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Books > Earth & environment > The environment > Environmental economics > General
The World Health Organization confirmed COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11, 2020, causing vast impact on international economy. The coronavirus pandemic has given rise to an unprecedented global health and economic crises. Apart from the toll of early deaths, economic activities have been stalled and stock markets have tumbled, while a wide range of energy markets - including oil, gas and renewable energy - have been severely affected. This crisis The pandemic has stressed the critical value of the health care infrastructure and electricity infrastructure. In view of the above, while governments and policy makers respond to these interlinked crises, they must not lose sight of a major challenge of our time: clean energy transitions.The pandemic has continued to to slow down the recovery of economic activities and consumption due to combination of many factors such as economic recession, expensive storage, warm climate, and enormous uncertainty. Mitigation and adaptation policies are crucial to overcoming the crisis. The commodity futures market will depend on the effectiveness of decision-makers' policies in containing the COVID-19 outbreak and reducing the negative effect of the pandemic on economic activities. This book seeks to throw light on the adverse effects of COVID-19 through enhanced scientific and multi-disciplinary knowledge. The chapters in the book show that the energy, stock, crypto-currencies markets are vulnerable to the surge in coronavirus deaths.
This book takes a fresh approach to the puzzle of sub-Saharan Africa's resource curse. Moving beyond current scholarship's state-centric approach, it presents cutting-edge evidence gathered through interviews with mining company executives and industry representatives to demonstrate that firms are actively controlling the regulation of the gold mining sector. It shows how large mining firms with significant private authority in South Africa, Ghana and Tanzania are able to engender rules and regulations that are acknowledged by other actors, and in some cases even adopted by the state. In doing so, it establishes that firms are co-governing Africa's gold mining sector. By exploring the implications for resource-cursed states, this significant work argues that firm-led regulation can improve governance, but that many of these initiatives fail to address country/mine specific issues where there remains a role for the state in ensuring the benefits of mining flow to local communities. It will appeal to economists, political scientists, and policy-makers and practitioners working in the field of mining and extractives.
This book examines China's resource endowment and the country's current exploitation and use of resources and analyzes the main challenges and potential opportunities facing the country. It then discusses how to improve the efficiency with which resources are used by taking a 'full-life-cycle' approach to resource use. After summing up the evolution of China's policies and systems relating to resources and the environment, this book goes on to study how China's participation in global resource allocation and global resource governance has progressed under its open-economy situation, as well as challenges facing that participation. Based on all these analysis, the report proposes two targets for managing the total quantities of two specific metrics. That is, it recommends aiming to reach peak consumption of resources and peak emission of pollutants by 2030. In addition, it makes a number of specific policy recommendations. The China Development Research Foundation (CDRF) is a public foundation initiated by the Development Research Center of the State Council (DRC). Its mission is to advance good governance and public policy to promote economic development and social progress. The Foundation has approached its mandate in a number of ways, including support for evidence-based policy research, leadership training, high-level forums and symposiums to promote economic cooperation and development, and the promotion of responsible public policy. As China continues to move steadily ahead with policy reforms and investments for more inclusive development, the demands for research, transparent and accountable processes, and citizenship engagement are expanding. The Foundation is striving to meet these challenges and to coordinate policy research work which supports the work of government, civil society and enterprises in furthering equitable development in China.
This volume explores the dynamics of urbanisation in Northeast India. It discusses the impact of the process of urbanisation on the environment, infrastructure and socio-economic conditions of the region. The chapters in the book: Examine various challenges and opportunities of urbanisation, such as frontier urbanism, urban congestion, smart cities, vernacular architecture, urban water and waste management, cross-border migration and ethnicity. Draw attention to critical issues that have massively disturbed the urban landscape including deterioration of water quality, seismic activity and air pollution. Give alternatives that could present possible solutions to the problems afflicting this region. Drawing on case studies rooted in extensive fieldwork, this book will be indispensable to researchers and students of urban studies, human geography, development economics, cultural studies and South Asian studies. It will also be of interest to policy-makers, government representatives and town planners.
