Contemporary society is dependent on man's ability to work fundamental changes in the natural environment. In using resources to produce high and rising levels of income, however, effects are often produced that are incidental to the main purpose. This study, first published in 1965, explores some research approaches to the economic analysis of some of the key environmental problems, including water and air pollution, the introduction of chemical substances into the environment and the development of urban and rural space. This title will be of interest to students of environmental studies and economics.

It is widely accepted that natural resource wealth, especially in the form of oil and minerals, can be a key factor in inhibiting economic development. Many of the countries that are richest in natural resources - including oil, metals and diamonds - are amongst the world's poorest. Why? Fiscal Policy and the Natural Resources Curse re-examines this ancient, unsolved puzzle, asking why many governments of natural resource-intensive countries are incapable, in a globalised world, of dealing with the natural-resource curse. This book offers a detailed analysis of the power-relationships which underpin the natural resource curse, using both statistical analysis and country case studies from Africa and Latin America to pinpoint the strategies that have enable developing countries to break out of the poverty trap. The book differs from other works on this subject, as it not only identifies the issues at stake but also offers solutions in the form of a series of suggested policy measures. The work focusses in particular on fiscal escape routes, namely measures to develop and diversify the tax system, and to reallocate and target public expenditure. This volume will be of great interest to scholars of economic development, the economics of natural resources and economic growth as well as all those with an interest in development, global politics and anti-poverty policies.

Corporate responsibility and sustainable development are two concepts that may be able to reconcile many of the big challenges facing the world; challenges such as tensions between respect for the natural environment, social justice, and economic development; the long view versus short-term imperatives and the competing priorities between developed and developing economies. This book explores the gaps and overlaps between corporate responsibility and sustainable development. These concerns overlap because they implicate corporate practices, state development policy challenges, the concerns and priorities of non-governmental organisations, and the potential for innovative forms of organisation to address these challenges. This collection examines these questions in terms of tensions and interdependencies, between competing claims to resources, rights and responsibilities, strategy and governance, between public and private interest, and the implications for equity and the common good over the long term. This is a valuable resource for researchers, lecturers, practitioners, postgraduate and final year undergraduates in business strategy, international business and international management, public sector policy and management, international development, political economy. It is also suitable for more specialist courses on sustainability, corporate responsibility, governance and international development.

Following 'Blueprint for a Green Economy' (the Pearce Report), David Pearce and his team have turned their attention to global environmental threats. If it makes sense to apply economic analysis to national environmental problems, then it makes even more sense to apply it to world-wide dangers. The authors start by describing the reasons for using economic approaches to common resources like climate, ozone and biodiversity. They then take a detailed look at the economic ways of tackling the issues involved in global warming, ozone layer depletion, environmental degradation in the Third World, population, rain forests, aid, equity, international environmental co-operation and what might amount to green foreign policies. They show not only how to take all these things into account in economic theory, but also the economic price of failing to do so. Blueprint 2 is an agenda for international and governmental economic action.

This study, based on fieldwork and case studies of southeast Asian countries shows how privatization, investment and new energy technologies can be integrated to combat climate change and provide the maximum return for investors. The author explains what incentives and regulatory structures are needed that do not damage local competitiveness. Asserting that technology transfer is fundamental to effective policies for climate change and for economic development, the text examines how the benefits can be maximized.

The power of capital is the power to target our attention, mould market-ready identities, and reduce the public realm to an endless series of choices. This has far-reaching implications for our psychological, physical and spiritual well-being, and ultimately for our global ecology. In this consumer age, the underlying teachings of Buddhist mindfulness offer more than individual well-being and resilience. They also offer new sources of critical inquiry into our collective condition, and may point, in time, to regulatory initiatives in the field of well-being. This book draws together lively debates from the new economics of transition, commons and well-being, consumerism, and the emerging role of mindfulness in popular culture. Engaged Buddhist practices and teachings correspond closely to insights in contemporary political philosophical investigations into the nature of power, notably by Michel Foucault. The 'attention economy' can be understood as a new arena of struggle in our age of neoliberal governmentality; as the forces of enclosure - having colonized forests, land and the bodies of workers - are now extended to the realm of our minds and subjectivity. This poses questions about the recovery of the 'mindful commons': the practices we must cultivate to reclaim our attention, time and lives from the forces of capitalization. This is a valuable resource for students and scholars of environmental philosophy, environmental psychology, environmental sociology, well-being and new economics, political economy, environmental politics, the commons and law, as well as Buddhist theory and philosophy.

