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Books > Earth & environment > The environment > Environmental economics > General
This book highlights the roles of inter-regional networks in regional economies to explore the drivers of sustained regional economic growth. Many industrialized countries are currently undergoing a period of population decline. To enhance sustainability in the regional economy, it is necessary to increase productivity and improve energy efficiency. This book provides new approaches to describing the economic effects of inter-regional networks, which are key to enhancing regional economic growth, using productivity analysis. In addition, it also furnishes considerable evidence on the formation of high-speed transportation infrastructure. Traditional studies on agglomeration economies have focused on external economies that occur in spatially limited areas and have not considered agglomeration economies from a broader perspective, i.e., from the perspective of inter-regional networks. In particular, recent studies have identified that the actual spatial range that would benefit from agglomeration economies is broader than that covered by conventional studies. This volume explains the phenomenon using Alonso's concept of borrowed size. This is the first book to show the impact of inter-regional networks on Japan's regional economy using the concept of the borrowed-size effect. Based on empirical evidence, the roles of inter-regional networks are determined in the context of the regional economy that faces population decline and environmental constraints. A deeper consideration of the analytical methods and understanding the results of detailed analyses will make it possible to propose desirable regional economic policies in the face of population decline. This book thus provides valuable insights into the regional economic development of Japan, which is particularly pertinent to other countries with similar land structures.
Input-Output Analysis (IOA) is widely used in the field of ecological economics, industrial ecology, and environmental sciences. Industrial Ecology (IE) and Ecological Economics (EE) are promising and growing fields. IOA plays a crucial role in analyzing the related environmental and resource issues and providing quantitative information to many research questions and policy implications. The major aim of this book is to provide not only a comprehensive overview of environmental IOA from 1930s to the present but also the frontiers of environmental IOA including energy structural decomposition analysis, spatial energy structural decomposition analysis, multi-regional waste make-use analysis, augmented waste input-output analysis, dynamic structural decomposition analysis with product lifetime distributions, and endogenous input-output analysis with product lifetime distributions to professionals, practitioners, and students. This book presents a novel dynamic structural decomposition analysis to evaluate the effects of the product lifetime shifts and structural changes such as technological changes and final demand shifts on the life cycle energy consumptions. It also contributes to modelling a simple social accounting method with cumulative product lifetime distributions and argues how product lifetime extension affects energy consumptions and income flow throughout the entire economic system. The book demonstrates the author's expertise in IOA and is an essential read for students and scholars in the field.
This book covers a wide range of topics within mathematical modelling and the optimization of economic, demographic, technological and environmental phenomena. Each chapter is written by experts in their field and represents new advances in modelling theory and practice. These essays are exemplary of the fruitful interaction between theory and practice when exploring global and local changes. The unifying theme of the book is the use of mathematical models and optimization methods to describe age-structured populations in economy, demography, technological change, and the environment. Emphasis is placed on deterministic dynamic models that take age or size structures, delay effects, and non-standard decision variables into account. In addition, the contributions deal with the age structure of assets, resources, and populations under study. Interdisciplinary modelling has enormous potential for discovering new insights in global and regional development. Optimal Control of Age-structured Populations in Economy, Demography, and the Environment is a rich and excellent source of information on state-of-the-art modelling expertise and references. The book provides the necessary mathematical background for readers from different areas, such as applied sciences, management sciences and operations research, which helps guide the development of practical models. As well as this the book also surveys the current practice in applied modelling and looks at new research areas for a general mathematical audience. This book will be of interest primarily to researchers, postgraduate students, as well as a wider scientific community, including those focussing on the subjects of applied mathematics, environmental sciences, economics, demography, management, and operations research.
