Ecological Economics offers an authoritative overview of a rapidly developing discipline lying at the interface of economics, natural science and philosophy. This pioneering new book focuses on the concepts and methods required to integrate sciences and humanities in order to build ecological economics.Ecological Economics as a practice seeks to comprehend the evolving interactions between humans and the natural world. Ranging across the discipline from its conceptual and philosophical foundations to problems of global warming and waste production in the chemicals industry, the authors confidently address the central dilemma of control over nature by humans ignorant of the environmental impacts of their actions. Faber, Manstetten and Proops argue convincingly for an evolutionary approach to human-nature interactions and for the use of natural science concepts, such as entropy. Students and researchers concerned with environmental, resource and ecological economics will welcome Ecological Economics as a convincing and innovative approach to the creation of a discipline capable of contributing to a new relationship between human and non-human nature.

This book examines the implementation of, the spread of, and compliance with emerging global norms. Based on empirical country studies on the implementation of transparency norms defined by the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) - a multi-stakeholder process seeking to promote global standards for the transparent and accountable management of oil, gas and mineral resources -, it investigates the various factors and motivations affecting actors with regard to norm compliance. The book demonstrates that compliance with global norms depends on a combination of various factors, including motivations and conditions for introducing norms into the domestic political space; local actors' level of commitment to the norm; and their capacity for norm compliance. Given its scope, the book will appeal to all international relations scholars interested in processes of norm localisation, compliance, and contestation.

Elgar Advanced Introductions are stimulating and thoughtful introductions to major fields in the social sciences and law, expertly written by the world?s leading scholars. Designed to be accessible yet rigorous, they offer concise and lucid surveys of the substantive and policy issues associated with discrete subject areas. 'Ecological economics has roots in numerous disciplines including various branches of economics, ecology, physics, systems analysis and the study of technology. In his succinct Advanced Introduction to Ecological Economics, Matthias Ruth shows how each of these lines of intellectual inquiry has contributed to the development of ecological economics. He covers its history, main findings and current issues closing with a valuable discussion of complexity and the challenges for analysis and management in a full world.' - Peter A. Victor, York University, Canada Any human endeavor is shaped by, and shapes, changes in the physical and biological environment. In this Advanced Introduction, Matthias Ruth draws on a diverse set of theories, methods and applications to critically assess key concepts in ecological economics. Understanding biophysical foundations of economic growth and development is at the core of ecological economics. The author provides a precise introduction to the interdependencies between economic and environmental change, focusing on the fundamental dependence of the economy on the environment, as a provider of energy, materials and waste assimilation services. Key features include:? an advanced introduction to theories, methods and applications of ecological economics that are reflective rather than enumerative? clarification of the differences between traditional resource and environmental economics? valuable insights from the Global South as well as from experiences in industrialized countries to explore the topic in depth. Offering a unique insight into a field that is still in its formative years of development, this concise and accessible Advanced Introduction will greatly benefit students, researchers and instructors in environmental science and ecological economics.

This book provides authoritative and up-to-date research for anyone interested in the study of international environmental politics. It demonstrates how the field of international environmental politics has evolved and identifies key questions, topics and approaches to guide future research.

In an increasingly interdependent world, marked by growing numbers of non-governmental organizations and international institutions, American Foreign Environmental Policy presents a powerful argument for the continued relevance of the state to our understanding of international relations. Drawing on detailed primary research, the author examines the key role central state officials have played in formulating American foreign environmental policy, and concludes that claims for the diminishing domestic-international divide, and the erosion of state sovereignty are overstated. Nonetheless, in arguing forcefully that the focus for explanation should lie with politics inside the institutions of state, Hopgood rejects Realist, Pluralist, and Marxist accounts of foreign-policy making. His state-centric focus allows for domestic and international factors to play a role at the same time as stressing that, in foreign environmental politics at least, the state remains the dominant policy-making institution. This pathbreaking study represents a major contribution to International Relations theory, whilst at the same time, offering a wealth of fascinating, original, empirical research which will be of interest to all those working in the field of environmental studies.

