Quantifying virtual water scarcity risk transfers of energy system in China

Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - Water scarcity problem has become a major constraint in energy development. In this paper, we calculated virtual water flows and virtual water scarcity...     

Promotion of residential water conservation measures in South Africa: the role of water-saving equipment

Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - In many urban settings around the world the severity of water scarcity has induced changes in household behavior, leading to reduction in the volume of...     

Health cost of salinity contamination in drinking water: evidence from Bangladesh

Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - This study estimates health cost of salinity contamination in drinking water in the severe salinity affected three south-western districts of...     

Willingness to pay for reliable piped water services: evidence from urban Ghana

Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - The primary objective of this research is to estimate the willingness to pay in Ghana for reliable piped water services. Three competing economic...     

The role of climate variability in convergence of residential water consumption across Chilean localities

Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - This paper analyses the existence of convergence in residential water consumption across geographical regions using econometric methods taken from the...     

The sound of one hand clapping: transparency without accountability

Does increasing government transparency in an authoritarian regime, absent electoral forms of accountability, change outcomes? The case of China, which has adopted a number of open governance and public information laws, is examined to see whether increased transparency by local environmental protection bureaus affects key environmental outcomes, specifically reductions in air and water pollution. Several unique environmental performance measurements, developed by the authors, are used to supplement standard government-reported measurements of environmental outcomes, and a widely used environmental transparency index (the PITI). By testing information that is newly supplied to the public, but already available to government, government and public monitoring are distinguished from one another, and the effect of public knowledge of government functions is tested. In the absence of a mechanism for the public to hold local government accountable, public transparency alone has no impact on outcomes other than information provision itself.     

Moving targets: Carbon pricing,energy markets,and social movements in Australia

Reporting on the origins and directions of social movement strategy on climate and energy issues in the last decade, the shifts in ‘climate movement’ practice are discussed using a neo-Polanyian account of the political economy of climate change combined with sociological analysis of the strategic decisions campaigners reported making. Since the mid-2000s, Australia’s climate movement has been engaged in three concurrent arenas of political contestation. The longest-standing arena of movement activity has been negotiations over climate policy. More recently, activists and communities are engaged in a struggle over the expansion of fossil fuels. A third contest has been waged over the present and future position of renewable energy technologies in Australia’s electricity market. In the wake of climate policy failure, energy campaigns have been deepened, and it seems that a broader energy justice agenda is being forged. New strategic dilemmas are visible in the field.     

Leadership and lesson-drawing in the European Union’s multilevel climate governance system

ABSTRACT

The important role that climate leaders and leadership play at different levels of the European Union (EU) multilevel governance system is exemplified. Initially, climate leader states set the pace with ambitious policy measures that were adopted largely on an ad hoc basis. Since the mid-1980s, the EU has developed a multilevel climate governance system that has facilitated leadership and lesson-drawing at all governance levels including the local level. The EU has become a global climate policy leader by example although it had been set up as a ‘leaderless Europe’. The resulting ‘leadership without leader’ paradox cannot be sufficiently explained merely by reference to top-level EU climate policies. Local-level climate innovations and lesson-drawing have increasingly been encouraged by the EU’s multilevel climate governance system which has become more polycentric. The recognition of economic co-benefits of climate policy measures has helped to further the EU’s climate leadership role.     

Reinventing the bicycle: how calculative practices shape urban environmental governance

The concept of sustainability transitions has become increasingly prominent in academic and policy discourses during recent decades, but the importance of the link between knowledge-producing epistemic practices and urban governance has been underappreciated in this discourse. Based on a case study of cycling in Copenhagen between 1900 and 2015, and drawing upon a governmentality-inspired analytical framework, this research demonstrates that transformative governance may be initiated by epistemic practices that render urban systems visible in other ways. Urban cycling has been reconstructed over time in Copenhagen as a traffic safety ‘problem’, a component of the experiential and liveable city, and a health-producing (and hence economically valuable) regional transport mode. The research findings emphasise that epistemic practices can provide a powerful stimulus for creating changes in urban governance. The results also provide support for initiatives to broaden the terms of academic debate on sustainability transitions.     

