The African Environmental Economist, a new online daily provides a selection of news that would be of interest to those working in natural resources, energy and environmental sectors in Africa and especially those interested in the role of economics and business in this regard.
For those interested here is the link.
Let me know what you think and please do alert me to any great content that could be posted in future editions.
Showing posts with label environmental economics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label environmental economics. Show all posts
Friday, February 3, 2012
Monday, August 17, 2009
Low income countries benefit from open access
From Online Access to Research in the Environment (OARE) website:
Online Access to Research in the Environment
Online Access to Research in the Environment (OARE), an international public-private consortium coordinated by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Yale University, and leading science and technology publishers, enables developing countries to gain access to one of the world's largest collections of environmental science research.
Over 2,990 peer reviewed titles (as of 4/2009) owned and published by over 340 prestigious publishing houses and scholarly societies are now available in more than 100 low income countries. Research is provided in a wide range of disciplines, including Biology; Biotechnology, Genetics & Genetically Modified Species; Botany & Plant Biodiversity; Climatology, Climate Change & Meteorology; Ecology & Wildlife Conservation; Energy Conservation & Renewable Energy; Environmental Chemistry; Environmental & Natural Resource Economics; Environmental Engineering; Environmental Law, Policy & Planning; Fish & Fisheries; Forests & Forestry; Geography, Population Studies & Migration; Geology & Earth Sciences; Natural Environmental Disasters; Oceanography & Marine Biology; Pollution & Environmental Toxicology; Satellite & Remote Sensing Technologies; Soil Sciences and Desertification; Waste Management; Water, Hydrology & Wetlands; and Zoology & Animal Biodiversity.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Training Manual: Economic Instruments for Environmental and Natural Resource Management
From the UNEP’s Division of Environmental Policy Implementation (DEPI) and the Economics and Trade Branch (ETB) of the Division of Technology, Industry and Economics (DTIE) - a jam-packed training manual on the use of economic instruments for environmental and natural resource management.
The Training Manual builds on a report on ‘The Use of Economic Instruments in Environmental Policy: Opportunities and Challenges’ published by UNEP in 2004 and on a range of standard literature on environmental economics. The 2004 report was prepared under the auspices of the UNEP Working Group on Economic Instruments consisting of twenty-five developed and developing country experts from research institutions, relevant international and non-governmental organization and governments.
Friday, May 22, 2009
ERE conference Cape Town
For the first time in almost a decade South Africa had its own Environmental & Resource Economics conference.
I scribbled down a few notes:
1. Sometimes one needs to speak a hard language to reach soft targets. Speaking in terms of rands and cents can help achieve objectives of care and justice. Economics can be used for the good. It is not only a throwing of "the bones". Really.
2. The narrative to see the environment as a provider of goods and services in support of human well-being is well-entrenched.
3. Watch those numbers! Flow values, stock values, net present values, discounted values, operational costs etc etc. Always compare apples with apples.
4. Seems like we need a fresh injection of institutional economics to support an analysis on the creation of viable institutions that can support the development of markets in ecosystems services.
5. The transition from no markets to full PES markets rises many questions on the speed, timing and focus of market reform. There should be some good learning somewhere in the historical development of financial markets and the transition from communism to market-economies.
6. Talking about payments for ecosystems services (PES); it is not a macro-developmental concept yet, but the signs are encouraging. With still comparable low values to water and carbon services generated in rural areas, volumes and scale factors remain crucial for success.
7. Be cautious on how much PES at the end will help the rural poor. Do not oversell. Power traps can be deeply entrenched.
8. With increased scarcity of ecosystems good and services, investment in understanding how the "ecosystem supply factory" is working makes sense. More integrated socio-ecological systems modelling.
9. ERE operates in context. Valuation is a means to and end. Economic analysis and modelling is one input to the decision-making process. Invest in understanding where this can achieve the highest leverage.
It was a great event.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Environmental economic soul searching
From the by now legendary environmental economic blogger John Whitehead a comment on the love and hate between environmentalists and environmental economists, posted on Energy Collective:
With limited resources, households, business firms and governments must make choices. If I have a fixed amount of money and I’m choosing between a monthly payment on a luxury sedan or a less expensive but more mundane sedan, I might forgo the big TV set and go with the higher payments on the luxury sedan. Part of the cost of the luxury sedan is the foregone benefit of the TV set. Economists see these so-called “opportunity costs” all over the place and we delight in our ability to do that. It is what makes us special …
… but not so huggable. Finding these costs is what gets us into so much trouble with environmentalists. Environmentalists tend to see only the good, what economists call benefits, in environmental policies. Environmental economists see the good and the bad (i.e., the costs). Since environmental economists and environmentalists essentially agree on the good stuff (but, see below), the only thing left to discuss is the costs. We bring up the costs and environmentalists seem to go ballistic about how evil we are (even when we explicitly state that there are enormous benefits to certain environmental policies).