This book analyses the potentials and consequences of a change from production-based to consumption-based approaches in international climate policy. With the help of an analytical model, the author investigates the effects of different policy variants on environmental effectiveness, cost-effectiveness, carbon leakage, competitiveness and the global distribution of income. The economic, legal and political background and the often contradictory findings on consumption-based approaches are reviewed in great detail. In the final chapters, options for practical policy design are developed. The book concludes that a switch to consumption orientation is not a policy tool whereby industrialized countries can unilaterally improve climate policy effectiveness, but should rather be seen as a possible intermediate step on the way to a fully multilateral mitigation strategy.

The African Red Sea Littoral, currently divided between Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Djibouti, is one of the poorest regions in the world. But the pastoralist communities indigenous to this region were not always poor-historically, they had access to a variety of resources that allowed them to prosper in the harsh, arid environment. This access was mediated by a robust moral economy of pastoralism that acted as a social safety net. Steven Serels charts the erosion of this moral economy, a slow-moving process that began during the Little Ice Age mega-drought of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and continued through the devastating famines of the twentieth century. By examining mass sedentarization after the Second World War as merely the latest manifestation of an inter-generational environmental and economic crisis, this book offers an innovative lens for understanding poverty in northeastern Africa.

This book compiles examples of the most widely used tools in agricultural economics that have been developed and used to analyze the impact of global change in agricultural activity. The research papers on this topic are plenty but lack the methodology. The content of this book can be used by research students exploring additional methods in agricultural economics.

The capitalist mode of destruction traces contemporary capitalism's economic, ecological and democratic crises. Combining insights from a range of disciplines, including psychology, sociology and political economy, Panayotakis interprets these crises as manifestations of a previously unrecognized contradiction: over time, the benefits of capitalism's technological dynamism tend to decline even as its threats to humanity and the planet continue to mount. To explain this contradiction, the book analyzes the production and distribution of surplus in capitalist societies and rethinks the concept of surplus itself. Identifying the public sector and households as sites of production no less important than the workplace, this book attributes capitalism's contradictions to working people's lack of control over the surplus they produce. This lack of control is undemocratic and threatens the planet. Only a classless society, in which working people democratically determine the size and use of the surplus they produce, can effectively respond to our current predicament. Recognizing such a democratic classless society as the essence of the communist ideal, the book argues that, far from becoming obsolete, this ideal is ever more indispensable. But since the necessity of this ideal does not guarantee its realization, the book also investigates the conditions necessary for the formation of an anti-capitalist alliance for social justice, democracy and ecological sustainability. This book is relevant to United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 12, Responsible consumption and production -- .

This collection of essays brings together discussions arguing that the circular economy must be linked to society and culture in order to create a viable concept for remodelling the economy. Covering a diverse range of topics and regions, including cities and living, food and human waste, packaging and law, fashion, design and art, this book provides a multi-layered examination of circularity. Transitioning to a circular economy, reducing resource input and waste, and narrowing material and energy loops are becoming an increasingly important targets to combat decades of unsustainable models of consumption. However, they will require a significant shift in social and cultural thinking and these dimensions have not yet been factored into policy debates and frameworks. While recognising the key role of individual consumers and their behaviours, the book goes beyond this singular perspective to provide equal focus on institutional and political structures as necessary drivers for real change. Social and Cultural Aspects of the Circular Economy argues for a social and solidarity economy (SSE) to combine individual actions with a wider cultural shift. It will be an important read for scholars, researchers, students and policy-makers in the circular economy, waste studies, consumption and other environmentally focused social sciences.

A challenge facing society today is how to develop a meaningful strategy for integrated hazardous waste management. Meeting this challenge was the principal motivation for the conference on "Risk Assessment and Risk Management Strategies for Hazardous Waste Storage and Disposal Prob lems," held at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania on May 18-19, 1988. The conference brought together representatives from the major interested parties - environmentalists, government, insurance, law, manufacturing, and the university community - who have been con cerned with the waste management process. The conference was the third cosponsored by the Wharton Center for Risk and Decision Processes addressing the knotty problem of hazardous waste. The first, held at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in 1985, examined the transportation, storage, and disposal of hazardous materials. It suggested steps that industry, insurers, and gov ernment agencies could take to improve the safety and efficiency with which hazardous materials are produced and controlled in industrialized societies. Specifically, it focused on the risk-management tools of insurance, com pensation, and regulation. xv xvi PREFACE The second conference, held at the Wharton School, University of Penn sylvania in 1986, concentrated on the role of insurance and compensation in environmental pollution problems. It characterized a set of problems related to the environmental pollution liability insurance crisis as presented by key interested parties and proposed a set of research needs for providing a sound basis for constructing socially appropriate measures to deal with the problem."

