This title is designed to engage students with the research, debates, and practical applications of economics. The book will help build up student confidence in approaching exams and assignments.

This book presents methods for optimising the spatial and network configuration of solar radiation measuring stations. Various physical and mathematical models are demonstrated, which together with high quality measurements, provide the essential tools to generate and validate solar resource estimates to improve the mapping of solar resources. Each chapter deals with a specific topic, showing its methodology, and providing examples of how to apply these techniques with reference to current projects around the world. These topics include: * Radiometric measurement campaigns;* Equipment calibration, installation, operation, and maintenance;* Data quality assurance and assessment;* Solar radiation modelling from satellite images and numerical models;* Downscaling and kriging interpolation of solar radiation;* Simulation of electric solar power plant generation;* Solar radiation forecasting;* Applications of solar energy; and* Socio-economic benefits of solar energy. The contributors present the statistical and physical models needed to derive solar radiation from satellite images and numerical models, emphasising the importance of measuring solar radiation accurately. They also show the classical models used to generate synthetic data, clear sky models and ancillary air quality and meteorological data from different input sources. Solar Resources Mapping provides industry professionals with methodologies and tools to build solar irradiance maps for different applications. The book will also benefit students and researchers as it serves as a main technical reference, presenting the basic terminology and fundamentals for solar resource mapping that include methods for assessing measurement uncertainty.

This Handbook assembles new contributions from influential authors such as Herman Daly, Paul Ekins, Marina Fischer-Kowalski, Jeroen van den Bergh, William E. Rees, Peter Bartelmus and Tim Jackson, who have helped define our understanding of growth and sustainability, as well as new thinking on topics such as degrowth, the debt-based financial system, cultural change, energy return on investment, shorter working hours and employment, and innovation and technology. Explorations of these issues can deepen our understanding of whether growth is sustainable and, in turn, whether a move away from growth can be sustained. With issues such as climate change looming large, our understanding of growth and sustainability is critical. This Handbook offers a broad range of perspectives that can help the reader decide: growth? Sustainability? Both? Or neither? Contributions are drawn from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives including economics, sociology, political science, philosophy, engineering and journalism, placing the work of established luminaries alongside emerging scholars who offer fresh new perspectives. A special section dedicated to exploring 'growth imperatives' that make transitioning away from economic growth difficult is provided, and the book includes a focus on cultural change and economic growth. Scholars, students and practitioners interested in ecological economics, sustainability and environmental studies will all find much of value in this multifaceted and comprehensive volume. Contributors: P. Bartelmus, B. Bartkowski, H.S. Brown, H. Daly, B. Dolter, P. Ekins, K.-H. Erb, M. Fischer-Kowalski, T. Green, H. Haberl, M. Hadjikakou, C. Hall, A. Hayden, T. Jackson, G. Kallis, A. Levy, R. Matthais, J. Meadowcroft, M. Paez-Victor, S. Pressman, S. Quilley, W. Rees, H. Schindler, F. Schneider, R. Scott, F. Sekulova, J. Steinberger, S. Strunz, P. Timmerman, J. Van Den Bergh, P.J. Vergragt, P.A Victor, T. Wiedmann

This book highlights China's theoretical advances and practical actions toward climate risk prevention in 2019. It provides both an overview and detailed discussion of specific topics, including case studies. The general report assesses the latest changes in the climate system both globally and in China, and identifies areas most susceptible to the impact of climate change. This is followed by topical reports on issues such as global climate governance, China's strategy in climate negotiations, the carbon trade, climate insurance, domestic actions to address climate concerns, including specific solutions to local challenges and achievements made by cities in China. Written by top experts in the field from Research Institute for Eco-civilization of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and National Climate Center of China Meteorological Administration, the book aims to inform the readers on recent development and progress in climate risk prevention.

The widely accepted need to reduce the world's dependence on fossil fuels and move instead to low-carbon, renewable alternatives faces a host of challenges. Whilst the greatest challenges remain in engineering, political and public policy issues continue to play a very important role. This volume, which consists of contributions from leading figures in the field, presents the case for a Sustainable Energy Trade Agreement (SETA). It shows that by addressing barriers to trade in goods and services relevant for the supply of clean energy, such an agreement would foster the crucial scaling-up of clean energy supply and promote a shift away from fossil fuels. In doing so it illustrates how the agreement would help to address a number of overarching sustainable development priorities, including the urgent threat of climate change, enhanced energy access and improved energy security. The book will appeal to academics and policymakers working on the interface of trade and energy policy.

