Despite the findings on global climate change presented by the scientific community, there remains a significant gap between its recommendations and the actions of the public and policy makers. So far scientists and the media have failed to successfully communicate the urgency of the climate change situation in such a way that long-term, comprehensive, and legally binding policy commitments are being made on the national and international level. This book examines the way the public processes information, how they perceive threats and other perceptual factors that have a significant effect on how and to what degree climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies are supported. Understanding public risk perception plays a vital role in communicating the challenges of global climate change. Using a diverse range of international case studies, this book explores the nature of public perceptions of climate change and identifies the perception factors which have a significant impact on the public's willingness to support global climate change policies or commit to behavioral changes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve urban resiliency. The comparative study of social and cultural factors, beliefs, attitudes and trust provides an international overview of best practices regarding the design, implementation and generation of public support for climate change policies at a global level. Offering valuable insight into climate change and risk communication, the book should be of interest to students and scholars of environment studies, politics, urban planning, and media and cultural studies.

This book discusses the basic and cutting-edge theories in the area of energy diplomacy in the global context, focusing on topics such as international dialogues on energy, government-directed partnerships, international energy games, the activities of international agencies, and public energy diplomacy. It also analyzes in detail the relationship between global energy diplomacy and international energy, while at the same time identifying the major problems of China's energy diplomacy to provide a framework for the country's energy diplomacy strategy-an essential component of China's overall diplomatic strategy.

The future of clean energy is no longer about science and technology; it's all about access to finance. The fossil fuel industry has been subsidized for decades with tax breaks and government backing, while renewables have struggled to compete. But now clean energy is the safe bet for investors, as is argued in Renewable Energy Finance: Powering the Future, edited by Dr Charles Donovan, Principal Teaching Fellow at Imperial College Business School.With a foreword by Lord Brown and contributions from some of the world's leading experts in energy finance, this timely book documents how investors are spending over US$250 billion each year on new renewable energy projects and positioning themselves in a global investment market that will continue to expand at double-digit growth rates until 2020. It documents first-hand experiences of the challenges of balancing risk and return amid volatile market conditions and rapid shifts in government policy.Renewable Energy Finance provides an insider's perspective on renewable energy transactions, and insight into how countries like the US, India and China are responding to the global energy challenge. Drawing together contributions from senior executives and leading academics, Renewable Energy Finance serves an audience of readers craving intelligent, practical perspectives on the future of clean energy investment.

The trade conflicts that the EU has faced within the EU or WTO context demonstrate that the question of how to balance trade and other societal values in situations of uncertainty has not been solved by the regulatory model evolved by the EU in the aftermath of the BSE crisis - one which privileges processes of depoliticisation and scientification. This book addresses the current key dilemmas around science, law and the regulation of trade, both on a regime level and in the context of particular industrial sectors, e.g pharmaceuticals, climate change and nanotechnology. It will present possible future research avenues by looking at both theory and practice and learning from various disciplines (law and social sciences), legal realities (WTO, USA and EU) and actors (regulators, stakeholders, courts).

* Placing an economic value on biodiversity is seen by many as the best and perhaps only successful way of preserving it while also protecting livelihoods* This is the most comprehensive examination of valuation ever conducted, focusing on one of the world's top eight biodiversity "hotspots," with principles widely applicable across the world* Original comparisons of the different "values" of biodiversity, trade-offs, incentives for conservation, case studies of coffee growing and wildlife conservation and practical policy optionsEconomic valuation of biodiversity and ecosystem services is possibly the most powerful tool for halting the loss of biodiversity while maintaining incomes and livelihoods. Yet rarely have such approaches been applied to tropical forest "hotspots," which house the vast majority of the planet's plant and animal species. This groundbreaking work is the most comprehensive and detailed examination of the economics of environmental valuation and biodiversity conservation to date. Focusing on the Western Ghats of India, one of the top biodiversity hotspots in the world, this volume looks at a cross-section of local communities living within or near sanctuaries and reserve forests such as coffee growers, indigenous people and farmers-pastoralists to assess the use and non-use values that people derive from tropical forests. It also looks at the extent of their dependence on forests for various goods and services, and examines their perceptions and attitudes towards biodiversity conservation and wildlife protection. The book concludes with an assessment of the institutional alternatives and policies for promoting biodiversity conservation through economic valuationmethods.

Only a few economists have vigorously dealt with mineral economics. Among these few, Orris C. Herfindahl has probably probed the most deeply. This volume, originally published in 1974, presents Herfindahl's most significant and enlightening contributions to the field of resource economics. This title will be of interest to students of environmental studies and economics, as well as to professional resource specialists.