Humanity is facing an unprecedented global catastrophe as a result of global warming. This book examines the reasons why international agencies, together with national governments, are seemingly unable to provide real and binding solutions to the problems. The reasons presented relate to the existing dominant global economic structure of capitalism as well as the fact that global warming is too often seen as an isolated problem rather than one of a suite of exceptional, converging and accelerating crises arising from the global capitalist political economy. This book adopts a political economy framework to address these issues. It accepts the science of global warming but challenges the predominant politics and economics of global warming. To illustrate the key issues involved, the book draws on South Africa - building on Samir Amin's thesis that the country represents a microcosm of the global political economy. By taking a political economy approach, the book provides a clear explanation of the deep and pervasive problem of the denial which fails to acknowledge global warming as a systemic rather than a market problem. The book should be of interest to students and scholars researching climate change, environmental politics, environmental and ecological economics, development studies and political economics.
It is now well accepted that deforestation is a key source of greenhouse gas emissions and of climate change, with forests representing major sinks for carbon. As a result, public and private initiatives for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) have been widely endorsed by policy-makers. A key issue is the feasibility of carbon trading or other incentives to encourage land-owners and indigenous people, particularly in developing tropical countries, to conserve forests, rather than to cut them down for agricultural or other development purposes. This book presents a major critique of the aims and policies of REDD as currently structured, particularly in terms of their social feasibility. It is shown how the claims to be able to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as well as enhance people's livelihoods and biodiversity conservation are unrealistic. There is a naive assumption that technical or economic fixes are sufficient for success. However, the social and governance aspects of REDD, and its enhanced version known as REDD+, are shown to be implausible. Instead to enhance REDD's prospects, the author provides a roadmap for developing a new social contract that puts people first.
As "business as usual" has become the mantra of today's world, it's unlikely to see a decrease in hazardous waste generated from greater economic growth. Written by renowned experts, the book suggests a solution, supported by theoretical arguments to this waste problem. The book discusses how main problems for waste management can be addressed through appropriate policies adopted by governments in OECD countries. The book also raises thoughtful questions on how household waste management services should be privatized and who should pay for the disposal and recycling costs. It attempts to answer these questions. The book considers several factors hindering the first-best optimal outcome and highlights two crucial ones. It elaborates further with models and the solutions on how to overcome these obstacles. The book covers not only traditional resource economics and waste management, but also the recent problem of Electric waste (E-waste) and illustrates in details, how the environments of developing countries are inevitably polluted even with the Basel ban Amendment in place. The book proposes an alternative international trading regulation to address E-waste. This book will certainly appeal to industry decision-makers, policy makers and legislators.
Chinese water resource managers face a challenge that is both immense and unique. They must balance limited water supplies against the needs of the world's largest population; demands for rapid economic growth with calls for improved environmental management; and the desire for a market-based approach to the allocation of water with a history of State ownership and strict government control of all resources. In China, changes are occurring in water resources management that are representative of many of the fundamental changes occurring within Chinese society, on issues such as property rights, community participation, improved environmental management, and the shift towards market-based decision making. This book describes the development of a water rights system in the People's Republic of China. It covers different aspects of water resources management in China - including water planning, the provision of environmental flows, urban water management, and irrigation district management - and examines how these are being addressed through a rights-based approach. The book includes several detailed examples of the Chinese application of water rights as they address the diverse challenges of different basins across China. This book previously appeared as a special issue of the International Journal of Water Resources Development.
Pollution Under Environmental Regulation in Energy Markets provides a study of environmental regulation when energy markets are imperfectly competitive. This theoretical treatment focuses on three relevant cases of energy markets. First, the residential space heating sector where hybrid regulation such as taxation and emissions trading together are possible. Second, the electricity market where transactions are organized in the form of multi-period auctions. Third, namely natural gas (input) and electricity (output) markets where there is combined imperfect competition in vertical related energy markets. The development of free or low carbon technologies supported by energy policies, aiming at increasing security of supply, is also explored whilst considering competition policies that reduce market power in energy markets thus improving market efficiency. Pollution Under Environmental Regulation in Energy Markets discusses the key issues of whether imperfect competition can lessen the ability of environmental policy to reduce pollution and/or to minimize the cost of meeting environmental targets. Policymakers, analysts and researchers gain a thorough understanding of the performance of environmental policy from Pollution Under Environmental Regulation in Energy Markets leading to better design of simulation models of performance and costs of environmental regulation.