This book examines the link between population growth and environmental impact and explores the implications of this connection for the ethics of procreation. In light of climate change, species extinctions, and other looming environmental crises, Trevor Hedberg argues that we have a collective moral duty to halt population growth to prevent environmental harms from escalating. This book assesses a variety of policies that could help us meet this moral duty, confronts the conflict between protecting the welfare of future people and upholding procreative freedom, evaluates the ethical dimensions of individual procreative decisions, and sketches the implications of population growth for issues like abortion and immigration. It is not a book of tidy solutions: Hedberg highlights some scenarios where nothing we can do will enable us to avoid treating some people unjustly. In such scenarios, the overall objective is to determine which of our available options will minimize the injustice that occurs. This book will be of great interest to those studying environmental ethics, environmental policy, climate change, sustainability, and population policy.
Modelling Transitions shows what computational, formal and data-driven approaches can and could mean for sustainability transitions research, presenting the state-of-the-art and exploring what lies beyond. Featuring contributions from many well-known authors, this book presents the various benefits of modelling for transitions research. More than just taking stock, it also critically examines what modelling of transformative change means and could mean for transitions research and for other disciplines that study societal changes. This includes identifying a variety of approaches currently not part of the portfolios of transitions modellers. Far from only singing praise, critical methodological and philosophical introspection are key aspects of this important book. This book speaks to modellers and non-modellers alike who value the development of robust knowledge on transitions to sustainability, including colleagues in congenial fields. Be they students, researchers or practitioners, everyone interested in transitions should find this book relevant as reference, resource and guide.
Using the Regenerative economic model - also known as Doughnut Economics - Susan Hayward offers a thought-provoking sketch for a renewed, tentatively revolutionary approach to both film theory and film practice. This book attempts to answer the questions posed by T.J. Demos (in Against the Anthropocene, 2017): how do we find a way to address planetary harm and the issues it raises within the field of Film Studies? How do we construct a theoretical model that allows us to visualize the ecological transgressions brought about by the growth-model of capitalism which is heavily endorsed by mainstream narrative cinema? By turning to the model set out in Kate Raworth's book Doughnut Economics (2017) and adapting its fundamental principles to a study of narrative cinema, Film Ecology proposes to show how, by using this model, we can usefully plot and investigate films according to criteria that are not genre/star/auteur-led, nor indeed embedded in anthropocentric theoretical models, but principles which are ecologically based. These arguments are brought to life with examples from mainstream narrative films such as The Giant (1956), Mildred Pierce (1945), Erin Brockovich (2000), Wall Street (1987), Hotel Rwanda (2004), and Missing Figures (2016). This approach will inspire film practitioners, film theorists, critics and analysts, film students and film lovers alike to consider how they might integrate this Doughnut model into their thinking or work as part of their process.
This book presents essential advances in analytical frameworks and tools for modeling the spatial and economic impacts of disasters. In the wake of natural disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina, the Haiti Earthquake, and the East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami, as well as major terrorist attacks, the book analyzes disaster impacts from various perspectives, including resilience, space-time extensions, and decision-making strategies, in order to better understand how and to what extent these events impact economies and societies around the world. The contributing authors are internationally recognized experts from various disciplines, such as economics, geography, planning, regional science, civil engineering, and risk management. Thanks to the insights they provide, the book will benefit not only researchers in these and related fields, but also graduate students, disaster management professionals, and other decision-makers.
The Environmentalism of the Poor has the explicit intention of helping to establish two emerging fields of study - political ecology and ecological economics - whilst also investigating the relations between them. The book analyses several manifestations of the growing 'environmental justice movement', and also of 'popular environmentalism' and the 'environmentalism of the poor', which will be seen in the coming decades as driving forces in the process to achieve an ecologically sustainable society. The author studies, in detail, many ecological distribution conflicts in history and at present, in urban and rural settings, showing how poor people often favour resource conservation. The environment is thus not so much a luxury of the rich as a necessity of the poor. It concludes with the fundamental questions: who has the right to impose a language of valuation and who has the power to simplify complexity? Joan Martinez-Alier combines the study of ecological conflicts and the study of environmental valuation in a totally original approach that will appeal to a wide cross-section of academics, ecologists and environmentalists.
