Women and energy resources management

Women need access to energy resources in order to meet their basic needs for food, shelter, clean water, health care and employment and to improve their family's living conditions. Due to population growth and economic development the demand for the main energy sources in low-income rural areas, biomass, is far greater than the supply, and women have no choice but to overexploit the increasingly scarce resources just to survive. Improvements in energy efficiency and an increased use of renewable energy sources could help women to balance their immediate livelihood needs and the long-term ecological needs. However, women generally lack access to these improved energy technologies. This article explores the causes of women's limited access to improved energy technologies and why energy polices and programmes often fail to address women's specific needs and concerns. Strategies of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) are outlined as examples of approaches aiming at improving women's access to information and sustainable technologies and promoting women's full participation in environmental decision and policy making.     

Managing carbon emissions in China through building energy efficiency

This paper attempts to analyse the role of building energy efficiency (BEE) in China in addressing climate change mitigation. It provides an analysis of the current situation and future prospects for the adoption of BEE technologies in Chinese cities. It outlines the economic and institutional barriers to large-scale deployment of the sustainable, low-carbon, and even carbon-free construction techniques. Based on a comprehensive overview of energy demand characteristics and development trends driven by economic and demographic growth, different policy tools for cost-effective CO₂ emission reduction in the Chinese construction sector are described. We propose a comprehensive approach combining building design and construction, and the urban planning and building material industries, in order to drastically improve BEE during this period of rapid urban development. A coherent institutional framework needs to be established to ensure the implementation of efficiency policies. Regulatory and incentive options should be integrated into the policy portfolios of BEE to minimise the efficiency gap and to realise sizeable carbon emissions cuts in the next decades. We analyse in detail several policies and instruments, and formulate relevant policy proposals fostering low-carbon construction technology in China. Specifically, Our analysis shows that improving building energy efficiency can generate considerable carbon emissions reduction credits with competitive price under the CDM framework.     

System dynamics model for analyzing effects of eco-design policy on packaging waste management system

EU's long-term objective is to become a recycling and resource effective society, where waste is utilized as a resource and waste generation is prevented. A system dynamics model was developed to analyze the policy mechanisms that promote packaging material efficiency in products through increased recycling rates. The model includes economic incentives such as packaging and landfill taxes combined with market mechanisms, behavioral aspects and ecological considerations in terms of material efficiency (the packaging material per product unit, recycled fraction in products). The paper presents the results of application of various policy instruments for increasing packaging material efficiency and recovery rate and reducing landfilled fraction. The results show that a packaging tax is an effective policy instrument for increasing the material efficiency. It ensures the decrease of the total consumption of materials and subsequent waste generation. The tax helps to counteract a rebound effect, which, as identified by the analysis, can be caused by reduced material costs due to eco-design. The model is applied to the case of Latvia. Yet, the elements and structure of the model developed are similar to waste management systems in many countries. By changing numeric values of certain parameters, the model can be applied to analyze policy mechanisms in other countries.     

Material efficiency: A white paper

For most materials used to provide buildings, infrastructure, equipment and products, global stocks are still sufficient to meet anticipated demand, but the environmental impacts of materials production and processing, particularly those related to energy, are rapidly becoming critical. These impacts can be ameliorated to some extent by the ongoing pursuit of efficiencies within existing processes, but demand is anticipated to double in the next 40 years, and this will lead to an unacceptable increase in overall impacts unless the total requirement for material production and processing is reduced. This is the goal of material efficiency, and this paper aims to stimulate interest in the area. Four major strategies for reducing material demand through material efficiency are discussed: longer-lasting products; modularisation and remanufacturing; component re-use; designing products with less material. In industrialised nations, these strategies have had little attention, because of economic, regulatory and social barriers, which are each examined. However, evidence from waste management and the pursuit of energy efficiency suggests that these barriers might be overcome, and an outline of potential mechanisms for change is given. In bringing together insights into material efficiency from a wide range of disciplines, the paper presents a set of 20 open questions for future work.     

