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Books > Earth & environment > The environment > Environmental economics > General
Frances Cairncross, senior editor of The Economist and author of the best selling Costing the Earth, shows that economic growth does not have to be at the expense of environmental protection. For the poor, growth is essential, to eliminate the threats to health and environmental security that poverty presents. As for the more affluent, they may be unwilling to sacrifice their living standards, even for a cleaner environment. The question is, rather, how can the environmental impact of growth be minimized? Here, the role of business is crucial. New technologies and well-designed policies have to work hand in hand; and the interests of governments, of companies and of the environmental movement lie in making a cleaner environment an opportunity for profitability. All three parties will find this a stimulating survey and an invaluable practical guide.
Current systems thinking in urban and environmental planning provides ways to consider hidden forces behind both planned and consequential changes, in order that we can express, check, and clarify our mental models of the structure and function of these systems. In this path-breaking book, Anastassios Perdicoulis progresses the conception and expression of the planning problem as an 'extended mental model'. In doing so he concisely expresses the essential elements of strategic planning (conditions, objectives, action) in a visual form which both stimulates and clearly communicates reasoning. As a result, concerns, defined objectives, and corresponding actions are uniquely linked. He goes on to illustrate how the structural and functional organization of the target system extends naturally into the planning process, and how decision-making therefore becomes based on systems learning. This challenging book will enhance the ability of spatial planners of all levels, especially students and newly qualified professionals, to prepare effective plan proposals. Strategy consultants will also find it a useful tool in preparing improved plan proposals and communicating more effectively with clients. Additionally, the book will assist government bodies to focus on the crux of development problems and reach balanced decisions more quickly. The enhanced problem formulation method presented in this volume is sure to prove an invaluable tool for researchers, students, and consultants in related fields including: operations research, system dynamics, business management, impact assessment, landscape architecture and environmental engineering.
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.
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.
Valuing Environmental Benefits brings together Maureen Cropper's work on methods for valuing environmental benefits, especially health benefits, as well as analyses of the benefits implicitly attached to human health and ecosystems by environmental regulations.Beginning with a survey of the field of environmental economics (written with Wallace E. Oates), the book includes papers on valuing health benefits, valuing environmental amenities, and the political economy of environmental regulation. The author's analyses of mortality benefits include both theoretical work and empirical studies of the value citizens attach to life saving programs. Studies of morbidity benefits include previously unpublished work on the value of preventing chronic heart and lung disease. Section two of the book focuses on the use of hedonic methods for valuing urban amenities. The book concludes with statistical analyses of factors influencing US environmental regulations in the areas of pesticide control, toxic substances and superfund cleanups.
Filling a void in academic and policy-relevant literature on the topic of the green economy in the Arabian Gulf, this edited volume provides a multidisciplinary analysis of the key themes and challenges relating to the green economy in the region, including in the energy and water sectors and the urban environment, as well as with respect to cross-cutting issues, such as labour, intellectual property and South-South cooperation. Over the course of the book, academics and practitioners from various fields demonstrate why transitioning into a 'green economy' - a future economy based on environmental sustainability, social equity and improved well-being - is not an option but a necessity for the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) States. Through chapters covering key economic sectors and cross-cutting issues, the book examines the GCC states' quest to align their economies and economic development with the imperatives of environmental sustainability and social welfare, and proposes a way forward, based on lessons learned from experiences in the region and beyond. This volume will be of great relevance to scholars and policy makers with an interest in environmental economics and policy.
This important volume brings together an authoritative selection of the leading papers on the subject of maritime transport. With a new introductory essay by the editors, the collection provides a thorough examination of the topics associated with this area, including maritime economics, transport law and policy. Part I includes articles on carrier management and operations. Part II looks in detail at competition policy and pricing. Part III discusses finance, the fiscal treatment of shipping and flag of registry issues. Part IV covers the area of law and policy and Part V examines market and structures. Finally, Part VI focuses on ports. This collection will be an invaluable resource for major maritime academies and to students and researchers in the subject of maritime transport.
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.
There has been an explosion in the literature and research on environmental and resource economics in recent years. This major annual publication provides a cutting-edge survey of current research by the leading experts in the field. The latest Yearbook includes contributions on: economics and the land use-environment link; issues in the economics of water use; the economics of residential solid waste management; population and the environment; subsidiarity, federalism and the environment; transboundary pollution and international cooperation; and environmental valuation and standard economic theory.