International environmental threats have commanded widespread attention since the late 1960s. A number of environmental disasters have galvanized public concern, and have reached the international political agenda following the emergence of environmental social movements in the industrialized countries. current concern with globalization. The international environmental politics literature anticipated many of the descriptive features of globalization and the themes commonly used to analyze the political and economic forces associated with globalization. courses and analysts in international environmental politics and globalization. The editor has selected those previously published articles which are seminal in the development of this new field and which have either generated widespread debate or represent a clear application of major approaches to the understanding of these new issues. He has also provided an authoritative introduction to complement his selection.
This is a pioneering study which should serve as a model for future research and will to a wide audience' Dharam Ghai, Director United Nations Research Institute for Social Development Structural Adjustment and the Environment (Earthscan, 1992) was the first book to fully examine the effects of 'structural adjustment programmes the economic reform policies required by the World Bank and IMF as part of their lending operations with borrowing countries. To widespread Critical acclaim it exposed the damaging environmental and social effects of structural adjustment policies, and called for a thorough revision of the then-current development policy. This new work; Structural Adjustment, the Environment and sustainable Development is a major step forward in the study of structural adjustment policies. It looks in detail at new research and analysis into their effects, and incorporates recent studies by a wide range of academics and policy-makers, leading experts and institutes. Focusing on nine in-depth case studies, the book examines the complex links between macroeconomic policies, social impacts and environmental outcomes, and takes a forward-looking perspective in outlining the alternatives to current structural adjustment policies. Review quotes for Structural Adjustment and the Environment 'Should be essential reading for all students of development' Third World Planning Review 'Breaks new ground in the debate on structural adjustment generally. and in the environment/development debate' International Affairs 'The most substantial contribution to date to what is undoubtedly an important area' Development and Change David Reed is director of the Macroeconomics for Sustainable Development Programme of WWF International, and editor of Structural Adjustment and the Environment (Earthscan, 1992). Originally published in 1996
Land has long been overlooked in economics. That is now changing. A substantial part of the solution to the climate crisis may lie in growing crops for fuel and using trees for storing carbon. This book investigates the potential of these options to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, estimates the costs to the economy, and analyses the trade-offs with growing food. The first part presents new databases that are necessary to underpin policy-relevant research in the field of climate change while describing and critically assessing the underlying data, the methodologies used, and the first applications. Together, the new data and the extended models allow for a thorough and comprehensive analysis of a land use and climate policy. This book outlines key empirical and analytical issues associated with modelling land use and land use change in the context of global climate change policy. It places special emphasis on the economy-wide competition for land and other resources, especially; The implications of changes in land use for the cost of climate change mitigation, Land use change as a result of mitigation, and Feedback from changes in the global climate to land use. By offering synthesis and evaluation of a variety of different approaches to this challenging field of research, this book will serve as a key reference for future work in the economic analysis of land use and climate change policy.
Although it is recognised that Thomas Robert Malthus was wrong when he posited a contradiction between population increase and agricultural growth, there are increasing signs that he could be proved right in the future. Perhaps Malthus was too late and too early in his prediction? He was too late, because he did not foresee the shift from land-based resources to fossil fuels, outing an end to the limits of agricultural growth, at least temporarily; and he was too early to witness that fossil fuels would come up against their own limits in terms of supply as well as in terms of global warming. This study deals with land-based resources and the role they play in the global socio-ecological metabolic regime, both now and in the future. In particular, the controversial use of agrofuels as a solution to coming scarcity is subjected to close scrutiny.