节能环保产业政策工具评述与展望

节能环保产业是打赢污染防治攻坚战的重要支撑,也是推动经济发展的新兴绿色动能。本文利用瓦当设计的政策工具三分法,对当前节能环保产业政策工具进行了分类研究。当前,影响节能环保产业政策的工具主要包括管制型工具、经济型工具、信息型工具三个类型。管制型工具包括指标控制、强制性标准和监督考核等;经济型工具包括财政支持、税收优惠、价格政策、金融政策等;信息型工具包括技术推广机制、产品推广机制等。尽管我国已经初步建立了政策支持体系,但当前政策工具仍然存在一系列不足,管制型工具、经济型工具、信息型工具都有较大的改进调整空间,应当进一步形成规范、合理的管制型制度,以普惠为主而非补助为主的经济型制度,以提供信息服务为主的信息型制度,并以此促进节能环保产业健康、有序发展。     

Devolving Residential Energy Efficiency Responsibility to Local Government: The case of HECA

Substantial improvements in residential energy efficiency are required if the UK is to meet its target of reducing CO 2 emissions by 20% between 1990 and 2010. The Home Energy Conservation Act 1995 (HECA) devolves much of the responsibility for this to local authorities, by requiring them to draw up strategies to increase energy efficiency in this sector by 30% in the next 10-15 years. While many authorities have responded positively to the Act, others are struggling, and 25% of HECA reports initially failed to meet the Act's statutory obligations. The Association for the Conservation of Energy (ACE) conducted research to identify barriers faced by local authorities in implementing HECA. They were found to include officers' lack of experience, their lack of time and a lack of support from elected members. Action must be taken to ensure that HECA achieves its potential. The authors suggest that the Act needs to be adequately supported by central legislation, and that devolution of responsibility must be accompanied by some devolution of finances. The authors also recommend that the Act could be used as an example for international replication.     

Devolving Residential Energy Efficiency Responsibility to Local Government: the case of HECA

Substantial improvements in residential energy efficiency are required if the UK is to meet its target of reducing CO 2 emissions by 20% between 1990 and 2010. The Home Energy Conservation Act 1995 (HECA) devolves much of the responsibility for this to local authorities, by requiring them to draw up strategies to increase energy efficiency in this sector by 30% in the next 10-15 years. While many authorities have responded positively to the Act, others are struggling, and 25% of HECA reports initially failed to meet the Act's statutory obligations. The Association for the Conservation of Energy (ACE) conducted research to identify barriers faced by local authorities in implementing HECA. They were found to include officers' lack of experience, their lack of time and a lack of support from elected members. Action must be taken to ensure that HECA achieves its potential. The authors suggest that the Act needs to be adequately supported by central legislation, and that devolution of responsibility must be accompanied by some devolution of finances. The authors also recommend that the Act could be used as an example for international replication.     

Energy and environmental challenges for developed and developing countries

A supply-oriented strategy which accepts current projections of development energy demands, and seeks to satisfy them, based on acquiring capital-intensive technologies requiring imported fuels is doomed to failure. Developing countries which follow such a strategy will be unable to meet either their energy needs or the basic development needs of their people. To the extent that their energy needs are thus met, it will be at horrendous cost of capital desperately needed for economic and social improvement in non-energy sectors and with tragic environmental consequences to the developing countries and to the world [17]. The opposite of a supply-oriented strategy is a demand-control one. Commercially available or near commercial energy efficient technologies will permit the developing countries to raise the standard of living of their people with only a modest increase in per capita energy consumption.     

Scope of fossil energy resources in Mexico and the Andean Group

The article focuses on fossil energy resources in the Andean Group and Mexico, and argues for a dynamic approach to calculating reserves to production ratios. Individual countries are surveyed in terms of estimated reserves of fossil energy resources, current production rates and future prospects; energy policy options for individual countries are analysed. As a primary objective of energy policy is to ensure security of supply, it is important that calculations of reserves to production ratios accurately estimate the desired level of investment in exploration. The calculations need to take into account a variety of parameters, including different energy sources, availability and risk; geographic considerations including proximity, transport, storage capacity and commercial aspects; the competitive and environmental implications of developing indigenous resources; and the use of instruments to establish contingency plans for emergencies.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of OLADE, ECLAC or GTZ. The authors apologize for any inaccuracies or omissions in the article.     

