Green taxes, blue taxes

Central governments are facing increasingly stringent demands to lead the clean-up of public resources. Historically, governments have chosen legislation and regulation to address these concerns and achieved mixed results, but another tool of public policy holds significant promise and is gaining ground in the policy debate: 'green' taxes. The potential of a tax system to mitigate environmental externalities is explored. The theory of pollution tax is reviewed and a comparison of two country cases where taxes have been designed explicitly to reduce industrial effluents and improve the quality of fresh water resources is presented. If structures to approximate social costs are federally mandated and regionally implemented, a comprehensive tax system can constitute an integral part of an effective response to private spoliation of the commons.     

China: Energy and environment

Some of China's most prominent environmental problems are related to energy The air pollution of the cities and industrial centers is caused by the inefficient combustion of coal. Deforestation is due to a certain extent to the procurement of firewood. Further problems are caused by the ash and slag from coal combustion and the oil pollution of the sea. While most of China's air is still clean, pollution levels in the cities surpass by far those of German industrial towns, and the health effects are becoming apparent The problem of deforestation must be considered still more serious because it affects whole regions. Short-term effective solutions to the problems presented are not available     

Ethanol fuels: Energy security,economics, and the environment

Problems of fuel ethanol production have been the subject of numerous reports, including this analysis. The conclusions are that ethanol: does not improve U.S. energy security; is uneconomical; is not a renewable energy source; and increases environmental degradation. Ethanol production is wasteful of energy resources and does not increase energy security. Considerably more energy, much of it high- grade fossil fuels, is required to produce ethanol than is available in the energy output. About 72% more energy is used to produce a gallon of ethanol than the energy in a gallon of ethanol. Ethanol production from corn is not renewable energy. Its production uses more non- renewable fossil energy resources in growing the corn and in the fermentation/distillation process than is produced as ethanol energy. Ethanol produced from corn and other food crops is also an unreliable and therefore a non-secure source of energy, because of the likelihood of uncontrollable climatic fluctuations, particularly droughts which reduce crop yields. The expected priority for corn and other food crops would be for food and feed. Increasing ethanol production would increase degradation of agricultural land and water and pollute the environment. In U.S. corn production, soil erodes some 18- times faster than soil is reformed, and, where irrigated, corn production mines water faster than recharge of aquifers. Increasing the cost of food and diverting human food resources to the costly and inefficient production of ethanol fuel raise major ethical questions. These occur at a time when more food is needed to meet the basic needs of a rapidly growing world population.     

Energy and environment scenarios for Senegal

In this paper, the energy and environmental dimensions of several proposed energy strategies for Senegal are explored. An analytical framework to compare the energy and measurable environmental impacts of a set of scenarios is developed, and the limitations of the quantitative approach are discussed. It is found that policies to promote substitution of liquid petroleum gas (LPG) for charcoal use in households may actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while also improving more important near-term environmental problems. Substitution of LPG for charcoal would not necessarily lead to a significant increase in Senegal's oil import bill, since other petroleum product usage will continue to dominate. Despite past industrial sector initiatives, considerable potential for energy efficiency investment remains, and presents additional opportunities for minimizing environmental impacts.     

Bioethics of fish production: Energy and the environment

Aquatic ecosystems are vital to the structure and function of all environments on earth. Worldwide, approximately 95 million metric tons of fishery products are harvested from marine and freshwater habitats. A major problem in fisheries around the world is the bioethics of overfishing. A wide range of management techniques exists for fishery, managers and policy-makers to improve fishery production in the future. The best approach to limit overfishing is to have an effective, federally regulated fishery, based on environmental standards and fishery carrying capacity. Soon, overfishing is more likely to cause fish scarcity than fossil fuel shortages and high energy prices for fish harvesting. However, oil and other fuel shortages are projected to influence future fishery policies and the productive capacity of the fishery industry. Overall, small-scale fishing systems are more energy efficient than large-scale systems. Aquaculture is not the solution to wild fishery production. The energy input/output ratio of aquacultural fish is much higher than that of the harvest of wild populations. In addition, the energy ratios for aquaculture systems are higher than those for most livestock systems.     

Energy and environment in the European Union: An indicator-based analysis

The European Environment Agency (EEA) is the European Union body dedicated to providing sound, independent information on the environment. It is a major information source for those involved in developing, adopting, implementing and evaluating environmental policy in Europe, and also for the general public. In line with its mandate, the EEA has developed — focused around a set of policy relevant questions — a set of indicators to assess progress in Europe in integrating environmental considerations into the energy sector. Each question is answered through one or more indicators describing the development of the sector in Europe, implications for the environment and links to policy actions. The indicators cover not only the current situation, but also trends and prospects and, most importantly, point to the conditions for change that are needed for progress towards a more sustainable energy policy that benefits the environment. The results of the most recent assessment are presented in this article and show that in many areas of environmental integration there have been some successes, but overall progress to date has been insufficient. Substantial additional action will therefore be required in the future if the European Union is going to move towards a more environmentally sustainable energy system.     

State mineral production taxes and mining law reform

Fuel and leasable minerals mined in the United States have historically been subject to federal royalties while locatable minerals have not. In recent years there have been multiple attempts to alter this policy and subject locatable minerals to federal royalties as well; most recently the preliminary 2012 Obama budget included a gross royalty on hard-rock mining on public lands. This paper analyzes the issue of imposing such federal royalties from both a legal and economic perspective. From a legal perspective, it is argued that the state of western property rights precludes royalties on currently extant claims so revenues from a royalty would not be realized for many years. From an economic perspective, it is argued that the effect on revenue would be smaller than one might anticipate due to such a royalty crowding out state levies or encouraging vertical disintegration on the part of mining firms to avoid much of the burden of the royalty.     

