This volume spans economics, history, sociology, law, graphic design, religion, environmental science, politics and more to offer a transdisciplinary examination of debt. From this perspective, many of our most pressing social and environmental crises are explored to raise critical questions about debt's problems and possibilities. Who do we owe? Where are the offsetting credits? Why do such persistent deficits in care permeate so much of our lives? Can we imagine new approaches to balance sheets, measures of value, and justice to reconcile these deficits? Often regarded as a constraint on our ability to meet the challenges of our day, this volume reimagines debt as a social construct capable of empowering people to organize and produce sustainable prosperity for all. This text is ideal for provoking classroom discussions that not only point out the gravity of the crises we face in the twenty-first century, but also seeks to set readers' minds free to create innovative solutions.

There is widespread agreement that climate change is a serious problem. If we fail to regulate greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, or use alternative strategies for addressing the problem, the damages could be significant, and perhaps catastrophic. After several international meetings in which nation-states have tried unsuccessfully to address the climate change problem, there is a sense of frustration and urgency: frustration at the slow pace at which countries are moving toward an international agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; urgency because of the growing evidence that climate change is a serious problem that should be addressed globally and quickly. This book takes a close look at the fundamental political and economic processes driving climate change policy. It identifies institutional arrangements and policies that are needed to design more effective climate change policy. It also examines ethical and distributional arguments that are critical in understanding and framing the climate debate. The book is built around a conference honouring Tom Schelling that took place at the Sustainable Consumption Institute at The University of Manchester. Each chapter represents a significant contribution to the literature on the political economy of climate change.

This important collection of essays from the leading writers in the field, focuses on the importance of taking environmental issues into account in the process of development and poverty reduction. This book deepens our understanding of environmental sustainability in a context of economic
growth, putting sustainable development firmly back on the agenda.

Sugarcane exhibits all the major characteristics of a promising bioenergy crop including high biomass yield, C4 photosynthetic system, perennial nature, and ratooning ability. Being the largest agricultural commodity of the world with respect to total production, sugarcane biomass is abundantly available. Brazil has already become a sugarcane biofuels centered economy while Thailand, Colombia, and South Africa are also significantly exploiting this energy source. Other major cane producers include India, China, Pakistan, Mexico, Australia, Indonesia, and the United States. It has been projected that sugarcane biofuels will be playing extremely important role in world's energy matrix in recent future. This book analyzes the significance, applications, achievements, and future avenues of biofuels and bioenergy production from sugarcane, in top cane growing countries around the globe. Moreover, we also evaluate the barriers and areas of improvement for targeting efficient, sustainable, and cost-effective biofuels from sugarcane to meet the world's energy needs and combat the climate change.

Industrial houses have, in recent years, begun to favor green products and financial institutions are funneling investible funds to environmentally friendly industries as a priority. Implementation of green policy to support these changes requires economic as well as political support from various influential countries. Success of green policies will inevitably benefit biodiversity and global environmental health. Economic and Political Implications of Green Trading and Energy Use is a scholarly research publication that presents global perspectives on the impact of green financing and accounting on the health of the environment while highlighting issues related to carbon trading, carbon credit, energy use, and energy efficiency and their impact on economic outputs. This reference features a range of topics including environmental policies and sustainable development and is essential for academicians, environmental scientists, policymakers, political scientists, students, and researchers.

This book presents a cutting-edge analysis of the economic effects and challenges of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, with a special focus on EU sanctions on Russian energy and Ukraine's political relationship with the European Union in a global context. Welfens outlines key macroeconomic perspectives on the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, highlighting in particular how sanctions posed by the international community will have a wider economic impact than what has so far been envisaged. The book discusses the effects of Russian gas supply boycotts against Western countries as well as global effects of an EU energy import boycott on Russia, especially for China and the Asian continent. An innovative proposal to cut electricity prices is presented. It also explores the challenges to relations between the EU, China and Russia caused by the invasion, the effects of the unfolding refugee crisis (within a post-Brexit EU), military and humanitarian aid pledges to Ukraine, and the risks of reduced multilateralism within the world economy as a direct result of the war. The book also analyses the risks and benefits of potential enlargement of the EU to integrate Ukraine as a member state. The topics covered by the book are all set within a long-run view of diplomatic and economic relations between the West, Russia and Ukraine. The factors analysed here provide a new, broader picture of the international effects of the conflict, as well as its potential implications for policy design as we enter a new global order marked by the Russo-Ukrainian war. The book will be of interest to researchers and policy-makers working in international economics, new political economy, European politics and integration, and macroeconomics more broadly.