Greenhouse gas (GHG) offsets have long been promoted as an important element of a comprehensive climate policy approach. Offset programs can reduce the overall cost of achieving a given emission goal by enabling emission reductions to occur where costs are lower. Offsets have the potential to deliver sustainability co-benefits, through technology development and transfer. They can also develop human and institutional capacity for reducing emissions in sectors and locations not included in a cap and trade or a mandatory government policy. However, offsets can pose a risk to the environmental integrity of climate actions, especially if issues surrounding additionality, permanence, leakage, quantification and verification are not adequately addressed. The challenge is to design offset programs and policies that can maximize their potential benefits while minimizing their potential risks. This handbook provides a systematic and comprehensive review of existing offset programs. It looks at what offsets are, how offset mechanisms function, and the successes and pitfalls they have encountered. Coverage includes offset programs across the full swath of applications including mandatory and voluntary systems, government regulated and private markets, carbon offset funds, and accounting and reporting protocols such as the WBCSD/WRI GHG Protocol and ISO 14064. Learning from the successes and failures of these programs will be essential to crafting effective climate policy. This is an essential reference for all regulators, policy makers, business leaders and NGOs concerned with the design and operation of GHG offset programs world-wide. Published with SEI

East Asia is a key region in the global economy, including both the second and third largest global economies already and, led by China, continuing to expand at a rapid rate. This economic growth has led to unprecedented gains in prosperity in the region but it has also led to increasing environmental pressures and energy issues. This book assesses ways in which East Asia can continue or even increase existing rates of economic growth while at the same time reducing greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental degradation. Using advanced modelling approaches, future scenarios for four East Asian countries are assessed in detail, including analysis of particular challenges in each country (e.g. coal power in China, nuclear power in Japan). Prospects for each country's energy system are assessed in detail and the potential effects of various types of Environmental Tax Reform in the four countries are also considered carefully. The final section of the book explores the interaction between trade liberalization, a key driver of growth, and emission levels in the East Asia region.

India has been traditionally well-endowed with large freshwater reserves, but increasing population, urbanization and agricultural growth in recent decades are causing overexploitation of surface and groundwater. As consumption of water grows, wastewater increases significantly and in the absence of proper measures for treatment and management, is polluting existing freshwater reserves. As a result, water pollution has emerged as one of the nation's gravest environmental threats. This book draws a link between water pollution generated by different industries and the various economic activities of the Indian economy using the Input-output framework. It constructs a detailed water pollution coefficient matrix involving different types of water pollutants. The book estimates the total amount of water pollution generated directly and indirectly in different sectors and activities, and also calculates the water pollution content in India's foreign trade sector. It also accounts for defensive expenditure from water pollution and estimates Green GDP for the extent and scope of environmental challenges. Analysis of the result indicates the variation in the pollution content of different economic activities. Finally, the book offers a portfolio of policies and assesses the implications of such policies on pollution generation in India.

The future of clean energy is no longer about science and technology; it's all about access to finance. The fossil fuel industry has been subsidized for decades with tax breaks and government backing, while renewables have struggled to compete. But now clean energy is the safe bet for investors, as is argued in Renewable Energy Finance: Powering the Future, edited by Dr Charles Donovan, Principal Teaching Fellow at Imperial College Business School.With a foreword by Lord Brown and contributions from some of the world's leading experts in energy finance, this timely book documents how investors are spending over US$250 billion each year on new renewable energy projects and positioning themselves in a global investment market that will continue to expand at double-digit growth rates until 2020. It documents first-hand experiences of the challenges of balancing risk and return amid volatile market conditions and rapid shifts in government policy.Renewable Energy Finance provides an insider's perspective on renewable energy transactions, and insight into how countries like the US, India and China are responding to the global energy challenge. Drawing together contributions from senior executives and leading academics, Renewable Energy Finance serves an audience of readers craving intelligent, practical perspectives on the future of clean energy investment.

Most volumes in the environmental economics literature consider the environment to be a public good and hence write out a role for the private sector in a source of supply. Yet there is ample evidence of the private sector being involved, driven both by profit and altruism. This book provides the necessary conceptual base for the inclusion of the private sector in the environmental protection supply equation and deliver an extensive set of examples in a wide range of contexts. In an economic climate where governments are attempting to reduce expenditures, the increased role for the private sector will be readily embraced by policy makers.The aim of the book is to establish the principles of markets in the provision of environmental protection and to provide an extensive experience-based set of contexts in which the private sector has acted to enhance the supply of environmental goods and services. These contexts include both pure-private sector initiatives in terrestrial, aquatic and marine ecosystems and public-private sector 'joint initiatives' such as payment for environmental services (PES) schemes.

