Environmental costs of electric power generation are receiving increasing attention as an important input to planning and decision processes. Since the outstart of the discussion on the monetized environmental costs of electricity in 1988 a number of studies have been conducted on the subject, producing partially contradictory results. Simultaneously political action has resulted from the first stage on this discussion process. In Germany the higher rates which have to be payed to autoproducers based on renewable energy sources have been explicitly justified by the existence of external environmental costs of conventional electricity generation. At the same time some state regulatory commissions in the United States have introduced adders for environmental costs in the utility planning process. This book reports on the first international workshop on the subject, bringing together practically all experts in the field of research and political implementation from the United States and Germany, the two pioneering countries. The more than thirty contributed papers contained in this volume give the most comprehensive and up-to-date overview of the field. Some papers already outline the future course of research by giving an overview over some major research projects, which have just started.

Although present day politics seems to be preoccupied with questions of economic growth and full employment, the basic environmental problems stemming from the interactions of the economic sphere with global, regional and local environments persist and will have an even greater impact in the future. If economy and ecology are not reconciled in the years to come, mankind will not have a sustainable future on Earth. The typical negation of environmental problems in times of economic crisis is partially due to the fact that environmental and health damages of economic activities are neither priced nor included in our market price system. This allows politicians to focus their attention on insufficient economic indicators which do not reflect the actual development of the welfare of society. If economic lead indicators like GDP or balance of trade figures were better integrated with information on the environmental and health costs caused by the seemingly beneficial economic development, politicians might have better guidance as to what policy choices would benefit society most.

Important progress has been made in recent years in the valuation of social costs of energy and transport. This progress has encouraged the insight that systems of "Green Accounting" considering social costs and policy instruments for the internalization of social costs are necessary tools to realize the worldwide goal of sustainable development. This workshop report provides an excellent survey of the latest results of social costs in the energy and transport sector. Further, the theoretical framework of social costs is extended to a broader concept of sustainable development. Finally, concepts and first experiences of the internalization of social costs e.g. through least cost planning or an ecological tax reform are reviewed.

Fair and efficient pricing has become increasingly important in international environmental and transport policy. Thus the valuation and internalization of social costs is now a crucial element within strategies towards sustainable mobility. The book provides methods and results from major European and American studies evaluating both social costs of transport and first experiences with their internalization in different contexts: infrastructure planning, urban road pricing and highway tolling. Additionally, complementary non-monetary instruments for a transition towards sustainable mobility are presented and discussed.

As the Kyoto conference of the parties on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change once again underscored, man-made climate change has become one of the major challenges to our generation and many generations to come. Since scientific evidence on climate change can be seen as increasingly reliable, the focus of our attention has to turn more and more to the question of foreseeable damages and to possibilities to prevent and mitigate climate change. In other words, we need to analyse the economic aspects of man marle climate change and the policy options to prevent its most severe impacts. This book reports on the findings of an international workshop on these aspects of global climate change. It was organised by the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) in Mannheim, Germany on March 6th and 7th 1997. In the light of the ongoing international policy-making process on climate change, we decided to publish the report after the Kyoto conference from December Ist to 10th, 1997, to include the results of the conference, which emphasise the importance of economic aspects and economic policy options when it comes to addressing the problern of man-made climate change. Thus, this book went to press in February 1998 the moment we received the official version of the Kyoto Protocol, which is reproduced in the annex."

Boycotting tropical timber reduces its economic value and provides an incentive to burn down forests, making them available for subsequent agricultural use or livestock farming. In contrast, a certification scheme for sustainably produced timber (tropical or non-tropical) protects the forests by raising their economic value. Examined here the impact of a certification scheme on German demand for tropical timber. A partial-equilibrium model is developed for the German tropical timber market as a whole as well as for five important submarkets representing 50% of the total demand. The results reveal that a credible certification scheme can induce a significant expansion of demand for sustainably produced tropical timber. This holds true for a scheme restricted to Germany as well as for an OECD-wide approach.

Die Regulierungstechnik der Gentechnik in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland wird von interessierter Seite als entscheidender Grund fur die Abwanderung von Wissenschaftlern und Industrie angefuhrt. Hierbei werden die Zustande in den wichtigsten Konkurrenzlandern als sehr viel gunstiger dargestellt. Auf der Basis einer internationalen Bestandsaufnahme der Regulierung der Gentechnik in den USA, Japan, Frankreich, Grossbritannien und der Niederlande kommt das vorliegende Buch zu dem Schluss, dass die deutsche Regulierungspraxis zwar durchaus verbesserungswurdig ist, aber kein ausschlaggebender Grund fur die Abwanderung der Industrie sein kann. Zur Verbesserung der deutschen Regulierungssituation werden eine Reihe von praktischen Empfehlungen abgeleitet."

Die Tatsache, dass dieses Buch schon bald nach seinem erstmaligen Erscheinen in Neuauflage vorliegt, zeigt, dass der Autor einen wichtigen Bereich der Umweltpolitik beleuchtet. In systematischer Weise werden verschieden Arten von externen Kosten und Nutzen konkurrierender Technologien zur Elektrizitatserzeugung verglichen. Behandelt werden verschiedene Umwelteffekte, Beschaftigungs- und Produktionseffekte, die Ausbeutung erschoepfbarer Ressourcen wie auch die unterschiedlichen Arten oeffentlicher Subventionen. Die konventionelle Elektrizitatserzeugung auf der Basis fossiler und nuklearer Brennstoffe wird mit der Nutzung der Wind- und Sonnenenergie (photovoltaisch) verglichen. Erstmals wird in dieser Studie der theoretisch diskutierte Ansatz der sozialen Kosten von Energiesystemen nicht nur bis zur Quantifizierung einzelner Kostenkategorien, sondern bis zur Analyse des Einflusses auf die Wahl konkurrierender Technologien empirisch umgesetzt. Die Analyse zeigt, dass regenerativen Energiequellen durch die Nichtberucksichtigung sozialer Kosten ein gravierender Wettbewerbsnachteil entsteht. Die Markteinfuhrung der Windenergie und der photovoltaischen Sonnenenergienutzung wird hierdurch um bis zu zehn Jahre verzoegert. Die Studie schlagt moegliche Korrekturmassnahmen vor. Die Neuauflage bringt zahlreiche Verbesserungen und Erweiterungen. Voellig neu ist beispielsweise das Modell zur Erhaltung des Energiekapitalstocks im Kapitel uber die Erschoepfung nicht erneuerbarer Energietrager.