This book gathers contributions from a multidisciplinary research team comprised of control engineering and economics researchers and formed to address a central interdisciplinary social issue, namely economically enabled energy management. The book's primary focus is on achieving optimal energy management that is viable from both an engineering and economic standpoint. In addition to the theoretical results and techniques presented, several chapters highlight experimental case studies, which will benefit academic researchers and practitioners alike. The first three chapters present comprehensive overviews of respective social contexts, underscore the pressing need for economically efficient energy management systems and academic work on this emerging research topic, and identify fundamental differences between approaches in control engineering and economics. In turn, the next three chapters (Chapters 4-6) provide economics-oriented approaches to the subject. The following five chapters (Chapters 7-11) address optimal energy market design, integrating both physical and economic models. The book's last three chapters (Chapters 12-14) mainly focus on the engineering aspects of next-generation energy management, though economic factors are also shown to play important roles.

This book addresses growing tensions in Northeast Asia, notably between North Korea and China. Focusing on China's economic participation in North Korea's minerals and fishery industries, the author explores the role of China's sub-state and non-state actors in implementing China's foreign economic policy towards North Korea. The book discusses these actors' impact on the regional order in Northeast Asia, particularly in the Korean Peninsula. The project also provides a comprehensive and up-to-date account of China's cultural and economic activities in North Korea as implemented by both the historically traditional actors in Jilin and Liaoning provinces in Northeast China, and new actors from coastal areas (Shandong and Zhejiang provinces) and inland provinces (Chongqing and Henan) to Zhejiang province. It argues that in the era of economic decentralisation, Chinese sub-state and non-state actors can independently deal with most of their economic affairs without the need for permission from the central government in Beijing. A key read for scholars and students interested in Asian history, politics and economics, and specifically the East Asian situation, this text offers an in-depth analysis of recent activity concerning the Sino-DPRK economic relationship.

This volume presents new developments in the research on ancillary benefits. Twenty years after the influential OECD report on ancillary benefits, the authors discuss theoretical innovations and offer new empirical findings on various ancillary effects in different world regions. Covering topics such as ancillary health effects associated with reduced air pollution, the influence of ancillary benefits on international cooperation on climate protection, co-effects of carbon capture and storage, ancillary effects of adaptation to climate change, multi-criteria decision analysis covering multiple effects of climate protection actions, and the analysis of primary and ancillary effects within an impure public goods framework, it provides starting points for further research on integrated climate policies seeking to address a range of policy objectives simultaneously.

This book provides a detailed coverage of how the circular economy aims to change the paradigm in relation to the linear economy, by limiting the environmental impact and waste of resources, as well as increasing efficiency at all stages of the product economy. It serves as the sole comprehensive overview of the role of biofuels in the circular economy. It contains updated information on the latest trends of techno-economic analysis of biofuels, economic transitions, low-carbon economies, green circular societies, and life cycle assessment of biofuels. This book delves deep into the economic security of the poor as well as the nexus between biofuel industry and global trade bodies, making it one of the few introductory books without bias toward the contribution of biofuels in circular economy. With its diverse contributions on themes such as biofuels as potential alternatives to fossil fuels, biofuel economics and policies; biofuel standards, blending, and future insecurities; economic transitions from biomass to biofuels; and biofuel economy, development, and food security, the book would be a great resource for a wide and multi-disciplinary readership base ranging from researchers to academics, policy makers, innovators, corporates, and non-profit organizations working in this area.

Transforming Urban Transport brings into focus the origins and implementation pathways of significant urban transport innovations that have recently been adopted in major, democratically governed world cities that are seeking to advance sustainability aims. It documents how proponents of new transportation initiatives confronted a range of administrative, environmental, fiscal, and political obstacles by using a range of leadership skills, technical resources, and negotiation capacities to move a good idea from the drawing board to implementation. The book's eight case studies focus on cities of great interest across the globe-Los Angeles, Mexico City, New York, Paris, San Francisco, Seoul, Stockholm, and Vienna-many of which are known for significant mayor leadership and efforts to rescale power from the nation to the city. The cases highlight innovations likely to be of interest to transport policy makers from all corners, such as strengthening public transportation services, vehicle and traffic management measures, repurposing roads and other urban spaces away from their initial function as vehicle travel corridors, and turning sidewalks and city streets into more pedestrian-friendly places for walking, cycling, and leisure. Aside from their transformative impacts in transportation terms, many of the policy innovations examined here have altered planning institutions, public-private sector relations, civil society commitments, and governance mandates in the course of implementation. In bringing these cases to the fore, Transforming Urban Transport advances understanding of the conditions under which policy interventions can expand institutional capacities and governance mandates, particularly linked to urban sustainability. As such, it is an essential contribution to larger debates about what it takes to make cities more environmentally sustainable and the types of strategies and tactics that best advance progress on these fronts in both the short- and the long-term.