The remarkable performance of the Chinese economy in the last three decades has placed China at the centre of the world stage. In 1993, China became a net importer of energy, although it was not until the early 2000s that the world began to pay more attention to China's energy needs and its potential impact on the world. With China's energy search occurring within a hegemonic global structure dominated by the United States, the US watches with interest as China enhances its ties with energy-rich states. The book examines this triangular relationship and questions whether the US and China are in competition regarding access to the energy of a third state, within the context of a potential power transition. It includes case studies on China's energy relationship with countries such as Canada, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Brazil, Kazakhstan, Iran, Sudan and Venezuela and aims to understand the way a rising power interacts with the existing leading power and the possible outcome of this competition. The analytical framework employed helps the reader to understand not only the nature and pattern of triangles among US, China and the Resource Rich States under 'resource diplomacy', but also the salient features of US-China competition around the world. Making an impressive contribution to the literature in fields such as US-China relations, international relations, Chinese foreign policy and global energy geopolitics, this book will appeal to students and scholars of these subjects.
This monograph length report, first published in 1970, originated from a program of research at Resources for the Future that dealt with the management of residuals and of environmental quality. It presents some of the broad concepts that the program was based on and represents the effort to break out of the traditional approach in pollution and policy research, which had treated air, water, and solid waste problems as separate categories. This book will be of interest to students of economics and environmental studies.
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.
Providing an updated state of the art report on the effects of the 2003 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reform, this volume has a particular emphasis on the governance of institutional changes and national/regional implementation. Written from an agricultural economist's point of view and enriched by the contribution of political scientists and policy makers, this book offers: - an updated report of the European debate on agricultural and rural policies; -an in-depth analysis of the decoupling process of the agricultural financial support in Europe; - an analysis of the CAP implementation in the old and new Europe Member States ; - a discussion on the future scenarios for the European Agricultural Policies Based on a selection of papers from the 109th Seminar of the European Association of the Agricultural Economists (EAAE), this book, with a foreword by Franz Fischler, also includes four commissioned contributions from leaders in the field including Sofia Davidova, Roberto Esposti, Tassos Haniotis and Johan Swinnen.
Many of the world's fisheries face major challenges including overfishing, overcapacity and low returns. Using recent developments in microeconomic theory and with numerous case studies and examples, this book shows how to measure efficiency, productivity, profitability, capacity of fishing fleets and how to improve fisheries management. The book will prove invaluable to researchers, students and professionals interested in understanding the problems in fisheries and how they may be overcome.
Mountains are the home of significant ecological resources - wildlife habitat, higher elevation plant systems, steep slopes, delicate soils and water systems. These resources are subject to very visible and growing pressures, most of which are caused by the unique features of mountains. Using as case studies four mountain resorts in the US and Canada, this book analyzes the extent to which the law protects the ecological systems of mountains from the adverse impacts associated with the development, operation and expansion of resorts. In order to examine these issues, Mountain Resorts takes an interdisciplinary approach, with contributions from ecologists and lawyers who focus on ski-related activities, increasing four-season use of the mountains and expanding residential, commercial and recreational development at the mountains' base. Its analysis of an array of US and Canadian federal, state and local laws provides a multifaceted exploration of the intersection of ecology and the law at mountain resorts.
Bringing together a mixture of theoretical discussion, political analyses and illustrative case studies, this volume provides the first comprehensive scholarly analysis of the tension between environmental protection and economic development in Turkey. Through its dual focus on democratization and modernization, this book also makes an important contribution to the literature on politics in contemporary Turkey. It identifies and analyses the forces underwriting the growth of environmental social movements, investigates the impacts these movements have on development and modernization, and above all, evaluates the role played by environmental movements in the democratization process of Turkey.
Despite their obvious importance, the ethical implications of climate change are often neglected in economic evaluations of mitigation and adaptation policies. Economic climate models provide estimates of the value of mitigation benefits, provide understanding of the costs of reducing emissions, and develop tools for making policy choices under uncertainty. They have thus offered theoretical and empirical instruments for the design and implementation of a range of climate policies, but the ethical assumptions included in the calculations are usually left unarticulated. This book, which brings together scholars from both economics and ethical theory, explores the interrelation between climate ethics and economics. Examining a wide range of topics including sustainability, conceptions of value, risk management and the monetization of harm, the book will explore the ethical limitations of economic analysis but will not assume that economic theory cannot accommodate the concerns raised. The aim in part is to identify ethical shortcomings of economic analysis and to propose solutions. Given the on-going role of economics in government thinking on mitigation, a constructive approach is vital if we are to deal adequately with climate change. This volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of environmental ethics, economics, political science, political philosophy and the philosophy of 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.