This book argues that the theory of sustainable development lost some of its rigor because of two main reasons. The first manifests itself as an inflation of concepts that hampers the correct understanding of sustainability's essence. The second one consists of a departure from the traditional scientific sources of the classicists and, in part, neoclassicists. Exploiting relevant areas of their works, the authors outline the theoretical framework necessary to promote a healthy version of sustainability. Of utmost interest prove to be areas such as: the formation process of natural prices and natural rate of interest; placing growth before employment and placing production before distribution, consumption, and social justice. The main idea of the book consists of a call for breaking away from the impure forms of the theory of sustainable development and its reconstruction through the reconciliation with the laws of healthy growth as they are highlighted in the works of the founders. The authors make the case for an approach to sustainable development that is holistic, macroeconomic, and institutionalist, where social, ecological, and economic components are reconciled. This work presents a fresh perspective in the context of current works on sustainability, serving as an accessible research resource and public policy decision guide.

Part of the Ecology of Indonesia series, this text presents extensive baseline data on the region's natural history, peoples, ecosystems, biodiversity, and land-use. It discusses these in historical context, as well as in the context of the socio-economic development of the region. Highly illustrated, and accessible to readers with an interest in the region, it also provides guidelines for scientific researchers on worthwhile ecological and socio-economic research projects. It should be valuable to individuals involved in development planning and environmental management within the region.

We have undertaken this volume in the belief that there is now sufficient research completed on environmental risk to justify a retrospective assessment of what is known. Our authors and our intended audience are eclectic indeed. Environ mental risk assessment receives increasing attention in the media today. The populace is practically assaulted with stories, with anecdotes, and with conflicting evidence. It is our hope that these chapters will provide the reader with a comprehensive glimpse of a fast-growing field in public policy. No complete survey of the literature would be possible or meaningful. We offer here instead the integrative thoughts of some of the most respected analysts in the field. We believe that the coverage is coherent, the perspectives are illuminating, and the individual "treatments deserving of careful study. We are grateful to Warren Samuels of Michigan State University who is editor of the Kluwer series on recent economic thought. We are also grateful to our Kluwer editor, Zach Rolnik. Both have been gracious in their toleration of unconscionable delays. IX The Social Response to Environmental Risk Policy Formulation in an Age of Uncertainty 1 ENTITLEMENTS AND PUBLIC POLICY IN ENVIRONMENTAL RISKS Daniel W. Bromley* all rights] are conditional and derivative ... they are derived from the end or purpose of the society in which they exist. They are conditional on being used to the attainment of that end."

The global expansion of irrigated lands during the 20th century and beyond continues to contribute to food production, but also degrades the environment significantly. The consequent search for policy remedies has stimulated a vital body of economic research. The issues addressed in this comprehensive collection of previously published articles include the effects of existing government intervention on the environmental impacts of agriculture, the economic costs and benefits of environmental regulations for agriculture, and the economic and environmental merits of alternative mechanisms for water allocation and water quality protection. In this volume the editors present a sampling of economic research on the interface of irrigated agriculture with the environment. The articles included are by leading researchers in this field and span the topics of nonpoint pollution control, salinity management, and the allocation of water.

