One potential nature-based solution to jointly address poverty and environmental concerns is large-scale tree planting. This study examines the National Greening Program (NGP) in the Philippines, a major tree planting initiative involving 80,522 localized projects that directly or indirectly generated hundreds of thousands of jobs. Utilizing a dynamic difference-in-differences approach that leverages the staggered implementation of the NGP, we find a significant and sizable reduction in poverty, measured via traditional and remotely sensed indicators. The NGP also spurred structural shifts, notably decreasing agricultural employment while boosting unskilled labor and service sector jobs. Our analysis estimates that the NGP sequestered 71.4 to 303 MtCO2 over a decade, achieving a cost efficiency of 2 to 10 per averted tCO2. These findings underscore the potential of tree planting as a dual-purpose strategy for climate mitigation and poverty alleviation.
@article{pagel_sileci_2024,author={Pagel, Jeff and Sileci, Lorenzo},journal={Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment Working Paper No. 410},title={More than just carbon: the socioeconomic co-benefits of large-scale tree planting},year={2024},month=jul,}
2023
Carbon Pricing with Regressive Co-benefits: Evidence from British Columbia’s Carbon Tax
Lorenzo Sileci
Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment Working Paper No. 405, Dec 2023
The paper has received the 1st prize in the XII Giorgio Rota Best Paper Award for Climate Economics and (its) Knowledge
I assess the air quality and environmental equity impacts of the 2008 carbon tax in British Columbia. Using high-resolution data and a synthetic difference-in-differences strategy, I find that the carbon tax has reduced PM2.5 emissions by 5.2-10.9%. This result is heterogeneously distributed, with larger reductions in areas with lower baseline pollution, lower population density, lower material deprivation, and higher income. While all areas experience substantial positive co-benefits in terms of reduced air pollution hazard rates, quantified at $198 per capita, my results imply a widening of the pre-existing environmental justice gaps. This dynamic represents an additional dimension of carbon tax regressiveness.
@article{sileci_air_2023,author={Sileci, Lorenzo},journal={Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment Working Paper No. 405},title={Carbon Pricing with Regressive Co-benefits: Evidence from British Columbia's Carbon Tax},year={2023},month=dec,}
2022
Biodiversity-food trade-offs when agricultural land is spared from production
Charles Palmer, Ben Groom, Lorenzo Sileci, and 1 more author
Geography and Environment Discussion Paper Series Working Paper No. 34, Sep 2022
The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework proposes to address biodiversity decline by expanding areas under conservation. Biodiversity conservation in agricultural landscapes, the world’s predominant land use, could involve sparing, or setting aside, agricultural land from production, implying biodiversity-food trade-offs. Employing bird species and agricultural data, we undertake a novel empirical analysis of such trade-offs on a set-aside scheme implemented in England between 1992-2007. Expanding set-aside increases bird species abundance and richness by, respectively, 1.2-2.1% and 0.7-0.9%, but has no impact on diversity (Shannon-Wiener index). These effects are discontinuous, subject to thresholds in set-aside areas. A minimum 3% of agricultural land set aside is required for a positive effect on biodiversity while 13% of agricultural land generates a 15-25% and 30-35% increase in abundance and richness, respectively. Estimates of short- and long-run effects show that impacts are larger in the long-run. Expanding set-aside is also associated with a 10-17% decline in cereal output, with weak evidence of an attenuating land-sparing effect on yields. Our results suggest that although biodiversity-food trade-offs are likely in high-yield agricultural landscapes, such as those in England, the risk of a reduction in food supply could be minimised in settings where there is still scope for intensification.
@article{palmer_biodiversity_2022,journal={Geography and Environment Discussion Paper Series Working Paper No. 34},title={Biodiversity-food trade-offs when agricultural land is spared from production},url={http://www.lse.ac.uk/geography-and-environment/research/discussion-paper-series},language={eng},urldate={2024-06-10},author={Palmer, Charles and Groom, Ben and Sileci, Lorenzo and Langton, Steve},month=sep,year={2022},}
Carbon Pricing with Regressive Co-benefits: Evidence from British Columbia’s Carbon TaxGrantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment Working Paper No. 405, Dec 2023