This volume explores institutional change and performance in the resource-rich Andean countries during the last resource boom and in the early post-boom years. The latest global commodity boom has profoundly marked the face of the resource-rich Andean region, significantly contributing to economic growth and notable reductions of poverty and income inequality. The boom also constituted a period of important institutional change, with these new institutions sharing the potential of preventing or mitigating the maladies extractive economies tend to suffer from, generally denominated as the "resource curse". This volume explores these institutional changes in the Andean region to identify the factors that have shaped their emergence and to assess their performance. The interdisciplinary and comparative perspective of the chapters in this book provide fine-grained analyses of different new institutions introduced in the Andean countries and discusses their findings in the light of the resource curse approach. They argue that institutional change and performance depend upon a much larger set of factors than those generally identified by the resource curse literature. Different, domestic and external, economic, political and cultural factors such as ideological positions of decision-makers, international pressure or informal practices have shaped institutional dynamics in the region. Altogether, these findings emphasize the importance of nuanced and contextualized analysis to better understand institutional dynamics in the context of extractive economies. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of the extractive industries, natural resource management, political economics, Latin American studies and sustainable development. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
This book explores the complexities of what are tropical forests, what role they play not only in environmentalism but in trade, health care, and almost every facet of natural and social life for those living there and beyond. Although for most in the developed world tropical forests have gained a status of part of our world heritage, these forests are not really part of the global commons or a global public good. Developing nations maintain control over the forests within their borders and often use the forests as they see fit. The international system for mediating the issue is a fractured group of non-governmental organizations and transnational networks, often with competing views of how to manage tropical forests. Despite this seemingly grim picture, Marie-Claude Smouts is optimistic. A changing world view toward forest depletion is influencing countries both north and south. Although forests will be used commercially, it is a dynamic process that should maintain them far into the future.
Increasingly, natural environments are being changed by our activities, and potential human uses of natural resources are often incompatible with environmental protection goals. Travel cost models supply economic information to estimate values in environmental decision-making that otherwise are not available. In the absence of this information, non-market benefits are likely to be ignored in the decision-making process. An important question faced by policymakers centres around the appropriate mix of policies to provide a balance in the use of environments in their natural state versus commodity production. Appropriate analyses of rival policies regarding land usage depend on the availability of data on benefits and costs. This book provides indispensable guidance to the TCM (Travel Cost Method) methodology and its uses, as well as highlighting areas where further development is necessary. The book presents a self-contained treatment of TCM along with a wide range of applications to natural resource and environmental policy questions. It will be an indispensable tool for policymakers in both government and NGOs, natural resource site managers as well as academics and researchers.
This volume is a collection of essays that provide a comprehensive coverage of multiple aspects of the discourse on environment, development and sustainability. It is designed to bring in a host of perspectives highlighting the synergies and the trade-offs in this debate, showcasing research along with policy implications of putting research into use. The global discussion on sustainability paints the broad canvas for this book. This volume aims to probe some contemporary issues that will help in understanding the sustainability narrative in India. The topics span over a host of questions on energy, environment, natural resources and related constituents of development. The discourse further extends to the role of economic modelling, public policy debates, political intervention, stakeholders' response, community participation and so on. The discussions are often based on empirical support, review of existing literature as well as policy analysis. With an ultimate aim to understand the overall development narrative of the people of India, the discourse takes in its ambit the nuances of resource utilisation, economic growth, COVID-19 impacts, competitiveness and market structures, urbanization, sectoral reforms, environmental hazards, climate change, pollution, natural resource accounting and management to name a few. The book is divided into four sections, namely, The Big Picture: Evolving Perspectives; The Energy Scenario: Dilemmas and Opportunities; Sustainability