The impacts of firms’ mobility on the environmental policy

Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - This paper investigates the impacts of firms’ mobility on the environmental policy. We focus on two issues. The first one is the relationship...     

The varying effects of left–right ideology on support for the environment: Evidence from a Swedish survey experiment

Years of research show that left-leaning individuals are more supportive of environmental policies than right-leaning individuals. The explanation for the lower level of support among right-leaning individuals is their stronger preference for economic growth and lower acceptance of intervention in markets. However, recent cross-national studies have questioned whether the effect of ideology on environmental support is universal. A Swedish survey experiment shows that the effect of ideology varies greatly depending on how individuals think about the environment. Specifically, it demonstrates that if environmental support is contrasted with economic growth, then the effect of ideology is stronger as opposed to when environmental support is not juxtaposed with economic growth. Furthermore, among people who strongly perceive the environment as a left–right issue, there is a larger divide between left and right.     

Scaling up site disputes: strategies to redefine ‘local’ in the fight against fracking

Plans to replace an aging diesel backup energy plant with liquid natural gas (LNG) generators in Whitehorse, Yukon, resulted in a public outcry, involving community meetings, massive petitions, and demonstrations. Are these civil society protests just a case of a local siting dispute – a response to an unwanted industrial site in an urban neighborhood? Here, it is argued that siting debates are not the driver of these campaigns, but instead are harnessed by activists to advance a broader environmental movement. By linking the LNG project to more distant extraction, involving hydraulic fracturing (‘fracking’), movement leaders portray the entire territory as part of the ‘local’ for Whitehorse residents. Movement leaders rely upon two key mechanisms: claiming insider status, and identifying visible symbols. This case reveals the strategic use by environmental movements of local concerns to recruit support for broader campaigns, and the value of local, place-based activism for broader environmental movements.     

The idea(s) of ‘valuing nature’: insights from the UK’s ecosystem services framework

The variety of ideas about ways nature is ‘valued’ in public policymaking are investigated. A theoretical ideational approach is combined with empirical analysis of the UK’s ecosystem services framework. Several types of ideas are identified, and how they interact is examined: ideas about nature itself; about the role that different research on the value of nature can or should play in decision-making; and about how policy decisions are made. In particular, the ways these ideas appear in academic debates, especially in ecological economics and philosophy, are confronted with how ideas appear in the policy practice of employing a ‘valuing nature’ concept. This reveals political dynamics sometimes missed by both advocates and critics of the concept of ecosystem services, such as the importance of promoting organisations and their agendas and activities, persuading different actors to change positions, and institutional commitments and sunk costs.     

What’s ‘evangelical’ got to do with it? Disentangling the impact of evangelical Protestantism on environmental outcomes

Empirical research on the relationship between evangelical Protestants and the environment has generated a range of divergent findings. Measurements of evangelical Protestants vary greatly, as do the dependent environmental outcomes they are used to predict. Serious questions remain concerning when and how ‘evangelicals’ diverge from others in their environmental views and behaviors. Here, two foundational questions concerning the relationship between evangelical Protestants and the environment are explored. First, do religious effects differ based on how evangelicals are defined and measured? Second, does the relationship vary with the outcome variable used? Utilizing 14 dependent variables from two nationally representative data sets, among the measures of evangelical Protestantism, biblical literalism is the most important predictor of environmental outcomes. Negative religious effects are more pronounced when questions concern future environmental outcomes, but not current environmental concerns, and when outcomes are related to collective actions rather than individual ones.     

Comment on ‘Climate sensitivity,agricultural productivity and the social cost of carbon in FUND’

Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - Dayaratna et al. (Environ Econ Policy Stud 22:433–448, 2020) proposes several improvements to economic- and climate-simulating IAMs and to their...     

The ‘climatism’ cartel: why climate change deniers oppose market-based mitigation policy

Mainstream policy responses seek to utilize market mechanisms in an effort to minimize costs for major emitters of greenhouse gases. Presumably, this should win over some climate change deniers who align themselves with think tanks promoting free markets and economic growth. Yet, climate change deniers and free-market activists are as staunchly opposed to market-based climate policy as they are to any other form of climate mitigation. In order to understand why climate change deniers reject market-based policy proposals, an archive of free-market environmental newsletters was analyzed for themes of economic opposition. This analysis revealed how climate change deniers rely upon the concept of a regulatory cartel to connect economic opposition to climate policy with attacks on scientific evidence. Because professional scientists do not operate under conventional private-market incentive structures, neoliberal climate change deniers frame scientific knowledge as an attack on economic freedom when utilized to guide policy governing environment–economy relationships.     

Two types of ‘enough’: sufficiency as minimum and maximum

The question ‘how much is enough?’ can be related to two different kinds of thresholds: minimum and maximum levels. Two separate discussions on these levels are held within two different research fields – abstract justice theory and practical environmental science – and both use the term ‘sufficiency’ to denominate their subject. The discussion in each research field is concentrated almost exclusively on either minimum or maximum levels. It is argued instead that both are closely linked to each other and that the combination of both types of thresholds actually results in what the concept of sustainability demands. The aims here are to bring these two sufficiency debates together and to explore conceptual links as well as differences.     

