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on Environmental Economics |
| By: | Elena Gissi; Giuseppina Siciliano |
| Abstract: | Renewable energy sources, such as biomass can make a positive impact on climate change phenomenon by decreasing our dependence on fossil fuels. The use of biomass energy is directly linked to the use of the land, from which biomass feedstock is obtained, such as farm land and forests, and its ecosystem services. The biomass production and the use of land and ecosystem services are usually associated with a wide range of environmental and social impacts, depending on what choices are made regarding what types of biomass are used, as well as where and how they are produced. Choosing management practices that minimize negative impacts and complement planning policies and energy production objectives is often associated with land-use conflicts among both different institutional levels, local, national and European, and different social actors. Yet, European Directive 2009/28/CE establishes that the energy production from renewable energy by 2020, as well as from biofuel, defined for each member state (Annex 1), must be achieved through a “sustainable†production. Such definition is assigned to national and local contexts, arising issues in policy making, conflicts analysis and methodologies. The present paper discusses on the recent acknowledgment of the above mentioned EU directive in several Italian Regions, such as Puglia and Marche, which have defined regulations/guidelines regarding their potential contribution to the national objectives of production and consumption of energy from renewable sources (EFR). Moreover, the present paper confronts such regulations with results found in literature. Several analyses have been done on the energy production from biomass based on technical and economic aspects of the problem. However, few studies have applied integrated approaches able to take into consideration crucial aspects such as biodiversity conservation and landscape fragmentation, as required by EU Directive 2009/28/CE, side by side with the economic and social dimensions. This paper aims at filling this gap proposing the application of an integrated framework of analysis, based on multi-criteria approaches able to take into consideration socio-economic, environmental and landscape criteria, as well as institutional and social conflicts linked to the biomass production. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa11p1413&r=env |
| By: | Carlos Azzoni; Eduardo Haddad |
| Abstract: | An integrated approach projects the economic impacts from climate change and adaptation and mitigation policies, explicitly considering the various territorial scales in Brazil (macro-regions, states, micro-regions, and networks of cities). A computable general equilibrium (GCE) model was used to simulate two climate change-free scenarios regarding the future of Brazil’s economy that are consistent with the global economic development trends under IPCC’s scenarios A2 and B2. Climate shocks, captured by the model through impacts on the agricultural/ livestock and energy sectors, were applied to these scenarios. The socio-economic trends of the scenarios with and without global climate change were reviewed in terms of benefits and costs for Brazil and its regions. The models interact with the agricultural/livestock and energy sector studies through variables such as energy generation and consumption for different sectors and regions, replacement of sources of energy in the production process and consumption by the residential sector, agricultural yields and land use, etc. These, in turn, are dependent on climate variables, future water supply and other economic factors. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa11p410&r=env |
| By: | Piet Rietveld; Erhan Demirel; Jos van Ommeren |
| Abstract: | Low water levels are a potential threat to the inland navigation market. We develop a theoretical model to analyze low water-level uncertainty in the inland navigation market. A negative effect of climate change on welfare is expected due to the increase in cost per tonne of transport when low water levels occur more frequently. The market actors may take measures to adapt to the new situation of climate change. As an example, we study barge-size adjustments by barge operators. We show that in the current market (both before and after climate change) there are incentives to almost double the barge size. The reason that this still has not occurred may be explained by the long lifetime of barges that are currently in use. Thus, climate change does not provide a reason to stop the current trend towards larger barges. The only effect is that this trend towards larger barges will end at a lower size than would be the case without climate change. The public sector may also take measures to decrease the harm caused by climate change. In this study we consider an investment in infrastructure by means of dredging. We find a benefit-cost ratio higher than for this for investments both before and after climate change. Thus, both with and without climate change, welfare would increase if government intensifies dredging. After climate change, public adaptation may be more important than private adaptation when the situation is optimal before climate change. For the combined effect of barge-size adjustment and infrastructure investment, it can be concluded that the benefit in terms of expected welfare is 'super-additive' for the situation before climate and also for the situation after climate change when starting from the current situation. This 'super-additivity' property can be attributed to the opportunity for barge operators to hold even larger barges in the new environment where low water is less harmful for their capacities. However, for the situation after climate change, when starting from an optimized situation, super-additivity no longer holds. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa11p85&r=env |