Cross-Cuts: Developmental Aspects and Externality Empirics: Knowledge and Practice. The first section contains commentaries on the overarching themes of economic growth, development and sustainability. It presents some emerging perspectives on the developmental crisis that has emerged through the environmental lens with additional focus on the need for inclusion of creativity, knowhow, technology and financial resources to achieve the ambitious SDG targets. The second section brings out the dilemmas and opportunities in the energy sector, that has been a key player in discussions of sustainability, especially for India where significant technological advances in conventional forms of energy supply coexists with fairly low levels of per capita energy consumption and energy security is a key challenge. The section on sustainability crosscuts attempts to highlight the problems and processes of mainstreaming the sustainability question into conventional thinking through the concepts of a circular economy, green accounting techniques, institutional and governance structures, public policy and inclusive growth, amongst others. The last section presents some empirical studies on environmental externalities, the unaccounted environmental effects of economic production and consumption and finally the behavioural aspects of the stakeholders that are crucial in the larger narrative of sustainable development. This edited volume contains contributions of reputed scholars from various Indian universities, research institutions and professionals from outside academia, who are proven experts in their fields. The link between policy, practice, and well-being of the large vulnerable population of India is the major focus of enquiry that will help researchers, practitioners and policy planners in conducting further research in energy, environment, resource and linked areas of development economics. General readers with an active interest in energy, environment, and economic development are also likely to find this book an interesting read, especially in the times of several environmental challenges facing humankind.
For some, recycling is a big business; for others a moralised way of engaging with the world. But, for many, this is a dangerous way of earning a living. With scrap now being the largest export category from the US to China, the sheer scale of this global trade has not yet been clearly identified or analysed. Combining fine-grained ethnographic analysis with overviews of international material flows, Economies of Recycling radically changes the way we understand global and local economies as well as the new social relations and identities created by recycling processes. Following global material chains, this groundbreaking book reveals astonishing connections between persons, households, cities and global regions as objects are reworked, taken to pieces and traded. With case studies from Africa, Latin America, South Asia, China, the former Soviet Union, North America and Europe, this timely collection debunks common linear understandings of production, exchange and consumption and argues for a complete re-evaluation of North-South economic relationships.
The strict conversation of financial capital allows accountants to preserve capitalism in its current form. Thus, building a more humane economy will require a new accounting model. Humanitarian Ecological Economics and Accounting: Capitalism, Ecology and Democracy argues for the adoption of a CARE model: comprehensive accounting in respect of ecology. This new model will take the traditional weapons of capitalist accounting and turn them against capitalism, with a goal to protect and conserve human and natural capital within the framework of a democratic society. The CARE model has been conceived as the potential basis of a new type of market economy and of a new type of governance of firms and nations. Additionally, this allows for a new conception of capital, cost and profit that helps with moves towards a society of the commons. The first part of the book explores the reconstruction of accounting and economics from the ground up, outlining the theoretical basis for the model. The second part of the book explores the transformation of the governance of firms and nations. Finally, an additional section is dedicated to the conception of a new model of national accounting. This book will be of significant interest to readers of ecological economics, critical accounting and heterodox economics.
This book demonstrates how mathematical models constructed in system dynamics modelling platforms, such as Vensim, can be used for long-term management of environmental change. It is divided into two sections, with the first dedicated to theory, where the theory of co-evolutionary modelling and its use in the system dynamics model platform is developed. The book takes readers through the steps in the modelling process, different validation tools applicable to these types of models and different growth specification, as well as how to curve fit using numerical methods in Vensim. Section 2 comprises of a collection of applied case studies, including fisheries, game theory and wildlife management. The book concludes with lessons from the use of co-evolutionary models for long-term natural resource management. The book will be of great interest to students and scholars of environmental economics, natural resource management, system dynamics, ecological modelling and bioeconomics.