The third decade of the 21st century brings new and expansive global sustainability challenges. Managers, policymakers, academics, citizens, and consumers will have to make seemingly contradictory decisions to accelerate demand, and at the same time promote savings. For this reason, it is necessary to clarify that it is not a process of recovery but of regeneration, adaptation and reprioritization. Regenerative and Sustainable Futures for Latin America and the Caribbean: Collective action for a region with a better tomorrow offers a systematic review of past efforts to recover from global crises providing an analysis of the sustainable development challenges faced by Latin America and the Caribbean. Featuring contributions from researchers in seven different Latin American and Caribbean countries, this volume reflects primary data perspectives from government, business, academe and civil society leaders in each specific country. Regenerative and Sustainable Futures for Latin America and the Caribbean explores how to build sustainable futures for Latin America and the Caribbean, presents recommendations for policy and decision-makers to thrive sustainable futures for Latin America and the Caribbean and reflects on the value of collective action for a region that deserves a better tomorrow.

Environmental Sustainability, Growth Trajectory and Gender focuses on three major issues affecting developing economies: environmental sustainability, growth trajectory and gender. The social, economic and environmental consequences of climate change and loss of essential ecosystems are becoming increasingly apparent. Within the global community, the challenges of sustainable development and gender equality are growing in importance. The knowledge and collective action of women would improve productivity, boost conservation of ecosystems and enhance economic growth in developing countries. Environmental Sustainability, Growth Trajectory and Gender provides a wealth of information for academic researchers, postgraduate students, and faculties of different disciplines, and will lead to increased awareness, policies and actions that will enhance gender equality and provide full enjoyment of sustainable development.

Climate change skeptics and business pundits alike are convinced that any public policy instruments used to curtail environmental degradation are antithetical to the interests of the corporate community. However, many companies have actually come out in favour of carbon pricing. In Business in a Changing Climate, Kaija Belfry Munroe examines this counterintuitive action and, in doing so, explains how large firms determine their preferences for public policy options. Her analysis of thirteen industrial associations and seventeen firms from industries such as petrochemical, forestry, mining, and steel, reveals that, despite the higher costs, these industries prefer carbon pricing over voluntary agreements. Based on enlightening interviews with executives, government, and NGO officials, Belfry Munroe argues that the acceptance of climate change policy by companies is determined by the risks posed to capital investments and investor concern. Business in a Changing Climate is the first book to ask major pollution emitting industries in Canada what their preferences are with respect to climate change.

The Handbook of Environmental Economics focuses on the economics of environmental externalities and environmental public goods. Volume I examines environmental degradation and policy responses from a microeconomic, institutional standpoint. Its perspective is dynamic, including a consideration of the dynamics of natural systems, and global, with attention paid to issues in both rich and poor nations. In addition to chapters on well-established topics such as the theory and practice of pollution regulation, it includes chapters on new areas of environmental economics research related to common property management regimes; population and poverty; mechanism design; political economy of regulation; experimental evaluations of policy instruments; and technological change.

In this book Nicholas A. Ashford and Ralph P. Hall offer a unified, transdisciplinary approach for achieving sustainable development in industrialized nations. They present an insightful analysis of the ways in which industrial states are currently unsustainable and how economic and social welfare are related to the environment, to public health and safety, and to earning capacity and meaningful and rewarding employment. The authors argue for the design of multipurpose solutions to the sustainability challenge that integrate economics, employment, technology, environment, industrial development, national and international law, trade, finance, and public and worker health and safety. This book is essential reading for anyone with a policy or scholarly interest in sustainable development and the critical roles of the economy, employment, and the environment.

Environmental policy is high on the political agenda in many countries. This book identifies the failures of the market mechanism in the face of environmental problems and shows how economic policy should be designed to overcome them. Special attention is paid to the possible benefits from a green tax reform.