Whether addressing pollution problems or helping protect a specific use, watershed associations are finding that the competition for funds is getting harder. While we can grasp the value of our streams for fishing or kayaking and other services, or their cultural value, or their value to an ecosystem, putting a dollar value on those benefits is not an easy task, but it is sometimes a necessary one. A handbook for advocates and stakeholders, Environmental Economics for Watershed Restoration provides guidance to those who are interested in understanding and incorporating economic valuation in project prioritization and other decision-making aspects of stream or watershed restoration. It provides background on the types of ecological goods and services that are often valued and details the types of questions that must be asked in watershed project analysis. The book allows those who are not economists to be comfortable discussing things like contingent valuation, marginal costs, nonmarket goods, and other terms needed to satisfy the economic analysis requirements often needed to secure funding for projects. In some cases, economic analysis does require input from a trained economist, but in many cases the analysis needed to get a grip on the problem can be tackled by someone familiar with the situation, as long as he or she has access to essential economic guidance. Environmental Economics for Watershed Restoration can provide that guidance.

Environmental Impact Assessment: Theory and Practice describes the various pieces of knowledge necessary to speak the language of EIA and carry out EIAs focusing on a variety of environmental issues, including impacts on environmental components, like air, water, soils, land, noise and biological environments. Organized into 15 chapters, the book provides engineers with the tools and methods to conduct an effective assessment, including report preparations, design measures and relevant mitigation steps that can be taken to reduce or avoid negative effects. Case Studies are presented, providing guidance professionals can use to better understand, plan and prepare environmental impact assessments.

Global Environmental Change and Agriculture offers a comprehensive perspective on the causes, consequences and possible policy solutions for climatic change as we move into the twenty-first century. It assesses the impact of potential future global climate change on agriculture and the need to sustain agricultural growth for economic development. The book begins by examining the role of international research institutions in overcoming environmental constraints on sustainable agricultural growth and economic development. The authors then discuss how agricultural research systems may be restructured to respond to global environmental problems such as climate change and loss of genetic diversity. The discussion then extends to consider environmental accounting and indexing, to illustrate how environmental quality can be included formally in measures of national income, social welfare and sustainability. The third part of the book focuses on the effects of and policy responses to climate change. Chapters examine the effect of climate change on production, trade, land use patterns and livelihoods. They consider impacts on the distribution of income between developed and developing countries and between different social classes within the developing world, where agriculture remains a major economic activity. Authors take on an economy-wide perspective to draw lessons for agricultural, trade, land use and tax policy. This book will be of special interest to agricultural, development and environmental economists as well as policy analysts in government and at international agencies confronting practical problems of environmental and economic assessment.

Effective policies to prevent global warming and climatic change are urgently required by the world community. However, international negotiations on this issue repeatedly come up against the problems of allocating responsibility for the greenhouse effect, and bearing the costs of remedying the situation.;This volume offers a multidisciplinary response to the challenge. It presents the scientific, economic and political issues and goes on to describe the policy options available. The different ways of determining responsibility for greenhouse gases and calculating obligations to pay for hazards to the environment are analyzed. The contributors examine the implications for various countries, while a concluding chapter explores climatic change negotations - what is at stake, and for whom.

The earth, our home, is in crisis. There are two sides to this crisis-our global economy, and its effect on the ecology of our home planet. Despite conventional thinking that typical monetary and fiscal manipulations will put us back on the path of economic growth, the reality is not that simple. Meanwhile, the natural environment is sending unmistakable warnings. Glaciers are melting; oceans are becoming dangerously acidic; species and their ecological services are becoming extinct; and weather patterns are becoming increasingly severe and unpredictable each year. The stress on resource systems of all kinds threatens to shrink the carrying capacity of the planet, even as we call upon it for increased contributions to support a burgeoning human population. Co-written by an ecologist and an economist, Economics and Ecology: United for a Sustainable World counsels the replacement of symptomatic thinking with a systemic worldview that treats the environment and the economy as an ecosystemic unit. The first part of the book establishes the methodological and biophysical principles needed to develop the concept of socioeconomic sustainability. The second part of the book examines the misuse of economics in the service of what increasingly appears to be a ruinous pursuit of material wealth and expansion. The third part offers advice on reconciling economics and ecology by proposing an economics in which the principles employed are aligned with the biophysical principles of ecology. This timely volume puts forth a sustainable worldview based on systemic thinking, with the emphasis more on what and how people think than on what they do. A unique reference for professionals and laypersons alike, it can also serve as a supplementary classroom text for students of economics, ecology, biology, and environmental science.