The Political Ecology of Austerity explores the environmental dimension of austerity that has thus far escaped academic, policy, and media attention. Offering a better comprehension of the full socio-environmental impact of austerity measures, the book highlights the importance of considering environmental issues when designing responses to economic crisis in the future. Mobilising detailed case studies from across the world, the volume documents the ways in which austerity impacts global and local ecologies, shapes environmental conflicts and gives rise to new forms and practices of social moblisation and resistance. Bringing together theoretical debates and rigorous case studies, the book proposes 'the political ecology of austerity' as an appropriate method of analysis that can inform our understanding of the shift in environmental protection policies and the intensification of growth practices (green or otherwise) that followed the 2008 global economic crisis. The Political Ecology of Austerity discloses austerity to be a globalised set of tools not only for budgetary discipline, but also for socio-environmental discipline that justifies the continuation of capital accumulation at the expense of further global environmental degradation. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of social and political sciences, environmental studies, urban studies, and political ecology.
Deniers of climate change sometimes quip that claims about global
warming are more about political science than climate science. They
are wrong on the science, but may be right with respect to its
political implications. A hotter world, writes Andrew Guzman, will
bring unprecedented migrations, famine, war, and disease. It will
be a social and political disaster of the first order.
"Environmental Finance provides a thorough, objective discussion of the environmental risk issues facing financial institutions and how to effectively manage both the challenges and opportunities they present. A very current, informative and comprehensive reference." Today, environmentally irresponsible companies run the risk of hurting their bottom line as well as their image. As a result, environmental risk is reshaping the way insurance companies underwrite to corporate clients, banks lend, investors invest, and companies operate. Banks and insurance companies are also developing new environmental financial products to help their corporate customers protect their bottom line against changes in environmental legislation and the impact of adverse weather and climate change. Environmental Finance: A Guide to Environmental Risk Assessment and Financial Products is one of the first books to explore this emerging field. This comprehensive reference opens with a discussion of the concepts and tools used by financial institutions to develop environmental policies and products, and then details how recent changes in the financial services sector have affected the capacity of companies to respond to the environmental challenge. From here you’ll learn about innovative new products such as tradable pollution permits, weather derivatives, catastrophe bonds, and many other market-based solutions that are being created in response to every type of environmental problem–from hurricanes to asbestos. The financial and social consequences of environmental risk will continue to grow. Learn how to hedge these risks and come out on top with Environmental Finance as your guide.
Embracing the reality of biophysical limits to growth, this volume uses the technical tools from ecological economics to recast the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as Ecological Livelihood Goals - policy agendas and trajectories that seek to reconcile the social and spatial mobility and liberty of individuals, with both material security and ecological integrity. Since the 1970s, mainstream approaches to sustainable development have sought to reconcile ecological constraints with modernization through much vaunted and seldom demonstrated strategies of 'decoupling' and 'dematerialization'. In this context, the UN SDGs have become the orchestrating drivers of sustainability governance. However, biophysical limits are not so easily sidestepped. Building on an ecological- economic critique of mainstream economics and a historical- sociological understanding of state formation, this book explores the implications of ecological limits for modern progressive politics. Each chapter outlines leverage points for municipal engagement in local and regional contexts. Systems theory and community development perspectives are used to explore under- appreciated avenues for the kind of social and cultural change that would be necessary for any accommodation between modernity and ecological limits. Drawing on ideas from H.T. Odum, Herman Daly, Zigmunt Bauman, and many others, this book provides guiding research for a convergence between North and South that is bottom-up, household-centred, and predicated on a re- emerging domain of Livelihood. In each chapter, the authors provide recommendations for reconfiguring the UN's SDGs as Ecological Livelihood Goals - a framework for sustainable development in an era of limits. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of ecological economics, socio- ecological systems, political economy, international and community development, global governance, and sustainable development.
Superfund liability). This is an issue that is currently having an dramatic impact on the industry. The impact is being felt in transactions involving the potential sale of properties, insuring operations, development of new properties, joint ventures, or more generally, practically every phase of the mining firms operation. The second issue focuses on an environmental topic that has not been specifically addressed in federal legislation, although it has been indirectly considered, that is global warming or the "greenhouse effect." One of the interesting aspects to this environmental problem is the uncertainty associated with it at every phase of the analysis. The predictions of the general circulation models of climatologists are questioned due to the uncertainty of ocean effects, urbanization, etc. (see Burness & Martin, Chapter 5). The economic models are criticized for the uncertainty associated with the benefit estimates from reducing greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide (COJ, concentrations in the atmosphere as well as estimates of the cost of reducing GHG concentrations and/or emissions. This raises the interesting question of what is the optimal policy and what will be the impact of this policy(s) on the mining sector, given the uncertainty. The first of these two topics is addressed by V. Kerry Smith and Ronald G. Cummings, et al. Professors Smith and Cummings were chosen due to their pioneering work in the area of valuation of nonmarket goods, particularly involving the use of survey methods.
