Strong Environmental Policy Research Articles

Building A Strong Information And Communication Intervention Strategy For Climate Change In Sub-Saharan Africa

The adoption of various information and communication intervention measures offers a veritable tool in creating public awareness on climate change in Sub-Saharan Africa which is most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Such intervention in climate change information and communication strategy include: use of Research Extension Farmer Information Linkage System (REFILS), which makes use of village extension workers to disseminate climate change information to rural dwellers, use of print and electronic media such as newspapers, magazines, radio and television, encouraging public participation, use of traditional knowledge and information systems, and building a strong environmental information systems, and building a strong environmental information policy on climate change in line with Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC) and United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) respectively. The application of these measures and observing good environmental practices as well as sustainable agricultural technologies will reduce climate change induced problems in the sub-region.

Dam Threatens Mekong Ecology

The News of the Week story “Megadam gets green light” (9 November, p. [726][1]) seems to provide strong support for the cautionary Letter by B. Gong et al. (“Limits to religious conservation efforts,” 9 November, p. [1740][2]) arguing that while Buddhism may be a powerful resource for conservation, it cannot replace strong environmental governance and policy. The Xayaburi Dam is a very bad idea and clearly represents a massive threat to the ecology of the Mekong River and its people. Yet it proceeds with the support of at least two predominantly Buddhist countries, Laos and Thailand, where protests by Buddhist citizens have gone unheeded ([ 1 ][3]). The environmental governance and policy offered by Laos and Thailand to support the dam is especially dangerous in that it sets a bad precedent that will most certainly affect the construction of at least 11 additional dams planned for the Mekong River ([ 2 ][4]). The decision to build the dam is based on a seriously flawed environmental impact assessment ([ 3 ][5]) and totally ignores an earlier agreement in 2011 ([ 4 ][6]) with Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam that would extend the decision-making process until major gaps in the current knowledge about the environmental and social impacts of the Xayaburi Dam are reconciled. When those knowledge gaps are filled with factual information, it will be abundantly clear that the Xayaburi dam should not be built. ![Figure][7] Mekong River. CREDIT: AP PHOTO/INTERNATIONAL RIVERS, PIAPORN DEETES 1. [↵][8] “Thai government supports Xayaburi Dam,” Bangkok Post, 11 June 2012. 2. [↵][9] 1. M. Osborne , Asia Pacific J. (11 January 2010); [www.japanfocus.org/-Milton-Osborne/3286][10]. 3. [↵][11] 1. G. R. Lanza , “Review of the Ch. Karnchang public company limited environmental impact assessment (EIA) report to the Mekong River Commission” (International Rivers, Berkeley, CA, 2011); [www.internationalrivers.org/files/attached-files/lanza\_water\_quality_final.pdf][12]. 4. [↵][13] Mekong River Commission, “Lower Mekong countries take prior consultation on Xayaburi project to ministerial level” (2011); [www.mrcmekong.org/news-and-events/news/lower-mekong-countries-take-prior-consultation-on-xayaburi-project-to-ministerial-level/][14]. [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.338.6108.726-b [2]: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/338/6114/1740.1.full [3]: #ref-1 [4]: #ref-2 [5]: #ref-3 [6]: #ref-4 [7]: pending:yes [8]: #xref-ref-1-1 View reference 1 in text [9]: #xref-ref-2-1 View reference 2 in text [10]: http://www.japanfocus.org/-Milton-Osborne/3286 [11]: #xref-ref-3-1 View reference 3 in text [12]: http://www.internationalrivers.org/files/attached-files/lanza_water_quality_final.pdf [13]: #xref-ref-4-1 View reference 4 in text [14]: http://www.mrcmekong.org/news-and-events/news/lower-mekong-countries-take-prior-consultation-on-xayaburi-project-to-ministerial-level/