Economic instruments for sustainable community development

Abstract

In recent years there has been increasing interest in the use of so‐called ‘economic instruments’ in environmental policy. Economic instruments influence the behaviour of economic agents by providing financial incentives for environmentally improved behaviour, or disincentives for damaging behaviour. This paper explores the use of economic instruments in the field of sustainable community planning and development. It does so in the wider context of how environmental economic policy is made. The focus of this paper is to examine the role of policy instruments in community planning, and to review the different types of instruments that are available to policy‐makers. Numerous examples of the various instruments at the community level are described. It is widely believed that policy making should occur at the lowest or most local level possible while maintaining effectiveness. A system of government that does not give adequate legal power to local governments, and does not allow local governments considerable flexibility in the use of funds, cannot be expected to achieve all community objectives. Central governments must give local governments permission to take measures towards sustainable community planning, even though that requires giving them power to address broader issues. At the same time, when issues that should be addressed at national and international levels are not addressed, local governments may be able to take action individually. Given the general reluctance (and perhaps inability) of governments at all levels today to consider non‐economic and, particularly, non‐market policy instruments, it is pragmatic as well as timely to improve our understanding of economic instruments for sustainable community development.     

A community-based approach to low-income residential energy efficiency participation barriers

Financial barriers are often cited as the principle impediment to the adoption of energy efficiency measures. Since 1976, the US Department of Energy's Weatherisation Assistance Programme (WAP) has provided state block grants for no-cost, low-income energy efficiency retrofits. Yet, millions of low-income American households lack affordable, reliable, and efficient energy access. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 boosted WAP's annual appropriation from $230 million to $5 billion, requiring states to explore innovate approaches to quickly increasing programme participation. Community-based energy programmes have shown success for overcoming various barriers and increasing participation in the adoption of energy technologies. This case study explores a community-based approach to scaling WAP-funded energy efficiency retrofits in a cluster of five urban, low-income, majority African-American neighbourhoods, known as the Green Impact Zone (GIZ), in Kansas City, Missouri. Findings from interviews with GIZ stakeholders suggest that local context is important to how energy efficiency participation barriers manifest. The targeted, community-based approach to WAP created institutional capabilities for increased recognition of participation challenges and facilitated opportunities for alternative solutions that may otherwise have been overlooked under the standard self-referral implementation of WAP. Lastly, effective implementation of WAP required policy workarounds that recognised the unique characteristics and needs of the target community.     

Indicators for sustainable energy development: Brazil's case study

This article summarizes the results of the project on indicators for sustainable energy development (ISED) in Brazil. The project's aim was to present energy related economic, social and environmental data to policy makers in a coherent and consistent form, showing interlinkages, time‐series and cross‐sectoral analyses and assess energy policy. Two priority areas assessed by these indicators, regarding the country's energy supply and demand, helped in the identification of a number of energy policy options that focused on specific aspects of the country's energy sector. On the supply side, these options include the development and stimulation of renewable energy, such as small‐scale hydroelectric, wind, solar photovoltaic power and bagasse cogeneration; stimulation of programmes for ethanol use as automotive fuel and sugarcane bagasse cogeneration; and implementation of natural gas‐fired, combined heat and power (CHP) plants. On the demand side, policy options include: the full implementation of the law on efficiency standards for appliances; expansion of utility investment in end‐use energy efficiency; adoption of targets and protocols to reduce energy intensity in the industrial sector; improvement of passenger transport efficiency; and the creation of a fund to improve energy affordability for the poor.     

Social features of energy production and use in Brazil: Goals for a sustainable energy future

This paper focuses on the social features of ene rgy production and use in Brazil and discusses the role of the energy policy goals of accessibility, affordability and acceptability in defining a sustainable energy future for the country. The major findings are that social inequalities in Brazil regarding energy use continue to be substantial and important. This can be explained by the fact that, although recent decades have seen significant improvements in energy accessibility all over the country, much more needs to be done to provide affordable, and socially acceptable modern energy carriers to all socio‐economic groups in all regions.     

The Employment and Productivity Effects of Environmental Taxation: Additional Dividends or Added Distractions?

Claims of employment and productivity gains from environmental taxation are examined in the context of recent policy developments which have extended the traditional role of economic instruments in environmental regulation. Although the general existence of such spin-offs cannot be established, the debate has clarified guidelines for designing and implementing specific environmentally based taxes to help deliver sustainable development. Recent UK tax proposals have started to draw on the flexibility of fiscal instruments to tackle environmental problems. Innovations include earmarking taxes to fund allied spatial and sectoral programmes, recycling revenues to provide fiscally neutral improvements in tax efficiency and using taxation to help promote eco-efficiency.     