In this volume of the TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity) publication series, the key concepts of the project are applied to local and regional policy and public management. The aim is to show that by taking nature's benefits into account, decision makers can promote local development to ensure human well-being and economic growth and stability, while maintaining environmental sustainability. The book explores the potential for local development provided by an approach based on nature. It offers examples of successful implementation of this approach from across the world, highlighting the importance of local decision making in management and planning. It provides tools and practical guidance for reform, and throughout the volume the economic benefits of environmental consideration at a local level are expounded. This book is intended to offer inspiration and practical suggestions for the improvement and sustainable management of the environment and human well-being. The local aspect of this book complements the focus of the previous three volumes, completing the set to provide a comprehensive approach to simultaneously improving and maintaining economic and environmental stability, as well as human well-being.

The increase in landscape degradation in the last decades has resulted in a growing public concern for policies to conserve the countryside. This book presents theories of valuation and economic welfare which are applied to policies to conserve the landscape.The book discusses the criteria for landscape conservation decision making and places particular emphasis on the multi-dimensional nature of landscape change and the selection of an optimal policy mix for conservation. The author examines the economic theory and methods used to analyse changes in the landscape, and then applies theory and methods to conservation schemes. These empirical case studies provide rich information on the economics of landscape conservation under quite different policy contexts. Special emphasis is placed on contingent valuation methods to assess the willingness-to-pay for landscape conservation and use is made of cost-benefit analysis to select the optimal policy mix for landscape conservation, taking into account the practical problem of limited information. Environmental, agricultural and ecological economists will be interested in this book as will geographers and those involved in planning and countryside management.

State climate and clean energy policy will play a critical role in the future of the political dialogue and economic development. Policymakers from around the world already recognize the leadership of American states in this domain. Rooted in public policy theory, and employing a mixed-methods approach that includes advanced economic analysis and qualitative research, Benjamin H. Deitchman explores the policy tools that address the politics and economics of clean energy development and deployment across all 50 states. Deitchman includes in his analysis international case studies of this policy context in Canada, Germany, and Australia to reveal different state-level policy tools, the politics behind the tools, and the economic implications of alternative approaches. The rigorous analysis of the politics of state level institutions and economic implications of subnational climate and clean energy actions offers researchers, students, and policymakers with practical information to advance their understanding of these options in the policy process.

Climate Liberalism examines the potential and limitations of classical-liberal approaches to pollution control and climate change. Some successful environmental strategies, such as the use of catch-shares for fisheries, instream water rights, and tradable emission permits, draw heavily upon the classical liberal intellectual tradition and its emphasis on property rights and competitive markets. This intellectual tradition has been less helpful, to date, in the development or design of climate change policies. Climate Liberalism aims to help fill the gap in the academic literature examining the extent to which classical-liberal principles, including an emphasis on property rights, decentralized authority and dynamic markets, can inform the debate over climate-change policies. The contributors in this book approach the topic from a range of perspectives and represent multiple academic disciplines. Chapters consider the role of property rights and common-law legal systems in controlling pollution, the extent to which competitive markets backed by legal rules encourage risk minimization and adaptation, and how to identify the sorts of policy interventions that may help address climate change in ways that are consistent with liberal values.

While biodiversity loss is an ecological phenomenon, it also has further dimensions - political, social and, last but not least, economic. From the economic perspective, the rapid loss of biological diversity can be viewed in two ways. First, the consequence of this deterioration process is a loss of options and an increase in scarcity of the environmental 'good', biodiversity. Second, economic activity and the structure of global and local economic institutions have frequently been identified as the major drivers of biodiversity loss. In economic terms, this constitutes a market failure - market-based economic activities lead to processes which undermine the long-term stability of these very activities. This book provides an ecological economic perspective on the value of diversity in ecosystems. Combining insights from various sub-disciplines of ecology and environmental/ecological economics, the author constructs a conceptual framework which identifies the ways in which biodiversity influences human well-being and offers a novel, unifying perspective on the economic value of biodiversity. This framework demonstrates that biodiversity's economic value mainly results from uncertainty about the future, regarding both supply of and demand for ecosystem services, and interconnections between ecosystems. The book goes on to identify suitable methods for economic valuation of biodiversity and discusses the currently underdeveloped and underused approach of deliberative monetary valuation. Combining a strong theoretical framework with practical examples, this book will be of great interest to students and researchers of ecological economics, ecosystem services, environmental values and environmental and resource economics.