Population,environment, and development

The strategies for reducing population growth include social development and improvement in the educational attainment of women. The decline in Kenya's growth rate was attributed to high female literacy and reduced infant mortality. Another strategy for enhancing fertility decline is to reduce child mortality, particularly from preventable causes such as diarrhea. The entire cost of such a strategy to reduce preventable disease would be about $1.33 per 300 million taxpayers in developed countries. Family planning services must be expanded. Prevention of maternal mortality and AIDS would bring major benefits. Strategies for environmental protection emphasized the already existing plan of action set out in the UNCED document Agenda 21 in Rio de Janeiro. The plan has suffered from inaction. The estimated cost of $625 million was considered to be several times smaller than the costs of inaction. The elimination of subsidies in tropical forests would have an immediate impact. Natural resource accounting at the national level would include the value of natural resources. Pricing would change radically for gasoline if the costs of urban smog, acid rain, low-level ozone pollution, and global warming were taken into account. Strategies for sustainable development pertained to the preceding strategies and others indicated in the Agenda 21 Action Plan. If funding were better targeted to the poorest 20% of global population with high fertility rates, the accomplishments would be heralded. 1.2 million are living in absolute poverty, and aid for nutrition, primary health care, water and sanitation, basic education, and family planning amounts to only 10% of expenditures. An increase to 20% would mean a contribution from Americans of $7.50 per person or 33% of $25 thousand million from all developed countries. Developing countries need to lower their military expenditures, privatize public enterprises, change inappropriate development policies, eliminate corruption, and improve national governance. The debt burden should be reduced.     

Water, environment and development

This paper for the most part constitutes the address which was made to the Consortium for International Development at their recent Presidential Symposium at Colorado State University on 30 July 1992. It raises some of the global issues in water resources development and management which are likely to confront the international community in the 1990s and beyond. The issues pose the challenge to institutions involved in the water resources field in both developed and developing countries.     

Effects of taxes and royalties on copper mining investment in British Columbia

This paper explains the effects of federal and provincial taxes and royalties on the choice of mine life, mine size, reserve volumes and ore grades for copper deposits in British Columbia. The model described in the paper attempts to spell out some of the complicated interplay of geological, financial, and fiscal factors affecting mine development decisions.     

Pleas,plights and environment: Part I

Summary The depletion of the world's natural resources continues relentlessly. Plants and animals alike are being trapped into ever more numerous shrinking pockets, as man advances to incorporate virgin estates into areas of productivity. The immediate consequence of such an all-out attack in the tropical areas of under-developed countries is the destruction of habitats and the likely break-up of food webs. The attendant disastrous effects on the reproduction of species, hence, puts natural selection at a premium. This scenario has distinctly impressed different people in different places. This suggests diverse sensitivity even for causes voiced in public as matters of sheer truism. The study concentrates on the examination of the dialectic nature/nurture controversy to see whether this may account for the state of disharmony recorded between man and nature. Conversion of nature is traditionally considered a realm of the scientific establishment. The study tries to suggest that the humanities cannot be left out in any debate on the interpretation of the environment. The synthesis reveals a blatant refusal of social determinism as causal agent and, with some reservation, projects biological determinism into sharp focus for pertinent consideration. The cautious reconciliation with parts of sociobiological tenets was regarded as inevitable once grasped that will, knowledge, and sensitivity, were interpreted as the foundation of the main teleological argument.Dr Antonio Allem is trained as a plant taxonomist. His research has focused on the collection of plant genetic resources germ plasm. He has recently written (with J.F.M. Valls) a book entitledRecursos Forrageiros Nativos do Pantanal Mato-Grossense, published by the Departamento de Difusão de Tecnologia, EMBRAPA, Brasilia. He has an interest in the taxonomy of cultivated plants and has recently solved the origin of the cassava plant (Manihot esculenta, Euphorbiaceae). Dr Allem is a member of staff of thein situ conservation unit at Centro Nacional de Recursos Genéticos e Biotecnologia da Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária.     

The marginal cost of public funds of mineral and energy taxes in Peru

We estimate the Marginal Cost of Public Funds (MCPF) for Peru using a detailed computable general equilibrium (CGE) model. Revenues from all major sources (including taxes on factors of production, natural resources such as energy and minerals, consumption, and imports) are examined. Our focus is on the efficiency implications of mineral and energy taxes, given their importance to Peruvian public finance. The primary data are from the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) as modified to include detailed tax information from the Peruvian Ministry of Economy and Finance and the Peruvian Internal Revenue Service. Consistent with the theories of public finance, we find that the MCPF is greater for activities that face high or widely varying tax rates. The taxes on energy and mineral activities represent a clear illustration of this relationship. The results presented in this paper indicate opportunities to improved efficiency in the current tax mix, and also indicate the financing costs of proposed expenditures that would be funded with taxes on energy and natural resources.     

The Nepalese environment: Problems,policies and prospects

Summary The paper outlines environmental problems which are being encountered as a result of attempts to produce economic development in Nepal. Immediate actions are proposed which the author believes are required to counter further environmental degradation.Mr R. P. Chaudhary's current temporary address is c/o Komarov Botanical Institute, Popov-2. Leningrad, 197022, USSR.