It has always been thought that some level of pollution and waste is unavoidable in development projects. But no one has made much effort to quantify and assess the extent of this sort of damage. In this book a group of analysts from the Asian Development Bank and from the East West Center propose a means of constructing useful economic evaluations of the impacts of development projects on the environments in which they are constructed. This study demands the systematic evaluation of all the intentional and unintentional consequences of development initiatives before they are determined upon. It is essential reading for development economists, analysts and bankers. Originally published in 1986
China has achieved rapid economic growth since the market-oriented reform in 1978 and became the second largest economy in the world in 2010. However, the growth model in China is still extensive in nature and may be characterized with high energy consumption and heavy environmental pollutions etc. In fact, China has successively become the largest carbon emitter since 2007 and the largest energy consumer since 2009 in the world. This book endeavors to analyze whether such energy driven and environment restricted economic growth can be sustainable in China in the long run. The book describes the basic situations of energy consumption and environmental pollution in China from the dimensions of industries, regions and energy-types. It also introduces the evolution of energy and environmental policies implemented in China. In particular, this book makes use of the environmental activity analysis model to assess the sustainable transformation of economic model in Chinese industries and regions. This model captures the negative externalities of pollutants and estimates the environmental total factor productivity accurately. The possibilities of win-win development and double dividend are also forecasted. This book proposes new methods to measure the environmental total factor productivity, evaluate the process of low carbon transformation, quantify the structural bonus, estimate the abating cost and forecast the win-win development and so on. Researchers may find these methodologies useful for measuring other pollutants and for analysis in other countries.
Drylands are a sizeable part of the world's potentially arable land. They vary from the hyper-arid regions of the classic deserts of Africa and Asia to the more common semi-arid and sub-humid areas that support extensive agricultural systems dependent on rainfall or irrigation. Following their successful and innovative work The Economics of Dryland Management the editors have assembled twenty case studies from nine countries in the continents of Africa, Asia, North America and Australia. They help to explore more fully the costs of land degradation and illustrate the economics of reclamation, rehabilitation and prevention. The cases in this book present a rich, varied and readable survey of a wide range of drylands and their resources. Originally published in 19990
This book enlarges our understanding of economic development by bringing together items or aspects of historical experience relevant to the present-day problems of developing countries; by looking at the problems over a longer period than is usual in development economics, so that the influence of underlying forces may be made evident; and by comparing the experiences of different countries in similar situations. A variety of countries are dealt with and most of the significant problems in development economics are covered in one context or another. The authors of this symposium, each an internationally acknowledged authority, offer expert assessments of development as it has actually taken place. The chapter by Professor Rosovsky shows what is significant, what is peculiar and what could be imitated in Japan; Professor Black takes the little-studied case of Ireland, and Dr Macpherson gives an informed and balanced account of Indian development. This unique book was first published in 1972.
This book addresses the use, operation and maintenance of new renewable energy systems, taking into account their integration in the current electrical markets and in the new emergent uses of energy. The book is based on practical experiences which present different perspectives about what occurs once an energy production plant based on sources of renewable energy is in production. Questions to be addressed include: how the energy produced is integrated into the current system of energy production, what is its consideration in the electrical market, what the impact is on society, how differential the strategies of operation and maintenance are with respect to conventional systems of energy production, etc.
This book provides a detailed look at REDD+ business case studies and best practice and highlights the future of REDD+ in providing a promising mechanism for financing forest conservation while increasing the sustainability and profitability of forward-thinking companies. How can sustainability leaders reverse tropical deforestation? What exactly are payment for ecosystem service forest conservation projects, otherwise known as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+), and how can these projects contribute to business sustainability and profitability? Tropical forests are quickly disappearing - at a rate of nearly one football or soccer field every few seconds. REDD+ simultaneously offers a scalable conservation finance mechanism and a platform for business sustainability. This DoShort focuses on the nexus between tropical forest conservation projects and the sustainability practices of major global businesses. The book contextualizes the issues, defines REDD+ and focuses on its significance to business sustainability including: - the role of REDD+ in mitigating global greenhouse gas emissions while reducing business risk to a changing climate; - as part of a firm's philanthropic work; - a mechanism to increase consumer loyalty; - benefiting upstream local communities and ecosystem services; - enhancing corporate social responsibility image and upholding corporate principles; - and providing unique marketing opportunities and product positioning through private-sector support of charismatic REDD+ projects.