International climate change policy can be broadly divided into two periods: A first period, where a broad consensus was reached to tackle the risk of global warming in a coordinated global effort, and a second period, where this consensus was finally framed into a concrete policy. The first period started at the "Earth Summit" of Rio de Janeiro in 1992, where the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was opened for signature. The UNFCCC was subsequently signed and ratified by 174 countries, making it one of the most accepted international rd treaties ever. The second period was initiated at the 3 Conference of the Parties (COP3) to the UNFCCC in Kyoto in 1997, which produced the Kyoto Protocol (KP). Till now, eighty-four countries have signed the Kyoto Protocol, but only twelve ratified it. A major reason for this slow ratification is that most operational details of the Kyoto Protocol were not decided in Kyoto but deferred to following conferences. This deferral of the details, while probably appropriate to initially reach an agreement, is a major stepping stone for a speedy ratification of the protocol. National policy makers and their constituencies, who would ultimately bear the cost of Kyoto, are generally not prepared to ratify a treaty that could mean anything, from an unsustainable strict regime of international control of greenhouse gases (GHGs) to an "L-regime" ofloopholes, or from a pure market-based international carbon trading to a regime of huge international carbon tax funds.

A 'green economy' must be built on 'green jobs' - the kind of employment that is low carbon, intended to reduce energy use and expected to restore environmental quality. But attempts to define exactly what a 'green job' is have led to varied and often contradictory answers. There are many unresolved questions including whether we consider jobs in the nuclear fuel industry to be green jobs? Or is a worker at a glass making company which supplies the glass for the solar photovoltaic industry doing a green job given that glass making is a 'dirty' industry? This book deals with the relationship between "green" concepts (green jobs, green economy, green growth) and sustainable development. It examines to which extent creation of green jobs supports overall economic development as opposed to creation of elitist jobs and greenwashing. In order to do so, general conceptual frameworks for green jobs, green economy, green growth and green policy are presented as well as their implementation in ten countries selected among the Group of Twenty. The selection includes advanced (the European Union, the United States of America, Australia, Canada, Republic of Korea, Japan) and developing countries (Mexico, China, Turkey and Brazil). The analysis presented in this book shows that although green concept is well-intentioned, its implementation depends on local circumstances - economic, political and social. Developed countries perceive green growth as a way to create new markets and demand, while developing countries rely more on labor intensive growth and less expensive green jobs. Thus, greening the economy does not diminish differences between rich and poor. This book is suitable for those who study and work in Ecological Economics, Sustainable Development and Labor Economics.

This book studies the limits imposed by the depletion of fossil fuels and the requirements of climate stabilization on economic growth with a focus on China. The book intends to examine the potentials of various energy resources, including oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear, wind, solar, and other renewables, as well as energy efficiency. Unlike many other books on the subject, this book intends to argue that, despite the large potentials of renewable energies and energy efficiency, economic growth eventually will have to be brought to an end as China and the world undertake the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energies. China has overtaken the US to become the world's largest energy consumer and greenhouse gas emitter. Their energy consumption is dominated by coal and China now accounts for one quarter of the world's total carbon dioxide emissions. Moreover, China is set to become the world's largest oil importer in the next decade. This book will consider energy development in the broader context of economic and social changes, especially the historical dynamics of the capitalist world system. Historical lessons of capitalism and socialism will be discussed. The book will evaluate the implications of ecological limits to growth on the economic system and argue that the existing capitalist system is fundamentally incompatible with ecological sustainability.

Permit trading is an environmental policy instrument that has received increasing levels of attention over recent years. Coming from the field of air quality management, with the European CO2 emissions trading system being the most prominent example, it enters new fields of application, such as land use policy and biodiversity protection, water quality and water quantity trading. This book gives an overview of these recent developments and discusses the possibilities and limits of permit trading in environmental policies. The advantages of permit trading are not only seen with respect to economic efficiency, which leads to achieving the environmental target at minimum cost, but also with respect to the instrument's environmental effectiveness. By setting a cap for the overall emissions, a given environmental target can be met. This makes permit trading an interesting case for many environmental fields where safeguarding the environmental target plays a dominant role. Against this background, permit trading is discussed in environmental policy fields, where it has not been considered before, for example, land use management, biodiversity protection and water trading. Permit Trading in Different Applications analyses the properties of permit trading: its possibilities and limitations, its design options and its restrictions on a more general level. It demonstrates how lessons learnt in established policy fields like air quality management can be transferred to new and emerging fields of application. This collection will provide students and practitioners in environmental sciences and policy with valuable research into instrument choice and design with respect to permit trading.