The blue economy, comprising coastal and marine resources, offers vast benefits for sub-Saharan Africa: of the 53 countries and territories in the region, 32 are coastal states; there are 13 million sq km of maritime zones; more than 90% of the region's exports and imports come by sea; and the African Union hails the blue economy as the 'new frontier of African renaissance'. Despite their importance, the region's coastal and marine resources have been neither fully appreciated nor fully utilized. They are only now being recognized as being key to Africa's potential prosperity. As the region grows, it has, in general, not taken adequate safeguards to protect these valuable resources. That is partly because some of the problems (pollution, for example) are regional and know no borders. All too often, short-term gains are made at the expense of the long term (overfishing, for example). This book provides, for the first time, a study of the constraints and opportunities the blue economy offers for sub-Saharan Africa. It includes an introduction and overview; sectoral analyses (including tourism, fisheries, mineral resources, culture, shipping and maritime safety); country case studies; and analyses of regional and international efforts towards better coastal zone and marine management.

* New chapter specifically on electric vehicles * Increased international focus, with more examples from outside the USA * Pedagogical features including learning objectives at the start of each chapter, in-chapter questions and end-of-chapter suggested online activities * Student companion website material: multiple choice questions and homework exercises * Instructor companion website material: lecture slides, solution files for instructors; suggested questions for discussion forums to increase engagement; and activities to achieve the chapter learning objectives, including quizzes with answers, that instructors can use to assess student attainment

This book is a comprehensive economic and legal study of the theoretical and practical aspects of the problems of increasing energy efficiency; self-motivation of energy saving by business entities within the framework of their corporate responsibility; regulatory mechanisms to stimulate energy conservation in the economy; civil-law regulation of foreign trade turnover of energy resources between economic entities of the Russian Federation and companies of member states of international integration associations - the CIS, EEMP, the EU and BRICS. It argues that technological energy saving plays a key role in reducing the energy intensity and increasing the energy efficiency of the economy, and substantiates the need for institutional support - including legal support for the participation of the Russian Federation - in various forms of international cooperation. Lastly, based on an analysis of current legislation, programs and recommendations, judicial and contractual practices, customs and trade procedures, it offers proposals for the developing, improving and unifying civil law regulation of obligations in the sphere of international trade in energy resources, as well as methodological recommendations for drafting foreign trade contracts in the energy sector.

There are many studies confirming the relationship between financial systems and economic development, but there are few which examine the degree to which financial systems a) impact the quality of information, b) influence sound corporate governance, c) ensure effective mechanisms of risk management, d) mobilize savings and f) facilitate trade. In the context of sustainability, there should also be a line of inquiry into how a particular financial system influences the assurance and implementation of sustainable development principles and goals. This book delivers a methodological approach to designing and assessing sustainable financial systems. It provides an original contribution by prioritizing ESG factors in the decision-making process of financial institutions and identifying their impact on sustainable financial systems. The author argues that to achieve financial stability, it is necessary to have in place mechanisms designed to prevent financial problems from becoming systemic and/or threatening the stability of the financial and economic system, while maintaining (or not undermining) the economy's ability to sustain growth and perform its other functions. The book primarily takes a simulation and experimental approach. It is the first book to take such a comprehensive look at sustainable financial systems as opposed to sustainable finance in general. It will appeal to academics, students and researchers in the fields of economics, finance and banking, business, management and political and social sciences.

As the world plans for economic recovery following the global COVID-19 pandemic, major economies are looking to comprehensive strategies for addressing carbon risks and identifying green finance opportunities. Since Bank of England Governor Mark Carney and Michael Bloomberg began tackling climate change as a financial concern, the international financial community has been developing sophisticated analytical tools that will enable the success of comprehensive efforts to address carbon risks and identify green finance opportunities. This timely publication offers a cutting-edge analysis of the financial aspects of climate change. It discusses the most important analytical tools, their origin, how they work, where they can go, and how they fit into a larger strategy. First, reporting frameworks can allow companies to see how well they are addressing carbon risks, in particular with respect to the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures. Second, by quantifying how much greenhouse gas companies emit into the atmosphere as a direct or indirect result of their operations, carbon footprint calculations can help identify carbon risks with particular companies, especially within supply chains. Third, brown taxonomies can help investors identify current carbon risks by classifying fossil fuel assets in a systematic manner. Fourth, green taxonomies can help investors identify current green finance opportunities by classifying sustainable activities in a systematic manner. Fifth, scenario analysis for assets can help investors identify future carbon risks and green finance opportunities. Finally, stress testing for liabilities can help insurers and banks address future carbon risks and better inform policymakers. Scholars, policymakers, and business professionals will find this book informative. They will gain a comprehensive understanding of the analytical tools supporting efforts to address carbon risks and identify green finance opportunities. This will hopefully make these individuals more successful in their personal endeavors to build a more sustainable and resilient economy for future generations.