| By: | Julien Frayssignes |
| Abstract: | Our proposal is linked with an European cooperation project bound to Mediterranean agriculture. The paper aims to develop a partially renewed approach of the district concept as a development model for rural areas, applied to the organization of the agroenergy sector. Originally developed by Marshall, the concept of district was reactualized by Italian researchers in the 70's (Beccatini). In France, the concept of Industrialized Productive System was notably developed by Courlet and Pecqueur (1992) to analyse local dynamics of development based on the cooperation between small firms, R&D institutions and public local authorities. Our paper aims to discuss the relevance of the concept of district in the implementation of an agroenergy activity at local scale: -to what extent this concept can contribute to strengthen the collective capacity of local stakeholders? (organization of an agroenergy chain), -to what extent the concept can bring answers to stakes bound to agroenergy sector? (competitivity of rural areas, employment, farmers income, preservation of natural resources, climate change, cohesion and standard of living), -to what extent the concept can encourage a development based on local resource valuation (spatial and social proximity between stakeholders) and avoid the drifts bound to competition between food and agroenergy productions? In this perspective, the ambition of the paper is also to illustrate the territorial anchoring of an agroenergy district, in particular through: -the Mediterranean dimensions of the regions involved in the project (natural and social aspects), -the public policies supporting agroenergy sector, and notably the role of regional institutions in the implementation of such districts. This analysis will bring us to mobilize the theoretical model of territorial footing developed during our Ph.D in Geography dedicated to the link between origin labeled products and rural development. Finally, the objective is to promote an operational methodology able to help local actors to implement a Sustainable Mediterranean Agroenergy District (SMAD). This initiative is an opportunity for the development of rural areas and the elaboration of agroenergy strategies able to conform to the sustainability criteria evoked in the European directive bound to renewable energies. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa11p318&r=env |
| By: | Weslem Faria; Alexandre Almeida |
| Abstract: | The Brazilian Amazon is a large piece of land that hosts only 12% of Brazilian population. Even this low figure and people mostly living in urban areas, the overexploitation of the forest resources driven by economic activities seems to be out-of-control. In the 1970s, abundant government subsidies/incentives for mining, crop and beef production, and gigantic road projects provided infra-structure to the new settlers coming from other parts of the country. For the last decades, frontier regions of Amazon have been a major scene of land conflicts between farmers, squatters, miners, indigenous group and public authorities. Furthermore, from the openness of economy in the 1990s, we also find some evidence that the very attractive demand of international markets for timber, and recently, the attractive international prices of agricultural commodities are determinants that have been also pushing to more deforestation through the conversion of forest to new agricultural areas. The main objective of this paper is to investigate how international trade has affected the dynamics of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. The analysis also focuses on the expansion of crop and cattle activities, and other determinants such as gross domestic product, demographic density and roads. To achieve such goal, we combine standard econometrics with the spatial econometrics in order to capture, across the space, the socio-economic interactions among the agents in their interrelated economic system. The data used in this study correspond to a balanced panel for 732 counties from 2000 to 2007 totalizing 6,256 observations. The main findings suggest that the openness to trade indicator used--export plus import over GDP--goes up, the result is more deforestation. We also find that beef cattle and the production of soybeans, sugarcane and cotton are pushing to more deforestation in the region. The extraction of firewood and timber had both a positive and significant in impact on deforestation, as expected. Moreover, as the GDP goes up, it pushes to more deforestation as well. On the other hand, as the square of GDP goes up indicate less deforestation, supporting, to some extent, the environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa11p1013&r=env |