The environmental state as a model for the world? An analysis of policy repertoires in 37 countries

Scholars have proposed the analytical concept of the environmental state, a state where government actively addresses negative environmental externalities of economic activities. The mapping of environmental regulatory expansion in Western countries has been central in recent attempts to identify the environmental state empirically. Surprisingly little is known, however, when it comes to the environmental regulatory expansions in non-Western countries. Are there similar trends towards the emergence of environmental states in the non-West as well? From analysing data covering 25 policies in 37 countries, it appears that regulatory expansion has also occurred in the non-Western world, and the distinction between the West and the non-West has been reduced over time. There are non-Western countries among environmental pioneers, and there is some evidence for the trend of global convergence. Future research on environmental states should take into account emerging environmental states in the non-West.     

Creative and disruptive elements in Norway´s climate policy mix: the small-state perspective

ABSTRACT

Recent scholarship has argued that effective and credible national climate policy mixes should encompass measures that promote new low-carbon technologies alongside those instruments aimed at constraining and phasing out support for existing polluting industries. The creative and disruptive policy measures in Norway´s climate policy mix are analysed by focusing on both national and international climate mitigation efforts. Norway´s climate policy mix at home has been more ambitious in the transport sector with a growing electric vehicle market than in the energy sector where niche support and disruptive policies have remained weak. Abroad, Norway has been increasingly active in supporting new low-carbon technologies and disrupting the fossil-fuel industry, especially coal. This is explained by the consensus-seeking and oil and gas dominated small-state social-investment political economy in Norway, combined with a forward-looking foreign policy based on norm-setting and multilateralism.     

Left to interest groups? On the prospects for enforcing environmental law in the European Union

ABSTRACT

There have been important changes in the enforcement of European Union environmental law over the last 25 years. Environmental law has traditionally been reliant on the European Commission, but the Commission has started to withdraw from enforcement. Instead, it is undertaking efforts to ‘outsource’ enforcement to environmental non-governmental organisations (NGOs) by systematically promoting access for such groups to national courts. While the Commission has indicated that it sees centralised and private enforcement as substitutes, the advantages and drawbacks of each mechanism are evaluated and it is concluded that both mechanisms have an important role to play. In particular, the private enforcement of EU environmental law is dependent on national opportunity structures that are unlikely to ever be fully liberalised and harmonised by EU procedural law. Private enforcement is therefore not a panacea for compliance problems, and the growing absence of a central enforcing authority is a cause for concern.     

Revisiting ISO 14001 diffusion among national terrains: panel data evidence from OECD countries and the BRIICS

Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - Being one of the primary soft-voluntary environmental policy instruments, ISO 14001 has been studied from a number of diverse perspectives and...     

How effective are protected natural areas when roads are present? An analysis of the Peruvian case

Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - Establishing protected natural areas (PNA) has been one of the main policy mechanisms used for protecting flora and fauna species. However, in the last...     

The indecisive role of the market in China’s SO2 and COD emissions trading

Governmental intervention is essential to combat environmental pollution, a phenomenon classically explained as market failure, while market-based environmental policy instruments have provided cost-effective alternatives. By examining five pilot air pollution (sulfur dioxide) and water pollution (chemical oxygen demand) trading schemes in China through a market-based theoretical framework and extensive empirical analysis, this research analyzes where a state-market boundary is defined, whether the market is performing effectively, and, critically, what leads to underperformance. Constrained by policy design, policy conflicts, and excessive state intervention, the market has not played an effective and ‘decisive’ role, resulting in low market thickness for participants and transactions, market congestion on prices, and inadequate market safety for genuine emissions trading. Better emissions trading for conventional pollutants and CO₂ requires better market-oriented rules, improved policy coordination, and stronger implementation while minimizing state intervention.     