This book describes official statistics as a tool to hold up a mirror to society - but also as an instrument for those who can manipulate this mirror. It addresses the precarious interaction of politics, official statistics, and ethical principles. Three sets of themes can be derived from this relationship, which are the focus of this book: Political systems and guiding principles, official statistics as a science of the state, and ethical issues arising from them. Ultimately, the determining factor is the political system that exists in each case. The book contains eleven chapters. The first three focus on the key concepts of the book: power and morality, official statistics and policy making, and ethical principles for statistical work. Three further chapters focus on episodes that illustrate, as "drastic" examples, the misuse of official statistics over the past hundred years, covering the situation in the Soviet Union, the Third Reich and Greece. The remaining five chapters take up current topics that pose particular challenges to official statistics. These are the phenomena paraphrased by digitalisation, globalisation, happiness research, overpopulation, migration, the Covid-19 pandemic and climate change. The book is primarily aimed at statisticians working in national and international statistical institutions, but also at readers interested in statistics, national accounts, economic and statistics history, and ethical issues.

The book studies the relationship between economic agglomeration and environmental pollution from a spatial perspective through theoretical analyses and empirical discussions. At both microscopic and macroscopic levels, the author first explores the impact mechanism of the agglomeration of economic activities on environmental pollution and proposes research frameworks based on spatial economic theory and output density theory. Drawing on descriptive statistics and explorative spatial data from 283 cities in China, the book investigates the current development, spatial characteristics, influence path, and environmental efficiency of urban economic agglomeration and pollution in the People's Republic. The following empirical sections study spatial spillover effects, simultaneous bias and spatial interaction between agglomeration and pollution. The research findings give insight into interregional economic development, joint pollution control across regions, and the coordination of the two, especially in the context of developing countries. The title will appeal to researchers, students, government officials and policymakers interested in development economics, regional economics, urban economics, and environmental economics.

This book studies the extent to which nuclear safety issues have contributed towards the stagnation of nuclear power development around the world, and accounts for differences in safety regulations in different countries. In order to understand why nuclear development has not met widespread expectations, this book focusses on six key countries with active nuclear power programmes: the USA, China, France, South Korea, the UK, and Russia. The authors integrate cultural theory and theory of regulation, and examine the links between pressures of cultural bias on regulatory outcomes and political pressures which have led to increased safety requirements and subsequent economic costs. They discover that although nuclear safety is an important upward driver of costs in the nuclear power industry, this is influenced by the inherent need to control potentially dangerous reactions rather than stricter nuclear safety standards. The findings reveal that differences in the strictness of nuclear safety regulations between different countries can be understood by understanding differences in cultural contexts and the changes in this over time. This book will be of great interest to students, scholars, and policymakers working on energy policy and regulation, environmental politics and policy, and environment and sustainability more generally.

Using a philosophical and interdisciplinary approach, this book looks at how accountability can provide solutions to our current environmental and global political problems. When a social system has external elements imposed upon it, or presented to it, political problems are likely to emerge. This book demonstrates that what is needed are connecting social elements with a natural affinity to bring people together despite their differences. This book is different from others in the field. It provides new insights by critiquing the extant understandings of accountability and expands the possibilities by building on Charles Taylor's philosophies. Central to the argument of the book are perspectives on authenticity and expressivism which are found to provide a radical reworking of our understanding of being in the world, and a starting point for rethinking the way individuals and communities ought to be dealing politically with accountability and ecological crises. The argument builds to an accountability perspective that utilises work from interpretivism, liberalism, and postmodern theory. The book will be of interest to researchers in environmental philosophy, critical perspectives on accounting, corporate governance, corporate social reporting, and environmental accounting.