Climate science paints a bleak picture: The continued growth of greenhouse gas emissions is increasingly likely to cause irreversible and catastrophic effects. Urgent action is needed to prepare for the initial rounds of climatic change, which are already unstoppable. While the opportunity to avert all climate damage has now passed, well-designed mitigation and adaptation policies, if adopted quickly, could still greatly reduce the likelihood of the most tragic and far-reaching impacts of climate change. Climate economics is the bridge between science and policy, translating scientific predictions about physical systems into projections about economic growth and human welfare that decision makers can most readily use but it has too often consisted of an overly technical, academic approach to the problem. Getting climate economics right is not about publishing the cleverest article of the year but rather about helping solve the dilemma of the century. The tasks ahead are daunting, and failure, unfortunately, is quite possible. Better approaches to climate economics will allow economists to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem. This book analyzes potential paths for improvement.
In recent years there have been several alarming predictions about the future of the planet s fish stocks. As a result, many national governments and supranational institutions, including the European Union, have instituted reforms designed to mitigate the crisis. This book examines the discourse and practice of good governance in the context of fisheries management. It starts by examining the crisis of fisheries in the North Sea, caused primarily by overfishing and failure of the European Union s Common Fisheries Policy. It then goes on to analyse reforms to this policy enacted and planned between 2002 and 2013, and the proposition that collapse of fish stocks could occur as a result of deficiencies in new governing arrangements, i.e. failure to apply principles of good governance . The book argues that impediments to good governance practice in fisheries are not merely the result of implementation deficits, but that they constitute a more systematic failure. Governance theory addresses issues of power, but it does not recognise the many important spatially contingent and relational forms of power that are exercised in actual governing practice. For example, it frequently overlooks spatial practices and strategies, such as scale jumping, rescaling and the discursive redrawing of governing boundaries. This book exposes some of these spatial power relationships, showing that the presence of such relationships has implications for accountability and effective policymaking. In sum, this book explores some of the ways in which we might better understand governance practice using theories of scale and relational concepts of power, and in the process it offers a critique and rethinking of governance theory. These reflections are made on the basis of an in-depth case study of the attempted pursuit of good governance in the European Union via institutional reforms, focusing particularly on the thorny and fascinating case of North Sea fisheries management.
Developed countries have committed to provide financial support for climate change mitigation and adaptation activities in developing countries. Current financial support is of the order of $10 to $15 billion per year, but over the past few years studies of the cost of mitigation and adaptation in developing countries have estimated the amounts as high as several hundred billion dollars per year. This Special Issue presents the first comprehensive overview of climate change finance in the peer reviewed literature, covering: ' Estimates of the cost of mitigation and adaptation in developing countries; ' The economic issues involved in estimating adaption costs; ' The link between adaptation and development; ' How funds could be raised and effective allocation of the available funds; ' Effective delivery of finance. Assembling and comparing estimates currently available only from a variety of reports, the volume provides a vital overview of the subject of climate change finance for negotiators, policymakers and researchers.
Recent decades have witnessed an explosion of museum building around the world and the subsequent development of a body of research to understand the myriad issues. Museum Architecture: A New Biography focuses on the stories we tell of museum buildings in order to explore the nature of museum architecture and the problems of architectural history when applied to the museum and gallery. Starting from a discussion of the key issues in contemporary museum design, the book explores the role of architectural history in the prioritization of specific stories of museum building and museum architects and the exclusion of other actors from the history of museum making. These omissions have contemporary relevance and impact directly on the ways in which the physical structures of museums are shaped. Theoretically, the book places a particular emphasis on the work of Pierre Bourdieu and Henri Lefebvre in order to establish an understanding of buildings as social relations; the outcome of complex human interactions and relationships.The book utilizes a micro history, an in-depth case study of the 'National Gallery of the North', the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, to expose the myriad ways in which museum architecture is made. Coupled with this detailed exploration is an emphasis on contemporary museum design which utilises the understanding of the social realities of museum making developed above to explore ideas for a socially sustainable museum architecture fit for the 21st century.