The greening of Christianity? A study of environmental attitudes over time

In contradistinction to the ideas of Lynn White and others who have long suggested that the Judeo-Christian tradition fosters a ‘dominion over nature’ ethos, a number of scholars have recently argued that there has been a ‘greening of Christianity’. Largely missing from this debate is strong evidence at the individual level as to whether Christians have in fact adopted deeper environmental concerns over time. This study provides such evidence through an examination of longitudinal data from Gallup’s annual surveys on the environment. The analysis reveals little evidence that Christians have expressed more environmental concern over time. In fact, across many measures, Christians tend to show less concern about the environment. This pattern holds across Catholic, Protestant and other Christian denominations and for differing levels of religiosity. These findings support a conclusion that there has not been a discernible ‘greening of Christianity’ among the American public.     

Fifty Shades of Green? Political differences between elites,members and supporters of Europe Ecologie Les Verts

In recent years, many political parties have created new forms of affiliation and have justified the blurring of membership boundaries with claims that sympathisers would be more representative of the electorate and less radical. Such claims are based on ‘popular wisdom’ inspired by John May’s ‘special law of curvilinearity’, which states that activists hold more extreme views than voters and elites. When this expectation has been tested, results have been at best inconclusive; but testing has so far never used a single survey to compare different groups. Using an online survey of Europe Ecologie Les Verts party members and their extended networks (affiliated supporters, lapsed members, sympathisers), relationships between ideological differences and degree of investment in party activities and decision-making are analysed. The results, contradicting May’s special law along all ideological dimensions other than intra-party democracy, can be explained if May’s narrowly instrumental assumptions about preference formation are rejected.     

Environmental SLAPPs in the UK: threat or opportunity?

Strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) brought against the environmental movement in the UK since the 1990s are examined. SLAPPs, a form of Green backlash, have been mobilised across a wide range of policy areas that have seen vigorous campaigning and protest by the movement, including roads, GMOs and, more recently, climate change. SLAPPs are typically regarded as a threat, designed to close down democratic free speech and protest. However, in the UK, there are some notable cases where the environmental movement has been able to use agency to convert what may appear as a legal threat into a positive legal or media opportunity.     

Population dynamics and environmental degradation in Nepal: an interpretation

This paper examines the special problems that are faced by developing countries, specifically Nepal, which have to sustain increasing populations from a depleting natural resource base. Nepal is an example of a developing country where fertility is high and mortality is decreasing fast, resulting in a high rate of population growth. Nepal's rapid population growth has had a significant impact on natural resource depletion and consequently, environmental degradation. The case of Nepal demonstrates the difficulties confronting developing countries, which attempt practical implementation of the population policy guidelines set out in Agenda 21. Past and current population programs in this country have failed to address the population problem as multidimensional, and have failed to encourage grassroots participation. Economic stagnation and poverty encourage a large family size, and are delaying declines in fertility which subsequently leads to high land encroachment and fast depletion of natural resources like forests and water. The government needs to implement an integrated, multidimensional approach, which emphasizes literacy, education, lowering infant mortality, and providing contraceptives along with follow-ups. Finally, the greatest action must consist of fostering a higher rate of planned economic and social development that must be shown to have meaning for, and impact on the population in general.     

Deliberative democracy meets democratised science: a deliberative systems approach to global environmental governance

The main achievements of the debates on deliberative democracy and democratised science are investigated in order to analyse the reasons, meanings and prospects for a democratisation of global environmental policy. A deliberative systems approach, which emphasises the need to explore how processes in societal spheres interact to shape the deliberative qualities of the system as a whole, is adopted. Although science plays a key role in this, its potential to enhance deliberative capacity has hardly been addressed in deliberative theories. The democratisation of science has potential to contribute to the democratisation of global environmental policy, in that it also shapes the potential of deliberative arrangements in the policy sphere. Deliberative arrangements within the policy sphere may stimulate the democratisation of science to different degrees.