Infrastructure resources are the subject of many contentious public policy debates, including what to do about crumbling roads and bridges, whether and how to protect our natural environment, energy policy, even patent law reform, universal health care, network neutrality regulation and the future of the Internet. Each of these involves a battle to control infrastructure resources, to establish the terms and conditions under which the public receives access, and to determine how the infrastructure and various dependent systems evolve over time. Infrastructure: The Social Value of Shared Resources devotes much needed attention to understanding how society benefits from infrastructure resources and how management decisions affect a wide variety of interests. The book links infrastructure, a particular set of resources defined in terms of the manner in which they create value, with commons, a resource management principle by which a resource is shared within a community. The infrastructure commons ideas have broad implications for scholarship and public policy across many fields ranging from traditional infrastructure like roads to environmental economics to intellectual property to Internet policy. Economics has become the methodology of choice for many scholars and policymakers in these areas. The book offers a rigorous economic challenge to the prevailing wisdom, which focuses primarily on problems associated with ensuring adequate supply. The author explores a set of questions that, once asked, seem obvious: what drives the demand side of the equation, and how should demand-side drivers affect public policy? Demand for infrastructure resources involves a range of important considerations that bear on the optimal design of a regime for infrastructure management. The book identifies resource valuation and attendant management problems that recur across many different fields and many different resource types, and it develops a functional economic approach to understanding and analyzing these problems and potential solutions.

This book addresses the emerging trend of smart grids in power systems. It discusses the advent of smart grids and selected technical implications; further, by combining the perspectives of researchers from Europe and South America, the book captures the status quo of and approaches to smart grids in a wide range of countries. It describes the basic concepts, enabling readers to understand the theoretical aspects behind smart grid formation, while also examining current challenges and philosophical discussions. Like the industrial revolution and the birth of the Internet, smart grids are certain to change the way people use electricity. In this regard, a new term - the "prosumer" - is used to describe consumers who may sometimes also be energy producers. This is particularly appealing if we bear in mind that most of the distributed power generation in smart grids does not involve carbon emissions. At first glance, the option of generating their own power could move consumers to leave their current energy provider. Yet the authors argue that doing so is not a wise choice: utilities will play a central role in this new scenario and should not be ignored.

Environmental issues have never been so high on the agenda of governments and companies around the world. From being seen as a fringe discipline, environmental risk management has established its central importance for the future not only of the environment itself but also of the individual organisation. Until now, however, there has been no book devoted to the implications of environmental risk for banks and other financial institutions involved in corporate lending. Phil Case's timely book provides a much-needed blueprint for the management of environmental risk in this crucial area and should be essential reading for all those involved in corporate lending internationally.

This book sheds new light on the relationship between economy and the environment by approaching the issue from evolutionary and institutional economics. Building a framework of theory and empirical analysis, it provides an in-depth perspective on how economic growth and environmental policy interact and historically evolve. Orthodox environmental economics usually understands environmental issues under the rules of market economy, while environmental sciences subordinate economy to physical constraints of the environment. Instead of these hierarchical visions, this book recognizes economy and the environment as co-evolving systems. The theoretical framework is elaborated based on the regulation and post-Keynesian theories combined. An idea of three-dimensional factors-capital, labor, and the environment-leads to conceptual and mathematical models, which will be applicable to wider analyses. Using this framework, Japanese history is analyzed as a typical example of environmental policy development. Historical transformations of environmental policies and growth regimes are explained using indices and econometric analysis. Experiences of strict regulations with positive economic impacts are also identified. These works lead to some interesting implications, which include mechanisms, the possibility, and conditions of "green growth''. This book proposes a new approach by bridging the gap between evolutionary-institutional economics and environmental economics, which should be stimulating to them both and possibly open the door for a new research avenue.

After decades of stability, power systems are currently undergoing a rapid transition - demand patterns are evolving, while supply sources are shifting to renewable energies at an accelerated pace. This book, written by an experienced energy professional, combines the various aspects of supply and demand developments to offer a unified perspective. It highlights the key changes that the world of electric utilities and power systems will face in the coming decade, as well as the major challenges that will emerge as a result. Supplemented by a wealth of global and local data, the book describes the major patterns that affect both supply and demand, and provides a quantified analysis of their impacts on power system grids and markets. Lastly, it explores the new technologies that can enable the success of these transformations.

This book systematically introduces readers to the framework of China's ETS pilots, exploring their design and operating process, the current state of the carbon market, and various barriers encountered. To do so, it deconstructs the Guangdong ETS, which is the largest and most representative of China's seven ETS pilots. The book subsequently describes and evaluates all seven pilots in terms of their efficiency, macro and micro effects, the method involved in the DEA model, the CGE model, and cost-benefit analysis. In turn, in the assessment section it demonstrates how some ETS pilots have failed to control carbon emissions due to inordinately high emissions quotas issued by the local government etc. Further, it argues that ETS should focus on those industries with large emissions and high mitigating potential for the time being, and then gradually expand the scale of its coverage. As China's national ETS is slated for launch on the basis of the lessons learned from the ETS pilots, the book offers a timely and valuable resource for all those who want to understand and forecast the development of China's ETS. It includes a wealth of descriptions and explanations of Chinese government policies involving carbon emissions control, making it a unique resource.