India's Ecocity? Environment, Urbanisation, and Mobility in the Making of Lavasa

In a context of rapid urbanisation in the Global South the potential of ecocities to provide sustainable development is hotly debated within academic and policy circles. This paper will contribute to this debate by referring to Lavasa, India's largest planned ‘hill city’, a fifth of the size of Mumbai. Mentioned in the influential McKinsey report as an emerging global city, Lavasa, the first ‘sustainable’ city developed in the Mumbai—Pune region, attempts to deal with urbanisation, environment, and migration in very particular ways. Yet, it has been riddled with controversies since its inception, and construction has been interrupted by the courts a number of times for alleged environmental violations. Using Lavasa as an example, I will examine the rise and rise of ecocities in India through their legal and policy context. I will argue that future ecocities in India run the danger of prioritising economic development over environmental sustainability in the absence of strong legal enforcement and monitoring of environmental performance. I conclude that strong environmental policy framing and regulation are crucial in this context if new planned cities in India are to have any potential in addressing the challenges of rapid urbanisation and sustainable development.

Trade Openness and Co2 Emissions in Tunisia

By reallocating resources among more or less polluting sectors, trade reforms affect pollution levels directly. They also affect pollution indirectly through their impact on economic activity and income levels, which then affect not only emissions, but also the demand for higher environmental standards. The sign of the direct and indirect effects is ambiguous. In other words, whether trade openness leads to more or less pollution is an empirical question. Using cointegration techniques, we disentangle the long- and short-run relationship between trade openness, income per capita and CO2 emissions in Tunisia, as well as the extent of Granger causality among these variables. Results suggest that the direct effect of trade openness on CO2 emissions is positive both in the short and the long run, but the indirect effect is negative at least in the long run. The overall effect is positive both in the short and long run, highlighting the importance for trade reforms to be accompanied by strong environmental policies.

Some Issues in Trade, Environment and Sustainable Development: The Case of African Agriculture

Agricultural trade holds potential for the development of African agriculture. Notwithstanding the different perspectives about the relationship between trade and development, trade and environment, there is consensus on the need to integrate environmental concerns into trade policy design. In the absence of strong environmental policy, trade liberalisation is capable of aggravating trade-induced environmental problems to an unsustainable level. While, the identified four linkages between trade and environment were capable of exerting positive and negative effects on the environment, the net effect on the African countries are most likely to be negative given the weak environmental policy. The paper argues for appropriate trade, investment, technology, and environmental policies as a prerequisite for maintaining trade-induced environmental damages at a sustainable level.

Is there a demand for sustainable offices? An analysis of UK business occupier moves (2006–2008)

‘Sustainable’ or ‘green’ commercial buildings are frequently seen as a growth sector in the property investment market. This research examines the emergence of sustainable commercial buildings in both the UK and overseas. The empirical part of the paper is based on a telephone survey of 50 UK corporate (private sector) occupiers taking leased and owner–occupied office space, which was carried out during the period of April to November 2008. The survey focused on actual moves made within the previous two years, or moves that were imminent during 2006–2008. The research suggests that although there is an emerging and increasing demand for sustainable offices in the UK, other factors such as location and availability of stock continue to remain more important than sustainability in determining occupiers’ final choice of office. Occupiers who moved to a Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM)‐rated building, and were in business sectors with strong environmental and corporate responsibility policies, placed more emphasis on sustainability than other groups in the final choice of office, but location and availability remained paramount.

Spillovers in the development of new pollution abatement technology: A new look at the Porter-hypothesis

While other contributions have analyzed environmental innovations with point of departure in the polluting firm, we introduce an upstream market for environmental innovations. A strong environmental policy may then benefit industry competitiveness through its effect on entry into the upstream market. In our analysis we hope to draw attention to an often overlooked issue. Innovation of new pollution abatement techniques requires a new market to develop. If policy is lax, few firms enter and are forced to charge a high mark-up in order to cover development costs. On the other hand, a stringent environmental policy induces higher demand and allows a lower mark-up. Consequently, even if the polluting industry in question is export oriented, an especially stringent policy may be welfare enhancing.

Ecologically Sustainable Development in a ‘Quarry’ Economy: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

AbstractAn overview is presented of recent work on the environmental changes impacting on Australia and the policy responses of the State and Commonwealth governments, especially over the last ten years. This period has seen a remarkably stable phase of conservative government administration in Canberra and consistent resistance to a strong environmental policy agenda, both domestically and internationally. Attention is focused particularly on rural and regional Australia, rather than on urban areas. The paper discusses the role of environmental issues in recent elections and also details the results of relevant opinion polls charting changes in environmental attitudes. The problems posed by the federal system of administration are outlined as are recent analyses and counter‐analyses of the state of the Australian environment. A more fundamental problem with liberal democracy and environmental values is also addressed.