Elite cues,media coverage,and public concern: an integrated path analysis of public opinion on climate change, 2001–2013

To analyze the factors affecting US public concern about the threat of climate change between January 2002 and December 2013, data from 74 separate surveys are used to construct quarterly measures of public concern over global climate change. Five factors should account for changes in levels of concern: extreme weather events, public access to accurate scientific information, media coverage, elite cues, and movement/countermovement advocacy. Structural equation modeling indicates that elite cues, movement advocacy efforts, weather, and structural economic factors influence the level of public concern about climate change. While media coverage exerts an important influence, it is itself largely a function of elite cues and economic factors. Promulgation to the public of scientific information on climate change has no effect. Information-based science advocacy has had only a minor effect on public concern, while political mobilization by elites and advocacy groups is critical in influencing climate change concern.     

The authority of rules in Chile’s contentious environmental politics

In 2010 Chilean legislators replaced a small environmental coordinating agency with an Environment Ministry, an autonomous Environmental Impact Assessment Agency, an enforcement agency, and specialized tribunals. Though ambitious, the reform failed to meet the stated objective of depoliticizing environmental decision-making. Instead, the reforms strengthened the authority of the central state, justified on the premise that decisions would now be based on ‘technical criteria’, meaning rules rather than politics. Comparing the creation (1990–1994) and reform (2009–2010) of Chile’s environmental institutions, it is demonstrated that a defining feature of Chilean political culture involves treating rules as if these were independent of the state. Chilean lawmakers use rules as science is used elsewhere: as an ‘objective’ voice separate from politics, that helps legitimate decisions. Appeals to the rules were used to increase the central state’s authority and exclude local representatives, concerned communities, and scientists from environmental decision-making.     

Taming the Climate? Corpus analysis of politicians’ speech on climate change

The politics of climate change is much discussed, but there has been little investigation into how politicians themselves understand or articulate the issue. Corpus analysis, a method developed within linguistics, is used to investigate how UK politicians talk about climate change, using the example of the 2008 Climate Change Bill. Corpus techniques, including keyword analysis, collocation and semantic tagging, are used, alongside critical reading of the text. The analysis shows that politicians frame climate change as an economic and technical issue, and neglect discussion of the human and social dimensions. They are selective in their use of scientific evidence, with little mention of abrupt or irreversible change. In doing so, they attempt to ‘tame’ climate change, rather than confronting difficult realities. While this strategy has the benefit of political acceptability, it does not allow for discussion of the full political and social implications of climate change, and precludes more radical responses.     

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 cost of floods in developing countries’ megacities: a hedonic price analysis of the Jakarta housing market,Indonesia

Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - Although many megacities in developing countries experience floods annually that affect a large number of people, relatively few empirical studies have...     

Extractivism and the rights of nature: governmentality, ‘convenient communities’ and epistemic pacts in Ecuador

Ecuador’s recently adopted conflict resolution techniques have aggravated the always tense encounters between Amazonian indigenous communities, oil companies and the state. The state’s governmentality project portrays these socio-environmental conflicts as mere technical–managerial issues while societal coalitions re-politicize them through territorial defense struggles. The Cofán Dureno case highlights how the self-proclaimed ‘Citizen’s Revolution’ government seeks to redefine socio-natural relationships and territorial identities, devising ‘communities of convenience’. These correspond to the state’s own images, political structure and ideology, promoting ‘community participation’ to facilitate oil extraction. Ecuador’s constitutionally recognized Rights of Nature (paradoxically installed by the same government) are analyzed with a focus on their potential for resisting socio-environmental injustice. The internationally celebrated inclusion of these rights in the Constitution was advocated by nonindigenous intellectual activists but influenced and supported by the indigenous movement. Beyond legal implications, these rights might foster an epistemic pact between indigenous and nonindigenous society to defend territories from extractive industries.     

The territorialization of transnational sustainability governance: production,power and globalization in Iceland’s fisheries

To contribute to the literature on transnational sustainability governance hybrids, a new fisheries certification program in Iceland that was originally developed as an alternative to the non-governmental Marine Stewardship Council is examined. While this new program appears on the surface to constitute a purely nationalistic reaction against external non-state authority, the new governance institution is also non-governmental and incorporates international norms and institutions. To explain this new governance hybrid, Robert Cox’s International Political Economy approach to production and power is engaged. This approach theorizes the co-constitution of the social forces of production, state–society complexes and global governance. It is argued that the Icelandic case is not entirely localized or unique; it is part of a broader movement in which social forces of production respond to new market-oriented transnational sustainability governance institutions by developing territorially embedded but transnationally legitimate alternatives.     

Back-pedaling or continuing quietly? Assessing the impact of ICLEI membership termination on cities’ sustainability actions

Over the past decade, cities have emerged as leaders in sustainability and climate protection in the United States. ICLEI, a voluntary network of local governments, played an important role driving this trend. After years of steady growth, ICLEI became a target of political opposition and its membership dropped significantly from 2010 to 2012. This begs the question of whether cities’ termination of their ICLEI affiliation diminishes their implementation of sustainability actions. Two surveys administered in 2010 and 2014 provide data on cities’ implementation of an array of sustainability actions. Using a difference-in-differences (DiD) method, the impact of ICLEI termination on local governments’ administrative and policy commitments to sustainability is assessed. The results suggest that ending ICLEI membership does not significantly impact local sustainability actions, and also indicate that the durability of policy actions may be only loosely linked to the policies that justify them.     

Effects of environmental regulation on firm entry and exit and China’s industrial productivity: a new perspective on the Porter Hypothesis

Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - This paper dissects the effects of environmental regulation on the productivity of pollution-intensive industries and by doing so offers a new...     

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.     

Trees,ground vegetation,sidewalks, cycleways: users’ preferences and economic values for different elements of an urban street—a case study in Taipei

Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - Streets are an essential element of cities, and their design has a profound impact on their functionality to the movement of people and their...