Dynamic Decisions highlights how some managers and policymakers sleepwalk into decision paralysis. Strategically, they partly recognise their world is changing radically as energy systems transition. In deciding what to invest in, they default to rewarding the predictable and proven, often misdiagnosing the ignored risks of innately ambiguous markets. To remedy this, the author frames ambiguity as a source of opportunity. As extant advantages obsolesce, new entrants could disrupt to gain dominance. Some managers could repurpose, reframe, and reconfigure their resources and processes to create tomorrow's profitable niches today. To profit from these emerging business landscapes, managers can PIVOT and BOUnCE to win by transitioning into a dynamic mindset. Endowed with a creative mind to innovate, humans could reshape their firms and their societies. Armed with these capabilities, albeit partial, managers could choose to adapt responsive strategic actions that are tangible, actionable, and achievable, with policy sustaining societal benefits by expanding people's access to opportunities.Dynamic Decisions is written for managers and policymakers that seek to benefit their firms and communities in how they conduct their business and themselves. Connecting theory to practice with actual business cases, this book is organised into four clusters that act as building blocks to structure the reader's decision-making process. Through experimentation, learning, and adaptation, the reader of Dynamic Decisions will redirect their strategic actions that are necessary to nurture tomorrow's profitable niches today.

Recently, the public attention has turned toward the intricate interrelation between economic growth and global warming. This book focuses on this nexus but broadens the framework to study the issue. Growth is seen as global growth, which affects the global environment and climate change. Global growth, in particular high economic growth rates, imply a fast depletion of renewable and non-renewable resources.
Thus this book deals with the impact of the environment and the effect of the exhaustive use of natural resources on economic growth and welfare of market economies as well as the reverse linkage. It is arranged in three parts: Part I of the book discusses the environment and growth. There, Greiner and Semmler incorporate the role of environmental pollution into modern endogenous growth models and use recently developed dynamic methods and techniques to derive appropriate abatement activities that policymakers can institute. Part II looks at global climate change using these same growth models. Here, too, the authors provide direct and transparent policy implications. More specifically, the authors favour tax measures, such as a carbon tax, over emission trading as instruments of mitigation policies. Part III evaluates the use and overuse of renewable and non-renewable resources in the context of a variety of dynamic models. They, in particular, consider the cases when resources interact as an ecological system and analyze issues of ownership of resources as well as policy measures to avoid the overuse of resources. In addition, not only intertemporal resource allocation but also the eminent issues relating to intertemporal inequities, as well as policy measures to overcomethem, are discussed in each part of the book.

This book addresses major issues such as a growing world energy demand, environmental degradation due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emission, and risk management of disastrous events such as pandemics, abnormal climate, and earthquakes. Using cutting-edge analytical tools, particularly computable general equilibrium (CGE) modelling, the analyses are focused on a very wide range of policy-relevant economic questions for the Asia-Pacific region, especially for Japan, China, India, Vietnam, and smaller nations, including Brunei, Timor Leste, and Fiji. The first part considers (a) the effects of climate change on agriculture sectors, energy policies, and future GHG emission trends, (b) adaptation to climate changes in energy policy and its impacts on the economies, and (c) risk management of catastrophic events such as global pandemics. The second part examines (a) energy environmental issues, (b) economic impacts of natural disaster and depopulation, and (c) effects of informatics development on risk management, using CGE modelling and other methods in regional science fields. Contributors are internationally active leading CGE modellers and environmental economists. The book should be greatly beneficial for scholars and graduate students as well as policy makers who are interested in the economic effects and management of risks relating to climate change and disastrous events.