Perhaps the most defining characteristic of the global economy today is the rise of emerging market economies (EMEs). Many states have experienced rapid economic growth over the past two decades that has led to an increasing share of global wealth. Such dramatic changes are highly relevant because they raise important issues about the distribution of global monetary and fiscal power. As the EMEs have gained importance in the global economy, their influence and significance have grown across a wide range of policy domains. One particularly relevant example is the increasingly critical role of EMEs in addressing climate change. Contrary to the popular belief that the level of development determines a country's ability to produce positive environmental outcomes, this book shows that the variation in environmental outcomes among the EMEs is due to differences in the types of economic institutions prevalent in their economies. Since EMEs differ dramatically on a number of variables, examining national variations in economic institutions helps explain why international climate policy has been more successful in some countries than in others. To assess how variations in capitalism may influence important outcomes, this book explores a representative sample of 31 EMEs and employs a mixed method research design that incorporates both conventional regression analysis and Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) to explain these outcomes. The analysis shows that although liberal market economies were expected to perform better than other types of capitalism, their performance fell below expectations. On the contrary, economic institutions related to coordinated types of capitalism (like those found in China and Brazil) have led to greater Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) market participation. Theoretically informed, this book employs innovative ways of understanding a broad set of increasingly important but under studied states in an effort to highlight the interactions found in complex socio-political and ecological systems. With the growing importance of the EMEs, a better understanding of how to design market-based policies with them in mind will be required if future efforts across a range of policy issues are to be meaningful and effective.
Food consumption patterns and practices are rapidly changing in Asia and the Pacific, and nowhere are these changes more striking than in urban areas. This book brings together scholars from anthropology, sociology, environmental studies, tourism, architecture and development studies to provide a comprehensive examination of food consumption trends in the cities of Asia and the Pacific, including household food consumption, eating out and food waste. The chapters cover different scales of analysis, from household research to national data, and combine different methodologies and approaches, from quantifiable data that show how much people consume to qualitative findings that reveal how and why consumption takes place in urban settings. Detailed case studies are included from China, India, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, South Korea and Vietnam, as well as Hawai'i and Australia. The book makes a timely contribution to current debates on the challenges and opportunities for socially just and environmentally sound food consumption in urbanizing Asia and the Pacific. Chapter 3 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/tandfbis/rt-files/docs/Open+Access+Chapters/9781138120617_oachapter3.pdf
SME's are acknowledged as effective sources of jobs and incomes, gaining an important position in the development agenda, subsequently 'cluster' policies were conceived as a framework to augment the effects of SMEs and to optimize resources used to support them. Based on case studies from Brazil, Vietnam, Indonesia and India, this volume examines SME clusters and argues that unless they counteract common problems such as very low wages, poor working conditions, poor quality products and lack or environmental regulation, they will be pushed out of the market and so become unsustainable. This book suggests that the SME clusters currently being stretched should react by 'socially upgrading' in order to improve their innovation capacity, as well as social, environmental and labour standards. It puts forward conceptual frameworks which explain the way firms can upgrade: through markets, interaction among cluster members, through Corporate Social Responsibility and other such public policy, and through the better enforcement of regulation.
River systems around the world are degraded and are being used unsustainably. Meeting this challenge requires the development of flexible regimes that have the potential to meet essential consumptive needs while restoring environmental flows. This book focuses on how water trading frameworks can be repurposed for environmental water recovery and aims to conceptualise the most appropriate role for law in supporting recovery through these frameworks. The author presents a comprehensive study of the legal frameworks in four jurisdictions: the States of Oregon and Colorado in the western United States; the province of Alberta in Canada; and the Murray-Darling Basin in Australia/Basin State of New South Wales. A close comparative analysis of these four jurisdictions reveals a variety of distinctive regulatory arrangements and collaborations between public and private actors. In all cases, the law has been deployed to steer and coordinate these water governance activities. The book argues that each regime is based on a particular regulatory strategy, with different conceptions of the appropriate roles for, and relationships between, various actors and institutions. Legal frameworks do not have the capacity to rationalise and provide an overarching and absolute solution to the complex environmental and governance issues that arise in the context of environmental water transactions. Rather, the role of law in this context needs to be reconceptualised within the paradigm of regulatory capitalism as establishing and maintaining the limits within which regulatory participants can operate, innovate and collaborate.