Accounting literature has viewed sustainability in terms of social, economic and environmental performances. There have been concerns that the relationship between sustainability, accounting and organizational performance cannot be explained unless we can deduce patterns of administrative behaviour that chronicle management practices. Ecology, Sustainable Development and Accounting argues that, despite the broader social and economic development dimensions of sustainability and the limitations of its extension to corporate and organizational behaviour; an ecological framework is capable of providing the overall societal and community chronologies that describe corporate sustainable operations. Drawing examples from international development and federal government organizations, this book documents the link between ecology, corporate sustainable development, and sustainability accounting and reporting. It draws together the literature from several disciplines to elaborate the contribution of the ecological approach to sustainable development in the accounting literature. This book will be of particular interest to students, academics and practitioners in the areas of environmental studies, ecological economics, sustainable development studies, and social and environmental accounting. The sociological and anthropological perspectives make this book the first of its kind to apply the population ecology of sociology to both the sustainability and accounting literature.

Projecting win-win situations, new economic opportunities, green growth and innovative partnerships, the green economy discourse has quickly gained centre stage in international environmental governance and policymaking. Its underlying message is attractive and optimistic: if the market can become the tool for tackling climate change and other major ecological crises, the fight against these crises can also be the royal road to solving the problems of the market. But how 'green' is the green economy? And how social or democratic can it be? This book examines how the emergence of this new discourse has fundamentally modified the terms of the environmental debate. Interpreting the rise of green economy discourse as an attempt to re-invent capitalism, it unravels the different dimensions of the green economy and its limits: from pricing carbon to emissions trading, from sustainable consumption to technological innovation. The book uses the innovative concept of post-politics to provide a critical perspective on the way green economy discourse represents nature and society (and their interaction) and forecloses the imagination of alternative socio-ecological possibilities. As a way of repoliticising the debate, the book advocates the construction of new political faultlines based on the demands for climate justice and democratic commons. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of environmental politics, political ecology, human geography, human ecology, political theory, philosophy and political economy. Includes a foreword written by Erik Swyngedouw (Professor of Geography, Manchester University).

This major annual publication is an authoritative state-of-the-art survey of current issues in environmental and resource economics written by the leading academics in the field.The discipline of environmental and resource economics has undergone a rapid evolution over the past three decades with the early literature focusing mainly on valuation, and the design of policy instruments to correct externalities and encourage optimal resource exploitation. In the past few years, the field has broadened its scope by making numerous links with other disciplines in economics as well as the natural and physical sciences. As a result there has been an explosion in the literature which has made it increasingly difficult to keep up with developments in the field. TheYearbook cuts through this by focusing on the principal issues of current interest. Considering both macroeconomic and microeconomic issues, this edition deals with environmental policy in economies in transition, green accounting, the impact of macroeconomic policies on the environment, the economics of fisheries management reactions to environmental policy within firms as well as means of incorporating uncertainty in environmental analysis and policy. The Yearbook will provide economists working in environmental and resource economics, as well as those who are interested in knowing more about the field, with a comprehensive overview of the main issues written by leading international scholars.

When we look at the state of the world today, what is most evident is the fact that the major problems of our time - energy, environment, economy, climate change and social justice - cannot be understood in isolation. They are interconnected problems, which means that they require corresponding systemic solutions. Today's global economy has brought about critical distress for ecosystems and societies and we have to go to the very root of the problems to find a way out. This volume develops a synthesized interpretation of ecological economics integrating different levels: (economic) system, (business) practice and the (economic) actor. It discusses how changes on a systems level are connected to changes in practice and development of individual consciousness. Transformative Ecological Economics delves into the insight and knowledge from different sources of inspiration (thermodynamics, Darwinism, anthroposophy and Buddhism) as well as into an integrated story describing and illustrating the core ideas, principles and values that characterize a utopian society anchored in ecological economics. Implementation of the deep changes demanded depends on our ability to write a new story, a utopian one for sure, but one which is in accordance with and based on the reality in which we live. This book will be of interest to those who study ecological economics, political economy and environmental economics.

Bringing together case studies from Kenya, Benin, Cameroon and the Philippines, this volume provides a multidisciplinary overview of the economics of natural resource management in Tropical regions, at household and village level. By comparing a wide array of climatic and economic conditions, it examines the effect of location and access to the market - as well as the importance of national policies - have on soil and water conservation. The book not only analyzes the benefits of soil and water conservation based on econometric studies, but also assesses the costs involved. In doing so it challenges commonly held assumptions about poorer community's ability to finance such measures.