Moving beyond most conventional thinking about energy security in Europe which revolves around stability of supplies and the reliability of suppliers, this book presents the history of European policy-making regarding energy resources, including recent controversies about shale gas and fracking. Using the United States as a benchmark, the author tests the hypothesis that EU energy security is at risk primarily because of a lack of market integration and cooperation between member states. This lack of integration still prohibits natural gas to flow freely throughout the continent, which makes parts of Europe vulnerable in case of supply disruptions. The book demonstrates that the EU gas market has been developing at different speeds, leaving the Northwest of the continent reasonably well integrated, with sufficient trade and liquidity and different supplies, whereas other parts are less developed. In these parts of Europe there is a structural lack of investments in infrastructure, interconnectors, reverse flow options and storage facilities. Thus, even though substantial progress has been made in parts of the EU, single source dependency often prevails, leaving the relevant member states vulnerable to market power abuse. Detailed comparisons are made of the situations in the Netherlands and Poland, and of energy policy in the USA. The book dismantles some of the existing assumptions about the concept of energy security, and touches upon the level of rhetoric that features in most energy security and policy debates in Europe.

Provides the complete web of business ideas, product design, consumer practice and regulation. Written by thought-leaders in the field of the circular economy. Thomas Rau was nominated for the Circular Economy Leadership Award of the World Economic Forum in 2016. Though the book addresses the difficult challenges of the circular economy, it describes a very complex matter in an accessible and enjoyable style.

Recent international appeals for sustainable development policies have renewed efforts to explore the common ground between economics and ecology. This volume presents a collection of papers from leading researchers around the world, who evaluate the analytical foundations and empirical systems that are being developed to integrate economic and environmental indicators. These specialists identify key data requirements and modeling systems. Economists, ecologists, and policy makers will find this work introducing integrated modeling systems thought-provoking and useful.

This book provides an original contribution to contemporary research surrounding the environmental, humanitarian and socio-political crises associated with contemporary capitalism. Reimagining Labor for a Sustainable Future is guided by the assertion that new systems are always preceded by new ideas and that imagination and experimentation are central in this process. Given the vast terrain of capitalism - processes, institutions, and stakeholders - Vogelaar and Dasgupta have selected labour as the point of engagement in the study of capitalist and alternative imaginaries. In order to demonstrate the importance of labour in rethinking and restructuring our world economy, the authors examine three diverse community projects in Scotland, India and the United States. They reveal the nuanced ways in which each community engages in commoning practices that re-center social reproduction and offer more expansive views of labour that challenge the neoliberal capitalist imaginary. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of sustainable economics, labour studies and sustainable development.

This book takes a compelling approach to describing what is needed to create the kind of future that most people on Earth really want. Our global society is hopelessly addicted to a particular vision of the world and a future that has become both unsustainable and undesirable. Addicted to Growth frames our current predicament as a societal addiction to a 'growth at all costs' economic paradigm. While economic growth has produced many benefits, its side effects are now producing existential problems that are rapidly getting worse. Robert Costanza considers lessons from what works at the individual level to overcome addictions and applies them to a societal scale. Costanza recognises that the first step to recovery is recognising the addiction and that it is leading to disaster; however, simply pointing out the dire consequences of our societal addiction is only the first step and can be counterproductive by itself in motivating change. The key next step is creating a truly shared vision of the kind of world we all want, and the book explores creative ways to implement this societal therapy. The final step is using that shared vision to motivate the changes needed to achieve it, including adaptive transformations of our economic systems, property rights regimes, and governance institutions. An exciting contribution from a key thinker in the field, this book will be a valuable resource to students and scholars of public policy and sustainability studies, and anyone interested in understanding and overcoming our societal addiction to growth.

Provides the complete web of business ideas, product design, consumer practice and regulation. Written by thought-leaders in the field of the circular economy. Thomas Rau was nominated for the Circular Economy Leadership Award of the World Economic Forum in 2016. Though the book addresses the difficult challenges of the circular economy, it describes a very complex matter in an accessible and enjoyable style.

Environmental risk directly affects the financial stability of banks since they bear the financial consequences of the loss of liquidity of the entities to which they lend and of the financial penalties imposed resulting from the failure to comply with regulations and for actions taken that are harmful to the natural environment. This book explores the impact of environmental risk on the banking sector and analyzes strategies to mitigate this risk with a special emphasis on the role of modelling. It argues that environmental risk modelling allows banks to estimate the patterns and consequences of environmental risk on their operations, and to take measures within the context of asset and liability management to minimize the likelihood of losses. An important role here is played by the environmental risk modelling methodology as well as the software and mathematical and econometric models used. It examines banks' responses to macroprudential risk, particularly from the point of view of their adaptation strategies; the mechanisms of its spread; risk management and modelling; and sustainable business models. It introduces the basic concepts, definitions, and regulations concerning this type of risk, within the context of its influence on the banking industry. The book is primarily based on a quantitative and qualitative approach and proposes the delivery of a new methodology of environmental risk management and modelling in the banking sector. As such, it will appeal to researchers, scholars, and students of environmental economics, finance and banking, sociology, law, and political sciences.