Our post-industrialised global economy has achieved spectacular success and pushed back poverty to an extent previously thought impossible. This success is ultimately based on the continued supply of both renewable and non-renewable resources. Will this supply of primary commodities remain sufficient to support global economic growth? Why are the gains for countries specialising on commodity production often so limited? Can commodity dependent countries diversify into other economic activities? Primary Commodities and Economic Development addresses the changing position of primary commodities in the world economy and investigates their importance for commodity exporting under-developed countries. The book commences with a review of the theoretical foundations for inter-dependence between commodity specialisation and economic underdevelopment. Having related the role of commodity exports and the commodity terms of trade to growth models relevant to developing economies, the discussion shifts to an in-depth review of the statistical properties of the commodity terms of trade. The review of commodity price trends at the global level is then rounded off with a series of country case studies showing the concrete threats and opportunities surrounding commodity specialization. This book will be of essential reading for those with an interest in development economics and international economics, as well as for scholars of natural resource and agricultural economics.
This unique and up-to-date book analyzes the functioning of the European Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) and assesses the extent to which relevant legislation has affected its capacity to promote cost-effective reduction of European carbon emissions. The author investigates whether inefficiency has been caused by both the ETS cap setting procedure and by the ETS relevant allocation rule, as defined by the Directive 2003/87/EC. He then considers whether the new Directive 2009/29/EC, which reforms the ETS institutional design, is likely to improve the scheme's effectiveness by reducing the risk of carbon leakage -which could potentially be induced by implementing a unilateral policy across the asymmetric political landscape of Europe. This well-documented book will appeal to researchers and postgraduate students in environmental law and environmental economics, as well as policy makers within environment, industry and economics, and electric and industrial operators and stakeholders. Environmental NGOs, energy and environmental consulting groups, members of the European Commission, and energy and environmental think-tanks will also find much to interest them in this insightful book. Contents: 1. Introduction; 2. Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol: An Overview; 3. Toward a Cap and Trade Scheme Solution: Economic and Legal Instruments to Address the Problem of Externality; 4. Legal and Economic Aspects of the European Emissions Trading Scheme; 5. Analysis of the EU ETS Effectiveness: Assessing the Stringency of the ETS Cap; 6. Analysis of the Allocation Rules: Do Polluters Pay under Grandfathering?; 7. ETS Reform and Carbon Leakage: Assessing the Inconsistencies of the New ETS Directive; 8. Summary and Conclusions; References
Over 90 per cent of the world population lives in countries that share a river basin with others. Freshwater resources are scarce and different nations, actors and users compete for limited resources in transboundary river basins; often conflicting with each other. Water is a resource with no substitute: it cannot be secured in sufficiently large quantities through long-distance trade deals; and, due to the interconnectivity of the hydrological system, the actions of one country in its water management have a direct bearing on the interests of neighbouring countries. For instance, in the Mekong River Basin, current hydropower and navigation developments in certain countries impact on traditional sources of income such as fisheries, and rice production in others. These kinds of changes in water use have given rise to conflict between countries in that region and others, but have also led, in some cases, to greater cooperation. The past few decades have seen a number of new agreements about the sharing of river resources and cooperation between riparian states. Negotiating for Water Resources explores the drivers of conflict and cooperation between states in transnational river basins. Drawing on extensive fieldwork and interviews on the Mekong, Danube and La Plata River Basins, the book provides a three level analysis across three case studies, including the regional framework (EU, ASEAN and Mercosur), the River Basin Organisations (ICPDR, MRC and CIC) and the micro-level. The key question of the book is: To what extent do power asymmetries prevent or inhibit cooperation between riparian states over water resources? This is linked to the question of how institutions contribute to mitigate competition for natural resources and how states interact in a multilateral arena. Overall, the book argues that cooperation in transboundary river basins is possible even where there are asymmetric power relations, challenging realist assumptions about competition and conflict over resources. |
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