Mountain socio-ecological systems produce valuable but complex ecosystem services resulting from biomes stratified by altitude and gravity. These systems are often managed and shaped by smallholders whose marginalization is exacerbated by uncertainties and a lack of policy attention. Human–environment interfaces in mountains hence require holistic policies. The authors analyse the potential of the Global Mountain Green Economy Agenda (GMGEA) in building awareness and thus prompting cross-sectoral policy strategies for sustainable mountain development. Considering the critique of the green economy presented at the Rio + 20 conference, the authors argue that the GMGEA can nevertheless structure knowledge and inform regional institutions about the complexity of mountain socio-ecological systems, a necessary pre-condition to prompt inter-agency collaboration and cross-sectoral policy formulation. The paper draws on two empirical cases in the Pakistani and Nepali Himalayas. In each case, it first shows that lack of awareness has led to a sequence of fragmented interventions with unanticipated, and unwanted, consequences for communities.
Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan are deficient of domestic fossil energy sources and depend significantly on imported fuels. Since the oil shock in the 1970s, all three countries have promoted renewable energy as an alternative energy source to improve energy security. Currently, renewable energy is being promoted to build low-carbon economies. This study reviews the development of renewable energy policies and roadmaps. It also examines and compares strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) of these countries in the context of advancing renewable energy policies and technologies and expanding domestic renewable energy installations, as well as strategically positioning themselves in the international renewable energy market as exporters of clean energy technologies. Through the SWOT analysis, this paper identifies a capacity for additional renewable energy deployment in these countries and highlights the necessity of increased cooperation between the three countries to strengthen their domestic and regional renewable energy sectors and compete in the global renewable energy market in the post-Fukushima era.
The paper studies two empirical correlations: one between economic growth and environmental impacts, and the other between the lack of economic growth and unemployment. It is demonstrated that, at a global level, economic growth is strongly correlated with environmental impacts, and barriers to fast decoupling are large and numerous. On the other hand, low or negative growth is highly correlated with increasing unemployment in most market economies, and strategies to change this lead to difficult questions and tradeoffs. The coexistence of these two correlations – which have rarely been studied together in the literature on “green growth”, “degrowth” and “a-growth” – justifies ambivalence about growth. To make key environmental goals compatible with full employment, the decoupling of environmental impacts from economic output has to be accompanied by a reduction of dependence on growth. In particular, strategies to tackle unemployment without the need for growth, several of which are studied in this article, need much more attention in research and policy.
As a global agreement on climate mitigation and absolute emissions reductions remains grid-locked, this paper assesses whether the prospects for international technology cooperation in low-carbon sectors can be improved. It analyses the case of international cooperation on electric vehicle technologies to elaborate on the trade-offs that cooperation such as this inherently attempts to balance– national growth objectives of industrial and technology development versus the global goods benefit of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It focuses on bilateral German-Chinese programmes for electric vehicle development, as well as multilateral platforms on low-carbon technology cooperation related to electric vehicles. Based on insights from these cases studies, this paper ultimately provides policy recommendations to address gaps in international technology cooperation at a bilateral level for ongoing German-Chinese engagement on electric vehicles; and at a multilateral level with a focus on the emerging technology cooperation framework of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
REDD is one of the latest additions to a series of incentive-based mechanisms for reducing carbon emissions. Many developing and emerging countries have started engaging in REDD. Peru, the country with the world’s fourth largest area of tropical forest, is no exception here – with an obvious motivation: about half of Peru’s annual greenhouse gas emissions are currently caused by deforestation.
Over the last years, public and private initiatives have led to a complex multi-level REDD governance architecture in Peru. This architecture faces challenges in terms of social inclusion and coordination. This study identifies and analyses key issues, some of which are merely teething problems, while others are deeply rooted in socio-economic imbalances and political culture, such as insufficient financial, technical and human capacities of ministries and regional governments; legitimacy gaps; and information and participation asymmetries across public actors, NGOs, companies and forest users.
The carbon markets are in the middle of a fundamental crisis - a crisis marked by collapsing prices, fleeing actors, and ever increasing greenhouse gas levels. Yet carbon trading remains at the heart of global attempts to respond to climate change. Not only this, but markets continue to proliferate - particularly in the Global South.
The book helps to make sense of this paradox and brings two urgently needed insights to the analysis of carbon markets. First, the markets must be understood in relation to the politics involved in their development, maintenance and opposition. Second, this politics is multiform and pervasive. Implementation of new techniques and measuring tools, policy development and contestation, and the structuring context of institutional settings and macro-social forces all involve a variety of political actors and create new forms of political agency. The contributions study the total extent of the carbon markets, from their prehistory to their contemporary expansion and wider impacts.
The authors find that from an international perspective, there is strong evidence that green investments are significantly different from SRI investments in terms of financial performance and underlying firm characteristics. Green equities outperformed SRI equities between 2003 and 2007, whereas they underperformed between 2008 and 2012 with absolute multi-factor alphas of more than 1 per cent per month in both directions. Green portfolios mainly contain stocks of low quality with weak business models that are highly capital-demanding but unprofitable, whereas SRI portfolios are principally characterized by stocks with well-conceived and profitable business models. The authors suggest that green investments can be considered as a sector bet on the renewable energy industry shaped by massive governmental subsidies during the mid-2000s.
This book is aimed at practitioners, students and scholars in architecture, urban planning and design. It features essays on ecologically sustainable cities by leading exponents of urban sustainability, case studies of the new directions low carbon cities might take and investigations of how we can mitigate urban heat stress in our cities’ microclimates. The book explores the underlying dimensions of how existing cities can be transformed into low carbon urban systems and describes the design of low carbon cities in theory and practice. It considers the connections between low carbon cities and sustainable design, social and individual values, public space, housing affordability, public transport and urban microclimates. Given the rapid urbanisation underway globally, and the need for all our cities to operate more sustainably, the book argues for the need to think about how spatial planning and design can help transform urban systems to create low carbon cities.
This report recommends actions by the public and private sectors to foster the growing market for SMEs in the clean technology sector.
Acknowledging the environmental and economic potential of green entrepreneurship, and recognizing the daunting challenges clean technology SMEs are facing, particularly in accessing early and growth stage financing, the report provides policymakers with a range of practical instruments that help support SMEs in clean technology sectors such as innovative finance, entrepreneurship and business acceleration, market development, technology development, and the legal and regulatory framework. These policy considerations are illustrated through case studies of national programs in South Korea, India, Thailand, and Ethiopia.
The report also highlights clean technology market opportunities that can have large social impact and the benefit of promoting clean technology jobs.
The emerging concept of Green Jobs has yet to be clearly defined. This study uses critical discourse analysis and framing theory to analyse the meaning of Green Jobs claims, and their representation and transformation. Based on an analysis of print media from 1999 to 2009 and supporting policy documents, five predominant frames were identified in Green Jobs discourse: Environment–Economy Bridge, Green Entrepreneurship, Nascent Industry Creation, Internal Industry Transformation, and Structural Adjustment. Coverage of Green Jobs discourse has sharply increased since 2008. Although the term remains loosely defined and is employed in multiple ways, it is predominantly used as a strategic link between the recession and climate change policy. The fractured framing used in Green Jobs discourse hinders its uptake as a meaningful concept informing job creation, greening of industry, and sustainable development policy. Media, policymakers and advocacy groups should clarify the underlying definition when using the term.