Air Pollution: Its Perilous Chronic Hygienic Impacts

A number of environmental problems are already very serious and they call for immediate attention. The paper mainly concentrates on the impacts of indoor and outdoor air pollutants especially on health, with ultimate result that human hygiene may be deteriorated, economic productivity may be declined and pleasure satisfaction gained from any unspoiled environment often termed as its ‘amenity’ value may also be absent to the present and future human welfare. It has been concluded that intervention of the government has become indispensable to implement strong environmental policy and taking care of growing threats on air pollution in more institutionalized, regular and automatic basis is inevitable.

Strategic environmental policy; eco-dumping or a green strategy?

The Porter hypothesis claims that a strong environmental policy best serves the interests of a nation's export industry. While this hypothesis seems to be based on some form of bounded rationality, this paper argues that governments may have good reasons for setting an especially strong environmental policy even though firms are fully rational. If the available abatement technology turns the environment into an “inferior input”, competitiveness is spurred by a strong environmental policy. The government should take advantage of this, and set an especially strict emission quota or an especially high emission tax. The findings in the paper also has consequences for the desirability of international cooperation with respect to national environmental policy. If a strict environmental policy spurs competitiveness, the environment is better protected without cooperation.

Environmental standards as barriers to trade

This paper examines the case of a good, polluting in consumption, whose pollutive content is restricted by a government with strong environmental policies. When foreign producers are unable to comply with the restrictive environmental standard of such a country, to which they wish to export, they often allege that those standards constitute illegal barriers to free trade. An example of such a good is gasoline, excessively pollutive formulations of which are prohibited from importation into the United States by the 1970 Clean Air Act. Rather than banning them, such imports should be taxed, along with the domestically produced substitute good, according to their respective pollutant contents. This would foster economic efficiency and should be more acceptable to foreign producers than the outright prohibition mandated by the Clean Air Act. The results of this paper reaffirm the argument in a previous article in this journal (Socio-Economic Planning Sciences 29 (1995) 187), though the countries’ roles in the two papers are reversed, that free trade and Pigouvian environmental policies increase international welfare.

A heckscher-ohlin-samuelson interpretation of the labor-environmental coalition in Seattle

The coalition of North American labor unions and environmental organizations that joined in Seattle in 1999 is examined in the context of a Heckscher-Ohlin-Samuelson simulation in which a labor abundant developing country, with a comparative advantage in a globally polluting industry but a weak environmental policy, endeavors to export some of the output of that industry to a capital abundant industrialized country but is thwarted by a trade sanction that requires it to adopt the strong environmental policy of the industrialized country as a precondition for trade. Labor unions in the industrialized country and environmental organizations both gain when the developing country complies with the sanctions but lose out when the World Trade Organization overrules the sanctions as barriers to free trade.

Strategic Environmental Policy, Clean Technologies and the Learning Curve

In the political discussion, it is often emphasized that the environmental service industry (which produces a clean factor of production) benefits from an early and strong environmental policy. This is especially likely if the costs of production are decreasing over time due to learning curve effects. Surprisingly, the environmental service industry has not been integrated into the theory of strategic environmental policy yet. Our main question is whether a national leadership in environmental policy can pay off if profits of the environmental service industry are taken into account. We consider a two-period model with one firm in each country competing on a third market. Emissions can be substituted by the clean factor when deciding upon the production technology. The unit costs of producing the clean factor in the second period are decreasing in the quantity produced in the initial period. We derive the optimal environmental policy for both periods from a national point of view and show that the presence of the environmental service industry can indeed lead to a national leadership in pollution control.

The Environmental Outcome of Emissions-intensive Economic Growth: A Critical Look at Official Growth Projections for Sweden up to the Year 2000

Implications for carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides emissions from the Swedish government's medium-term economic projections are assessed, considering Sweden's environmental goals. Data from the first environmental accounting matrix of Sweden are exploited within the framework of the interindustry model to give emission multipliers for various components of aggregate demand. In view of these emission multipliers, it is evident that the outlined macro-economic development does not conform with Sweden's environmental goals. The oil price and the structural changes assumed in the economic projections stress still further the need for strong environmental policy measures to attain the emission goals. The allocation of total expenditure is shown here to be a critical factor for bringing down the emissions to accepted levels.