Enterprises located in rural regions face various challenges in the globalised and digitised world. This book offers comprehensive answers to the question of what makes up the rural enterprise economy in the contemporary business world. It addresses the competitiveness and viability, strategic management and strategic change, and marketing issues for both incumbent and start-up companies in rural regions. The book presents new concepts that shed light on the rural enterprise economy with its entrepreneurs. With a broad range of cases from European regions, the book provides theoretical insights for scholars, practical case-based evidence for lecturers and teachers, and practical knowledge for business practitioners and planning specialists. Academic experts from European universities and research institutes provide compelling answers to this under-researched topic in business studies and economics.
This book presents the ways in which three key issues of the modern world - transformation, digitalisation and sustainability - may be combined for the greater good and highlights which activities may be designed to integrate these three directly linked paths. It is an experience-derived and evidence-based analysis of how sustainable development impacts the transformation of the economy and how the business environment influences economic transformation in the light of the sustainable development principles. The book addresses the current challenges and shows how the economy can be transformed further in an organic way that meets the needs of society and the environment, through the use of digital technologies. The multidisciplinary approach to sustainability transformation is one of the core strengths of the book, as it emphasises the need for a holistic approach to the functioning of sustainable development ideas at the micro- and macro-levels. The authors present a fresh perspective, particularly around the regulations stimulating the sustainable development of enterprises, tax systems, and the allocation of capital. Moreover, the book brings together and makes available the results of the latest research on the subject, using a vast amount of primary evidence and both quantitative and qualitative methodology. The authors' insights go beyond the obvious effects of economic transformation and call attention to ways in which smart technology and digitalisation may help to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. The book is directed first and foremost towards academics, researchers and students, but also professionals, who would like to expand their knowledge of sustainable development from a scientific perspective. Chapter 1 of this book is available for free in PDF format as Open Access from the individual product page at www.routledge.com. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
Featuring a stellar international cast list of leading and cutting-edge scholars, The Routledge Handbook of the Political Economy of the Environment presents the state of the art of the discipline that considers ecological issues and crises from a political economy perspective. This collective volume sheds new light on the effect of economic and power inequality on environmental dynamics and, conversely, on the economic and social impact of environmental dynamics. The chapters gathered in this handbook make four original contributions to the field of political economy of the environment. First, they revisit essential concepts and methods of environmental economics in the light of their political economy. Second, they introduce readers to recent theoretical and empirical advances in key issues of political economy of the environment with a special focus on the relationship between inequality and environmental degradation, a nexus that has dramatically come into focus with the COVID crisis. Third, the authors of this handbook open the field to its critical global and regional dimensions: global issues, such as the environmental justice movement and inequality and climate change as well as regional issues such as agriculture systems, air pollution, natural resources appropriation and urban sustainability. Fourth and finally, the work shows how novel analysis can translate into new forms of public policy that require institutional reform and new policy tools. Ecosystems preservation, international climate negotiations and climate mitigation policies all have a strong distributional dimension that chapters point to. Pressing environmental policy such as carbon pricing and low-carbon and energy transitions entail numerous social issues that also need to be accounted for with new analytical and technological tools. This handbook will be an invaluable reference, research and teaching tool for anyone interested in political economy approaches to environmental issues and ecological crises.
Drawing upon comprehensive evaluations of the GEF, it provides unique insights from authors responsible for designing, implementing, and disseminating the findings of the evaluations. No other multilateral development or environment agency places evaluation fully at the center of their decision making. Provides useful pointers to other organizations wishing to enhance evidence-based decision making for improving their relevance, performance, and impact. |
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