This book examines the interplay between trade and the environment, with a focus on the Indian textile sector. While it is often claimed that developed countries' non-tariff trade measures adversely affect the trade prospects of developing countries, establishing that claim systematically is a challenging task. This book examines the dilemma on the basis of various approaches, including a primary survey of different stakeholders and the large-scale modelling of the economy-environment inter-linkages. The interplay between the costs involved in meeting environmental regulations and the potential price-premiums that the cleaner products would get in the international market is analysed in order to assess the future trade prospects for Indian textiles. In addition, the book provides a comprehensive overview of the present scenario of the Indian textile sector. Accordingly, it will be of great interest to researchers, policy makers and graduate students specializing in environmental economics, development economics and international economics.

Since the 1960s the resource-poor countries have grown much faster that the resource-rich ones. This reflects basic differences in the speed of industrialization and the nature of the political state that are rooted in the natural resource endowment. Most resource-rich countries experienced a growth collapse in the 1960s and 1970s. This book shows how policies for economic recovery must be adapted to reflect differences in the natural resource base and type of political state.

This book presents an authoritative and comprehensive overview of the production and use of microalgal biomass and bioproducts for energy generation. It also offers extensive information on engineering approaches to energy production, such as process integration and process intensification in harnessing energy from microalgae. Issues related to the environment, food, chemicals and energy supply pose serious threats to nations' success and stability. The challenge to provide for a rapidly growing global population has made it imperative to find new technological routes to increase the production of consumables while also bearing in mind the biosphere's ability to regenerate resources. Microbial biomass is a bioresource that provides effective solutions to these challenges. Divided into eight parts, the book explores microalgal production systems, life cycle assessment and the bio-economy of biofuels from microalgae, process integration and process intensification applied to microalgal biofuels production. In addition, it discusses the main fuel products obtained from microalgae, summarizing a range of useful energy products derived from algae-based systems, and outlines future developments. Given the book's breadth of coverage and extensive bibliography, it offers an essential resource for researchers and industry professionals working in renewable energy.

Macroeconomics of Climate Change in a Dualistic Economy: A Regional General Equilibrium Analysis generates significant, genuinely novel insights about dual economies and sustainable economic growth. These insights are generalize-able and applicable worldwide. The authors overcome existing limitations in general equilibrium modeling. By concentrating on tensions between green growth and dualism, they consider the global efforts against climate change and opposition by specific countries based on economic development needs. Using Turkey as their primary example, they address these two most discussed and difficult issues related to policy setting, blazing a path for those seeking an applied economic research framework to study such economic considerations.

When taxes are introduced on carbon and energy, and the revenue is used to reduce other taxes, will a positive effect be achieved both for the environment and for the economy? In 1990 Finland was the first country to introduce a tax on CO2. Later, Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, Slovenia, Germany and the UK followed suit with tax reforms that shifted taxation from labour to carbon and energy. Over the years, CO {2} and energy taxes have gradually been raised, so that in Europe taxes of more than 25 billion Euros a year have been shifted.
This book examines carbon-energy taxation in detail and looks at tax shifting programmes for lowering other taxes. It offers extensive analysis on the basis of historical data and seeks to answer important questions for policy-making, such as: What was the impact of tax shifting for economic performance and competitiveness? By how much were emissions of CO {2} reduced? Could energy-intensive industries cut further down on their fuel demand or did they loose market shares? To what extent was there "leakage" from Europe, so that production and CO {2} emissions were shifted to other countries or regions without CO {2} -abatement policy? The use of unique and original data, including sector-specific energy prices and taxes, as well as the use of advanced statistical techniques, such as co-integration analysis and panel-regression techniques along with the time-series estimated macro-economic model E3ME, make this a truly comprehensive volume.
On the basis of the lessons learned in Europe, this volume indicates how carbon-energy taxation could usefully be combined with emissions trading, and discusses implications for future international climate policy, including how the IPCC recommendations for a gradual escalation in carbon price could be accomplished while preventing carbon leakage.