Generational Justice: The Marriage of Sustainability and Social Equity

In recent years, equity arguments have been used to undermine vital environmental proposals. This article uses three recent environmental issues—the excise on leaded petrol, the carbon tax and native forest logging—to argue that while equity and sustainability are closely linked: • the equity impacts of environmental policies are often not as severe as they seem; • packages of measures based on environmental policies can offset the negative social welfare impacts; and • the equity impacts of failing to act are likely to be severe. Poorer households tend to suffer more from environmental degradation than wealthier households. The case studies are used to argue that the poor of future generations will pay the price of failing to pursue strong environmental policies now. Greater effort must be put into developing policies that have a double dividend. Ecological tax reform packages are likely to be a major part of this.

Solid-Waste Disposal in Shanghai

ALTHOUGH economic development in the People's Republic of China has lagged behind that of other Pacific rim countries, China is nonetheless burdened with the problem of solid-waste disposal. Officially the government deplores environmental abuses; yet this stance has not been translated into aggressive action, especially on solid-waste management and related pollution. Lacking in China are two important components of environmental action: massive outrage among the general population, and adequate financial resources. The result has been a short-term solution to solid-waste handling that emphasizes landfills with minimal design and locational standards. The case of Shanghai presents an especially instructive example of the social and environmental effects of such a policy. Shanghai is the largest economic and international trade center in China. The administrative area of Shanghai straddles both sides of the Huangpu River and includes Shanghai Proper, which encompasses the historical urban core and unattached industrial areas, and ten satellite counties. The total area includes both rural and urban landuses. The urban portion covers 6,341 square kilometers. Shanghai Proper contains 749 square kilometers, but the historical urban core only occupies 281 square kilometers. The population in the administrative area had reached 12.8 million people by 1989, an increase of 3.3 million since 1958 (Shanghai Statistical Bureau 1990). This figure does not include the several thousand persons who enter and leave Shanghai Proper daily, or the approximately two million floating residents who live in greater Shanghai without residency cards (Zhu 1990). With a density of 15,000 to 65,000 persons a square kilometer, Shanghai Proper is one of the most crowded areas in the world (Hu 1988). This urban center is characterized by multiple-family attached housing, many narrow streets and alleyways, and an antiquated infrastructure. The core of Shanghai is located on a deltaic plain, with the largest portion of the city on the west bank of the Huangpu River, near the point where the Yangtze discharges into the East China Sea. The top of the delta, deposited during the mid-to-late Holocene, consists of young, unconsolidated sediments (Li and Yan 1987). These sediments have a high degree of permeability, which could influence the movement of leachate in these areas. The elevation above mean sea level is approximately four meters (Duan 1989). Thus the plain is characterized by a high water table, which has affected most large-scale urban construction. The waste from all sources that results from the large, growing population is enormous and increases daily. Because of the city's environmental setting, improper handling of that waste could have serious repercussions. Yet even though the problem of solid-waste management has attracted the attention of the municipal government and city planners, the location and design of solid-waste landfills do not appear to conform to those in countries with stronger environmental policies. CLASSIFICATION OF SOLID WASTES The total solid waste generated annually by all activities in urban Shanghai rose from 8.54 million tons in 1980 to 13.99 million tons in 1989. Some 75 percent of that was industrial waste, which is expanding at a more rapid rate than the other two classes, residential and construction. Shanghai generated 2.5 million tons of residential solid waste in 1989, one million tons above the 1980 level. The 1989 figure represented a daily average of 6,850 tons, or about 0.8 kilogram of solid waste for each resident in urban Shanghai. During the summer the total often exceeds ten thousand tons each day (Shi 1989), because of a significant rise in food waste resulting from the availability of bulky foods such as watermelon and other fruits and vegetables. If the urban population increases to ten million by the end of the twentieth century, the annual residential waste is projected to exceed 3. …