The Low-Carbon Good Life is about how to reverse and repair four interlocking crises arising from modern material consumption: the climate crisis, growing inequality, biodiversity loss and food-related ill-health. Across the world today and throughout history, good lives are characterised by healthy food, connections to nature, being active, togetherness, personal growth, a spiritual framework and sustainable consumption. A low-carbon good life offers opportunities to live in ways that will bring greater happiness and contentment. Slower ways of living await. A global target of no more than one tonne of carbon per person would allow the poorest to consume more and everyone to find our models of low-carbon good lives. But dropping old habits is hard, and large-scale impacts will need fresh forms of public engagement and citizen action. Local to national governments need to act; equally, they need pushing by the power and collective action of citizens. Innovative and engaging and written in a style that combines storytelling with scientific evidence, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of climate change, sustainability, environmental economics and sustainable consumption, as well as non-specialist readers concerned about the climate crisis.

Originally published in 1990, this study tracks the issues, progress and problems in environmental issues in the United States from the 1980's. Improvements in air and water quality as well as regulation of hazardous waste and toxic substances has led to new policies such as the Superfund Act and a general increase in awareness about environmental issues on a federal level. Placing an emphasis on economics, these papers analyse the effectiveness of environmental policy and progress made in relation to air pollution, water quality, hazardous wastes, toxic substances and enforcement of regulations. This title will be of interest to students of environmental studies.

Originally published in 1972, this study aims to explore governmental interaction with people and publics interests and institutions in Metropolitan America. These papers discuss issues of how governance can be improved and the federal role in Metropolitanism as well as suggesting ways in which political reform can help. This title will be of interest to students of Environmental Economics and professionals.

Asbestos dust is well-known for causing cancer and other life-threatening illnesses yet still contaminates countless schools, factories and office buildings. This raises the issue of the best way to deal with Asbestos; immediate removal, containment or removal at renovation or demolition. Originally published in 1986, this report aims to evaluate these methods of dealing with asbestos in relation to their cost-effectiveness to conclude the most appropriate solution. This title will be of interest to students of Environmental Studies and Economics.

In preparation for the United Nation's Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992, this study aimed to detail enduring environmental issues that might or might not have been considered at the conference. Originally published earlier that year, Global Development and the Environment questions the compatibility of goals for environmental protection, natural resource consequences and economic growth in relation to sustainability with essays on important topics such as biodiversity, agriculture and population issues. This title will be of interest to students of Environmental Studies and Economics.

This book discusses the state of global climate change policy and the financing of climate resilient public infrastructure. It explains the sources of tensions and conflict between developing and developed countries with regard to global climate protection policies, and highlights the biases and asymmetries that may work against gender equality, women's empowerment and poverty eradication. Gender and Climate Change Financing: Coming Out of the Margin provides an overview of the scientific, economic and political dynamics underlying global climate protection. It explores the controversial issues that have stalled global climate negotiations and offers a clear explanation of the link between adaptation and mitigation strategies and gender issue. It also maps the full range of public, private and market-based climate finance instruments and funds. This book will be a useful tool for those engaged with climate change, poverty eradication, gender equality and women's empowerment.

Winner of the Choice Outstanding Academic Titles of 2010 award. This book is a comprehensive and accessible guide to understanding the opportunities offered by regulated and voluntary carbon markets for tackling climate change. Coverage includes: - An overview of the problem of climate change, with a concise review of the most recent scientific evidence in different fields - A highly accessible introduction to the economic theory and different constitutive elements of a carbon allowances market - Explanation of the Kyoto Protocol and its flexibility mechanisms - Explanation of how the EU Emissions Trading Scheme works in practice - Ongoing developments in regulated carbon markets in the US - Up-to-the-minute coverage of regulated carbon markets in Australia - Developments in New Zealand and Japan - Carbon offsetting and voluntary carbon markets. Combining theoretical aspects with practical applications, this book is for business leaders, financiers, carbon traders, lawyers, bankers, researchers, policy makers and anyone interested in market mechanisms to mitigate climate change. The carbon emissions resulting from the production of this book have been calculated, reduced and offset to render the bookcarbon neutral. Published with CO2 Neutral