It is increasingly apparent that capitalism cannot stave off the truly frightening ecological disasters that threaten the future of life on earth. Is it an accident that the strongest and most capitalist economic force in the world, the US, is also that force that is most prone to the denial of the enormous dangers of global warming? While capitalism is a global force, it is not supported by the majority of the world, and much more thought and action is needed to integrate and globalize movements against oppression, injustice and ecological destruction. While changes at a local level are important and more feasible in our current world, ultimately changes at a global level may have greater long-term importance, and we need to greatly expand theorizations and mobilizations in this direction now. Robert Albritton proposes 'practical utopias' as a process of thinking by which short-term changes tend in the direction of desirable changes in the long term.

In this innovative book the author examines the link between environmental, trade and industrial policies within an interregional setting. He models how regional governments, using tax rates on real capital and pollutant emissions, determine policies to favour their residents in terms of the provision of public goods and reduction in environmental degradation.Regions or countries engage in competition for mobile capital in a world where production causes pollution and tax revenues are required to finance public goods. In Fiscal Policy and Environmental Welfare the author considers the efficiency consequences when governments act strategically and seek to manage trade, capital flows and emissions. Using formal models, which extend and modify existing literature, the author demonstrates that interjurisdictional competition typically leads to inefficiencies. He argues that although interjurisdictional competition may lead to the overprovision of public goods and to an inefficiently high environmental quality, often the opposite seems to occur. This book will be welcomed by environmental economists, and those scholars interested in welfare and fiscal policy.

This book uses a critical political economy approach to develop an historically and politically grounded set of strategies for states to move toward a post-growth, decarbonised global economy. It begins by examining the social and ecological costs of and limits to economic growth and determines that significant decarbonisation of the global economy can only be achieved if conventional growth-based economies are replaced by an alternative post-growth economy. Set apart from many other works in the field by its critical political economy approach to policy development, this book offers the reader three distinctive features. First, it places the analysis in historical context in order to demonstrate how the global political economy is constantly changing with respect to distributions of wealth, power and fundamental norms, and explores how states might harness and transform these contingent patterns in a post-growth direction. Second, the book is not only concerned with developing and advocating post-growth policies, but also with how these measures can be incorporated into the high-level domestic and international strategies pursued by states to ensure their political legitimacy and economic and geopolitical survival. Third, rather than proposing an idealised and politically naive model of socioecological transformation, the proposed post-growth policy framework is highly cognisant of the geopolitical and international economic pressures facing states and demonstrates how these can be managed in the transition toward a post-growth economy. This book represents an invaluable resource for policymakers, academics, activists and students wishing to study or contribute to the transition to a post-growth, decarbonised economy.

This book explores the impacts of current mining licensing regimes in Africa and how they influence sustainable development principles. International law and conventions on mining are used as a lens to examine a regionalized perspective of the history of mining law and customary land law. Alternative approaches are then suggested, through a comparative and sovereignty-based study of mining laws and policies, to see how the challenge of uneven development can be combatted using minerals. This book aims to highlight how mineral possessions can transform communities if the economic policies, customary law structures, and the geopolitical landscape guarantee inclusivity and equal partnerships. It will be relevant to researchers and policymakers interested in mineral economics, mining law, and African economies.

This book discusses sustainable development decision-making. Focusing on decisions to invest in wind turbine technology as part of a corporation's CO2 emission reduction strategy, it presents a new evaluation framework, based on the triple bottom line framework widely used by businesses to communicate their adherence to corporate social responsibility. This new framework allows the evaluation of strategic corporate decisions to invest in wind turbines to mitigate global warming in the context of a corporation's social responsibility, and includes an objective measurement stage to add rigor to the evaluation process. The book describes the use of measured data from wind turbine projects to both develop and validate the methodology, and also identifies key enablers and barriers as businesses attempt to successfully integrate corporate social responsibility into their overall business strategy. Given its scope, the book appeals to postgraduate students, researchers, and business professionals interested in the environmental impact of corporations. Featuring case studies from Ireland, it is particularly relevant to audiences within Europe.

Consumption, Jobs and the Environment argues that the present pattern of development, based on everlasting economic growth, is completely unsatisfactory from a welfare point of view. It threatens ecological catastrophe while perpetuating poverty. Roy Carr-Hill and John Lintott propose an alternative policy framework based explicitly on welfare and suggest where cuts in consumption, working hours and ecological risks might be made most usefully.