Towards a grand deal on subsidies and climate change

Recent studies have identified public subsidies as a principal cause of unsustainable development. Worldwide, governments are spending up to $U950 billion a year on subsidies. Many of these public subsidies fail to serve their purpose and in fact, often turn out as policy failures as they further distort trade and cause environmental harm. The energy sector is among the most subsidized sectors in the world, receiving over $U240 billion per annum of public subsidies. This article highlights current energy subsidies and their implications. The article examines: (i) the global size and distribution of energy subsidies in industrialized and developing countries; (ii) the impact of these subsidies on the economy, equity and the environment and their role as barriers for sustainable development; (iii) the political economy behind public subsidies and the various political and institutional barriers and lock-in mechanisms that cause subsidies to become entrenched in economic and public structures; and (iv) proposals for effective subsidy reform in energy policies, suggesting a global strategy to eliminate energy subsidies. OECD governments are in a position to take the lead, and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change presents an excellent opportunity of striking a political grand deal and linking the reform of energy subsidies to a meaningful participation of developing countries to the Kyoto Protocol. Moreover, if sinks are to be included in the clean development mechanism (CDM), it is crucial to include the removal of forestry subsidies in the grand deal.     

AGRICULTURE, WATER AND ENVIRONMENT IN BOTSWANA: A PROBLEM OF POLICY

In many countries, an increasing amount of attention is being paid to the economic and environmental repercussions of mineral resources development, and in particular to the problems of industrialisation of an agricultural society. In Botswana, the discovery of and planning for the development of nickel deposits is an important element of national policy. However, often overlooked is the basic and continuing role that has to be provided by the agricultural sector. The pressure of people and of livestock on the land, and the extension of cultivation into increasingly fragile environments where the availability of water is a critical constraint, pose serious problems for policy makers. The author examines the dilemma in a case study of Botswana, showing how changes in the agricultural sector have precipitated problems of water supply and of environmental stress. The need for inter-disciplinary approaches to policy making is underscored, together with detailed and integrated studies of the dimensions of these inter-related problems. The problem of the availability of water in adequate quantities and of appropriate quality has become a serious policy concern. Later this year the United Nations Conference on Desertification will address the broad scope of the relationships between man, land and water. This article examines one example of these changing relationships.     

Incentives to improve farm management: EMS, supply-chains and civil society

This paper focuses on impediments to environmentally sound management practices and how these might be overcome, with an emphasis on the role of environmental management systems, supply chains and civil society. It argues that: Farmers are under increased pressure to cut costs and improve production but with little opportunity to increase prices. Commonly short-term economic interest has damaging environmental implications. Current government policy, in Australia and in many other jurisdictions, relies heavily on voluntary arrangements, education and information, as the main policy instruments through which to persuade farmers to adopt better environmental farm management - e.g. the recent push to encourage the use of voluntary environmental management systems. However, there is good evidence to suggest that these can only make a valuable contribution when combined with a range of other policy instruments, including positive and negative incentives, intervention by third parties and in some cases, an underpinning of regulation. Arguably, what is needed is a strategy that builds on the strengths of voluntary environmental management arrangements while compensating for their weaknesses by combining them with other, complementary policy instruments. If so, we must engage with a range of questions that have not so far figured substantially in the policy debate. Although the principal focus has been on the role of government in bringing about on-farm change in management practices, supply chain pressure (at least in respect of agricultural chemicals and practices which threaten food safety) and civil society action are also potentially powerful mechanisms for bringing about change. Government can and should play a role in harnessing such forces in the interests of improved environmental on-farm practices.     

Linkage Effects and Environmental Impacts from Oil Consumption Industries in Taiwan

Input–output modeling and cluster analysis are used to assess the impacts of oil consumption industries on environmental quality and inter-industry relationships in Taiwan. Results indicate that fuel oil has the greatest impact on the environment. The transportation sector has grown rapidly with high energy intensity and severe pollution emission in Taiwan. Also, power generation, other industrial chemicals, paper products, non-metallic mineral products, petro-chemical materials, rubber products, cement and textiles are identified as the most significant industries causing serious pollution problems in Taiwan. Results of inter-industry linkages confirm that investment of the above-mentioned industries should be adjusted to better energy efficiency, environmental quality and economic bases. This study indicates that energy policy should integrate environmental policy, in addition to assuring energy and economical gains.