiești Growth Pole was developed during the period 2008-2009 and approved and submitted to South Muntenia RDA in April 2010. It contains a total number of 93 projects with a total value of RON 5,136,143,583.91, out of which 762,515,322.81 are EU funds, and the remainder comes from the national budget and the beneficiaries’ own contribution. In the process of updating the plan, the implementation status of these projects will be studied further, while attention will be also given to the unimplemented projects in order to see whether they will be included in the documentation, depending on their response to the new development conditions of the growth pole.

Abstract

Globally, the Philippines is a minor emitter of greenhouse gases (GHGs), but cost-effective mitigation present opportunities that should be captured, noting that the country is one of the signatory member states to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its Kyoto Protocol. The country accounts for less than 0.3 percent of global GHG emissions in 2004.4 However, emissions are on the rise from both energy-use and land-use changes. Even if the absolute scale will remain small, there are increasing number of development projects under preparation, which offers opportunities for cost-effective mitigation and adaptation measures. The Philippine Government's response to the climate change challenge has been active institutionally noting the recent restructuring of the Presidential task force on climate change. However, a clear strategy and action plan are still lacking. The international donor community, including development partners such as the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR), the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), is actively engaged in addressing climate change in the Philippines. There are several initiatives on capacity building for GHG accounting, monitoring and reporting, for preparation of a second National Communication to the UNFCCC, governance, renewable energy, urban air quality management, and forest management. There are likewise several World Bank supported climate change-related activities, with nine active operations. These encompass primarily energy sector operations.

Abstract

Worldwide energy consumption is generally related with fossil fuels that increase CO? and other greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions. The transport sector represents a significant part of energy demand. As its share comes mostly from petroleum products, known for their highly polluting effects, there is the need to quantify energy use by transport. This assessment supports the planning and implementation of energy consumption mitigation policies that reduce negative environmental outcomes of transport systems. The research introduces an approach to estimate transport energy consumption obtained from available data and scaling factors. As the emphasis is put on urban transport, only commute road and rail transport are considered in the analysis. Data is stored and managed in a Geographical Information Systems (GIS) framework environment that also supports mapping the results. These maps allow identifying higher energy consumption areas by mode of transport and type of vehicle. Plotting the results also enables understanding the geographic distribution of energy demand from urban to rural regions, providing tools to perceive the relationship between urban form and energy consumption of the transport sector. Taking into account that the analysis is produced at a large scale, the obtained results offer support to planners and policy makers that seek solving transport-related problems, as pollution and high energy demand. Large scale analysis allows and enhances better planning, primarily when designing strategies for such detailed areas as urban spaces. Assessing and analysing energy consumption of the transport sector, enables deriving alternative energy layouts that present better energy efficiency, aiming for the final goal of mitigate the negative effects of urban transport systems. Document type: Part of book or chapter of book

Abstract

Today’s electric grid must be transformed to meet modern consumption behaviors and safely integrate renewable energy sources. This has led to major efforts to develop grid-scale energy management solutions and ensure safety and reliability of our modern power network. In particular, large penetrations of Plug-in Electric Vehicles (PEVs) are expected increase energy needs and peak consumption, which would bring new challenges for utilities and grid operators.In this work, we develop optimization methods to coordinate the charging of large fleets of PEVs in distribution grids. We show that different methods should be applied, based on the infrastructure requirements and the objective of the controller.The first Chapter Optimal Charging of Fleets of Electric Vehicles with Discrete Charging rates: PDE Modeling and Control Techniques presents a continuum modeling framework to coordinate PEV charging with discrete charging rates. We consider PEVs as loads, which diffuse along the State Of Energy (SOE) axis, and can be in three different categories: charging, discharging or idle. We use a discretized form of Partial Differential Equations (PDEs) to model the dynamics of the system and control the transitions between each category. The second Chapter Dual Splitting Framework for Optimal Charging of Fleets of Electric Vehicles with Continuous Charging rates proposes a tailored distributed optimization method to coordinate PEV charging for load shaping. Three iteration methods are presented and their convergence characteristics are detailed. The third Chapter Electric Vehicle Charging in the Smart Grid: Plug-and-Play Model Predictive Control techniques studies a voltage-regulation scenario for PEV charging. Power flow and distribution grid constraints are modeled, and PEV charging is controlled with Plug-and-Play Model Predictive Control. Finally, the final chapter Behavioral study of Demand Response programs studies the impact of non rational choices on energy consumption and on the success of Demand Response programs.

Abstract

The global aviation industry is facing complex and unpredictable market conditions with fluctuating oil prices and the adverse environmental impact of aircraft operations. Since the regulatory approval for biofuels, the first biojet fuel flight test in 2007, using a blend fuel, was a remarkable step towards having more test and schedule flights up to the year of 2014. The purpose of this paper is to engage this new alternative energy with the issues that airlines associate with sustainability, mainly focusing on aircraft operations and profitability. The key findings suggest that the uses of alternative energy need to be in parallel to the reliability and maintainability of the aircraft system, so that the adoption of biofuels can be effective.