The Economics of Globally Shared and Public Goods responds to an urgent need to consolidate and refine the economic theories and explanations pertinent to globally shared resources. Making a clear distinction between theories and empirical models, it elucidates the problem of global public goods while incorporating insights from behavioral economics. Its comprehensive and technical review of existing theoretical models and their empirical results illuminate those models in practical applications. Relevant for economists and others working on challenges of globally shared goods such as climate change and global catastrophes, The Economics of Globally Shared and Public Goods provides a path toward greater co-operation and shared successes.

A Dictionary of Climate Change and the Environment bridges the gap between the many disciplines encompassing climate change, environmental economics, environmental sciences, and environmental studies. It defines a comprehensive set of over 3700 words used across these fields to help policy makers, students, and professionals achieve a holistic view of environmental issues. The dictionary also features: introductory primers to major topic areas; recommended reading for particular topics and specific words or concepts; and seven appendices, including a catalog of scientific symbols, units, and conversions, as well as an expansive listing and description of selected environmental treaties. The extensive and accessible nature of the content renders this book an indispensible reference for practitioners requiring an informed and balanced description of key concepts and issues. This resource will be extremely valuable to policy makers and professionals working on climate change and other environmental issues, and to postgraduate and undergraduate students in climate change and environmental studies, as well as to academics and other practitioners working on multidisciplinary environmental issues outside their area of expertise.

The international community is increasingly confronted with global environmental problems, which lead to distributional conflicts, unresolved equity issues and asymmetric distribution of the costs and benefits of environmental policy. The complexity of such problems requires the development of an international institutional framework, capable of coping with the long-run international aspects of global environmental change. This book analyses some of the difficulties in the construction of such a framework and offers suggestions on how they might be overcome. The contributions in The Economics of Global Environmental Change address international trade, land-use change, biodiversity preservation, the management of water resources and the composition of water-related conflicts, global warming and strategic aspects of international environmental agreements. This book provides an in-depth insight to the current state-of-the-art for both economists and non-economists interested in global environmental change. It will also be of great interest to those wanting an introduction to the economic perspective of an increasingly relevant environmental core problem, as well as to students and researchers in political science.

This book focuses on carbon dioxide and its global role in our everyday life. Starting with society's dependency on energy, it demonstrates the various sources of carbon dioxide and discusses the putative effects of its accumulation in the atmosphere and its impact on the climate. It then provides an overview of how we can reduce carbon dioxide production and reviews innovative technologies and alternative energy resources. The book closes with a perspective on how carbon dioxide can be utilized reasonably and how mimicking nature can provide us with a solution. Using simple language, this book discusses one of today's biggest challenges for the future of our planet in a way that is understandable for the general public. The authors also provide deep insights into specific issues, making the book a useful resource for researchers and students.

This open access book evaluates, from an economic perspective, various measures introduced in Japan to prevent climate change. Although various countries have implemented such policies in response to the pressing issue of climate change, the effectiveness of those programs has not been sufficiently compared. In particular, policy evaluations in the Asian region are far behind those in North America and Europe due to data limitations and political reasons. The first part of the book summarizes measures in different sectors in Japan to prevent climate change, such as emissions trading and carbon tax, and assesses their impact. The second part shows how those policies have changed the behavior of firms and households. In addition, it presents macro-economic simulations that consider the potential of renewable energy. Lastly, based on these comprehensive assessments, it compares the effectiveness of measures to prevent climate change in Japan and Western countries. Providing valuable insights, this book will appeal to both academic researchers and policymakers seeking cost-effective measures against climate change.

This book examines the economics of natural resource markets and pricing, as well as the field of natural resource economics in general. It presents the key contributions to this field of research, including the pioneering works and contemporary studies. The book highlights the basic principles and ideas underlying theoretical models of resource pricing. The models considered in the book underline the fundamental determinants of resource prices and the economic nature of rents for non-renewable and renewable resources. Besides the classical theory of exhaustible resource economics, the book includes several issues that are of high importance for global economic growth, such as the transition to alternative energy and the economics of climate change. The authors also consider the issues of commodity pricing and a resource cartel's activity that are relevant to the world oil market. The book provides analytical solutions illustrated with numerical examples. It allows an intuitive understanding of the subject and the model inferences through graphical illustrations and an informal introduction. It, therefore, is a must-read for everybody interested in a better understanding of resource prices, resource markets, and resource economics.