… but not so huggable. Finding these costs is what gets us into so much trouble with environmentalists. Environmentalists tend to see only the good, what economists call benefits, in environmental policies. Environmental economists see the good and the bad (i.e., the costs). Since environmental economists and environmentalists essentially agree on the good stuff (but, see below), the only thing left to discuss is the costs. We bring up the costs and environmentalists seem to go ballistic about how evil we are (even when we explicitly state that there are enormous benefits to certain environmental policies).
Yes, that does sound familiar. We are the people that often just have to open the cold showers.
Read the full article here.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
What Environmentalists Should Know about Economics
Dispelling misconceptions and myths about economics to environmentalists became such a large part of my work that I started thinking to write a book about it. Luckily, someone has done it already.
Jason Scorse from Monterey Institute of International Studies published an on-line book on the topic.
Further good news is that no economic background is required. The book is also fully downloadable.
What Environmentalists Need to Know about Economics - Entire Book
Download by Chapter
Table of Contents and Introduction
Part I: How Economists Approach Environmental Issues
Chapter 1 - The Root Causes of Environmental Problems
Chapter 2 - Determining the "Optimum" Amount of Pollution
Chapter 3 - Valuing Ecosystems
Chapter 4 - Putting Monetary Values on the Environment and Living Things
Chapter 5 - Valuing Future Generations
Part II: Putting Economic Analysis to Work
Chapter 8 - Conservation and Biodiversity Preservation
Chapter 10 - Chemical Pollution
Chapter 13 - Population Growth & Technological Change
Comments and constructive criticism are welcome at: jason.scorse@miis.edu.
Image: Flickr
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
On free choice and planning in natural resource management
Aren’t economists often seen as the defenders of free choice and are they not sceptical about any intervention or planning that could hamper that choice? When one picks up a textbook on the subject this might easily be your first conclusion. However, further developments in the discipline have pointed out that focusing only on either planning or markets is untenable. This post will attempt to point out some of the bridges between free choice and planning within the context of natural and environmental resource management.
The first important concept is that of external effects or externalities. These negative or positive effects of certain economic activities are not accounted for in market prices. An example of a negative effect could be air or water pollution, while an example of a positive effect is that private research could lead to new general knowledge. Policy adjustments are often necessary, especially to internalise negative impacts, which, ceteris paribus, would ultimately lead to better-informed choices.
Another important development in economic theory is the contributions of neo-institutional economics. The focus here is on the rules and contracts that guide exchange. In this view the market, or any other institution for that matter, is just one way of exchange and could be efficient, but should be measured according to the costs of performing such transactions. The focus is not on a choice between planning or market frameworks, but on the relative costs of keeping such institutions intact.
The third, and least developed concept in economic theory, is one related to the burgeoning sciences of systems theory, complexity theory and chaos theory. With the holistic focus on the interrelationships between objects, rather than on objects themselves, the contribution of this subject field for our purpose lies in the emphasis on continuous feedback from the system under study. The ex post planning of complex systems is almost a contradiction in terms, one which will only make sense if applied in a process of experiential learning.
These three concepts are important when evaluating the importance of theories on economy-environment interactions for planning purposes. The fact is that the tension between the amount and type of planning, and the amount and type of free choice differ on deep philosophical grounds. Even the views of scholars within the subject field of economics and the environment (including environmental economics, ecological economics, neo-institutional economics and other more peripheral approaches) differ vastly on the relative roles they would like to assign to free choice and to planning.
Without going into the details of such a debate, it would possibly be valuable to point out some environmental issues where such a debate will continue to flourish:
- The economic value of open spaces in urban environments
- The prioritisation of alternative environmental planning options
- The economic assessment of environmental policies and plans
- The economic valuation of alternative land uses in applications such as city planning, rural development or spatial development initiatives (SDIs)
- The planning of an international or national trading system for carbon credits
In all these examples, some will argue that more planning means more economic costs, while others will continue to argue that more individual choice means more potential for anarchy, and thus failure to reach environmental objectives. It can be foreseen that this debate will reach an academic stalemate if not guided by a learning process that facilitates such interactions. The context of natural and environmental resource management will be an important factor in determining the best mix between planning and markets.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)