The existence of environmental dilemmas and political conflicts leads us to appreciate the need for individuals and groups to behave strategically in order to achieve their goals and maintain their wellbeing. Global issues such as climate change, resource depletion, and pollution, as well as revolts and protests against corporations, regimes, and other central authorities, are the result of increased levels of externalities among individuals and nations. These all require policy intervention at international and global levels. This book includes chapters by experts proposing game theoretical solutions and applying experimental design to a variety of social issues related to global and international conflicts over natural resources and the environment. The focus of the book is on applications that have policy implications, relevance and, consequently, could lead to the establishment of policy dialogue. The chapters in the book address issues that are global in nature, such as international environmental agreements over climate change, international water management, common pool resources, public goods, international fisheries, international trade, and collective action, protest, and revolt. The book's main objective is to illustrate the usefulness of game theory and experimental economics in policy making at multiple levels and for various aspects related to global and international issues. The subject area of this book is already widely taught and researched, but it continues to gain popularity, given growing recognition that the environment and natural resources have become more strategic in human behavior.
This book brings together geological, biological, radical economic, technological, historical and social perspectives on peak oil and other scarce resources. The contributors to this volume argue that these scarcities will put an end to the capitalist system as we know it and alternatives must be created. The book combines natural science with emancipatory thinking, focusing on bottom up alternatives and social struggles to change the world by taking action. The volume introduces original contributions to the debates on peak oil, land grabbing and social alternatives, thus creating a synthesis to gain an overview of the multiple crises of our times. The book sets out to analyse how crises of energy, climate, metals, minerals and the soil relate to the global land grab which has accelerated greatly since 2008, as well as to examine the crisis of profit production and political legitimacy. Based on a theoretical understanding of the multiple crises and the effects of peak oil and other scarcities on capital accumulation, the contributors explore the social innovations that provide an alternative. Using the most up to date research on resource crises, this integrative and critical analysis brings together the issues with a radical perspective on possibilites for future change as well as a strong social economic and ethical dimesion. The book should be of interest to researchers and students of environmental policy, politics, sustainable development and natural resource management.
The utilization of natural resources to satisfy worldwide growing consumption of goods and services has severe ecological consequences. Aside from the projected doubling of food consumption in the next fifty years, the growing trade of biofuels and other commodities is a global challenge as the economic activities in the primary sector (i.e. mining, fisheries, aquaculture, forestry and agriculture) can damage biodiversity and ecosystem services. This should be taken into account in the decision-making affecting the global value chains linking consumer, retailer, processor, and producer in the North and the South. To cover the topic of ecosystem services and global trade this book is organized into four major parts. Part 1 gives the theoretical framework from an ecological, economic and political perspectives. Part 2 explores how internationally traded biophysical commodities from agriculture, forestry and fisheries translates into a virtual flow of land, freshwater, and marine ecosystems. Part 3 describes how two widely used accounting tools (i.e., Life Cycle Assessment and Green National Accounts) deal with international aspects of ecosystem services, and Part 4 shows how instruments like labelling, bans, or payments for ecosystem services in the private and public sector can influence trade patterns and the management of ecosystem services. This collection is a valuable contribution to the global change science dealing with ecosystem services. It illustrates the consequences of international trade on global ecosystem services and provides an overview of accounting tools and of market-based policy instruments to address negative and positive externalities. The book is certainly innovative, because it brings together research findings from distinct disciplines especially Industrial Ecology and Ecosystem Sciences, as well as Environmental Economics and Political Science. |
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