ERE2: Sustainability

1
ERE2 Sustainability

• The origins of the problem
• State of the environment
• Growth and the environment
• The environmental Kuznets curve
• Concepts of sustainability
• Definitions, meanings, conceptualisations
• Policy instruments

2
Wahlpflichtfach Umweltökonomie

• WS ERE1 Environmental Resource Economics
• SS ERE2 Global Environmental Problems
• Sem Issues in Environmental Economics
• WS ERE3 Agriculture and the Environment
• Sem Contemporary Environmental Problems
• SS ERE4 Valuation Theory
• Sem Issues in Environmental Economics

3
Environmental Problems Air

• Acidification Fossil fuel burning and intensive
  agriculture release acidifying substances, that
  falls as acid rain
• Ozone layer CFCs destroy the ozone layer,
  increasing UV radiation
• Climate change Fossil fuel burning releases
  carbon dioxide, which changes climate
• Urban air quality Traffic emits all sorts of
  substances that affect health, buildings and
  plants directly or indirectly

4
Environmental Problems Water

• Eutrophication Nitrates and phosphate released
  by agriculture and industry alter competition
  between species
• Toxic releases Industry releases all sorts of
  toxic substances
• Endocrine disruptors Pseudo-hormones have a
  wide-range of applications, alter the behaviour
  and physiology of animals
• Depletion Some countries already have too little
  water, others are rapidly depleting fossil sources

5
Environmental Problems Land

• Soil erosion Reduced vegetation cover makes that
  top soil gets washed away
• Desertification Erosion, climate change,
  overexploitation gradually turns once fertile
  areas into deserts
• Salinisation Overirrigation leads to the build
  up of salt in the soil
• Waste Increasingly large areas are used for
  waste disposal

6
Environmental Problems Nature

• Loss of nature More land for living, industry,
  transport, agriculture and recreation implies
  less land for nature
• Loss of species Destruction of habitat, overuse
  and other factors lead to local and global
  extinctions and loss of biodiversity
• Exotic invasions Deliberate and unintentional
  transport of species imply new forms of
  competition between species

7
Resource Problems

• Depletion of resources Human extraction of all
  sorts of minerals (copper, zinc) and fossil
  material (oil, water) exceeds their build up,
  implying that less and less of the stuff is left
  in the ground for future generations
• Waste Human waste exceeds the assimilating
  capacity of nature, leading not only to
  accumulation but also to reduced assimilation

8
Population Growth

• More people, more food, more energy, more
  transport, more space, more everything
• Projections 1995 2050
• Western Europe 447 479 (446-512)
• USA 297 356 (320-400)
• SSAfrica 558 1059 (965-1159)
• China 1362 1670 (1526-1826)
• South Asia 1240 1845 (1737-1949)

9
Economic Growth

• Incomes have been growing at rates of up to 10 a
  year, although the average lies somewhere between
  1 and 2 per cent a year, doubling incomes every
  35-70 years
• Higher income implies higher consumption, higher
  production, more resource extraction, and more
  waste
• Improved technology, less constrained, more
  aware, care more, status

10
Environmental Kuznets Curve

• Kuznets Curve Inequality first increases, then
  decreases with economic growth
• Environmental Kuznets Curve Environmental
  degradation first increases, then decreases with
  economic growth
• Holds for some, not for all pollutants
• Absolute or relative pressure?
• Local or global?
• Even if true, no reason for complacency!

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Sustainability

• John Stuart Mill (1857)
• If the earth must lose that great portion of its
  pleasantness which it ows to things that the
  unlimited increases of wealth and population
  would extirpate from it, for the mere purpose of
  enabling it to support a larger, but not a
  happier or better population, I sincerely hope,
  for the sake of posterity, that they will be
  content to be stationary long before necessity
  compels them to it.

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Sustainability -2

• Bruntland report (WCED, 1987)
• Sustainable development is development that
  meets the needs of the present without
  compromising the ability of future generations to
  meet their own needs
• Wonderful, but what does this mean?

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Sustainability

• Weak sustainability
• Non-declining utility
• Non-declining production opportunities
• Non-declining yields of resource services
• Strong sustainability
• Non-declining natural capital stocks
• Ecosystem stability and resilience
• A social construct
• All that, plus efficiency and equity

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Non-declining utility

• Pezzey utility should not fall
• Hartwick consumption should not fall
• Solow consumption should be constant
• Whose utility, consumption?
• What is utility, consumption?
• What time scale?
• Substitution is allowed

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Non-declining production opportunities

• Solow, Page
• Q Q(L, KH, KN)
• No assumption about what is consumption, utility
• Production for whom?
• What is production?
• What time scale?
• Substitution is allowed

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Non-declining natural capital stocks

• Taken literally, this stops everything no
  substitution is allowed
• In practice, some substitution and compensation
  must be allowed, but how much?
• Is spatial substitution allowed? Or, at what
  spatial scale?
• What stocks are maintained? Habitats, species,
  genes?
• What to do with viruses and pests?

17
Non-declining yields of resource services

• Back to an anthropocentric viewpoint, or not?
  Depends on services to whom? To Homo Sapiens or
  to other species as well?
• What are services?
• What time scale?
• What spatial scale?
• Substitution is allowed, as long as the service
  is generated

18
Ecosystem stability and resilience

• An ecocentric viewpoint, or is it? Is stability
  measured as stably serving human needs?
• What is stability, resilience?
• What spatial and temporal scale?
• Are ecosystems naturally stable?
• Beyond a point, no substitution of man-made
  stocks and activities for natural stocks and
  processes

19
A social construct

• Sustainability is, of course, defined as society
  would like to define it
• There is no objective definition possible
• Some argue that if only we get the procedure of
  defining sustainability right ...
• This is an example of a political goal jumping
  the environmental agenda

20
Sustainability, equity, and efficiency

• Recently, the sustainability debate has been
  widened to include issues of distributional
  justice and economic efficiency
• Whilst equity and efficiency are important goals
  in their own right, and cannot be separately
  assessed, there is little reason to blur the
  concept of sustainability ...
• ... except for political reasons