This policy brief focuses on large hydropower infrastructure in sub-Saharan Africa. It investigates the climate change risks and the use of climate services in decision-making and makes recommendations for actions to enhance the resilience of hydropower schemes. It summarises a more comprehensive paper prepared to support the scoping phase of the Future Climate for Africa (FCFA) programme for the hydropower sector.
This report finds that revenue account fund disbursement in Punjab in terms of percentage share of the total for water supply, irrigation, and science, ecology and environment has decreased for the financial year 2012–13 over 2011–12. This finding further strengthens the need for a process that will enable pro-active measures for supporting environmental sustainability considerations within the existing public finance framework. The report articulates "green budgeting" as a process where every year, government agencies (departments, directorates, boards, councils, commissions) through the Annual Budget Circular, by preparing Green Budget Statements, will highlight the quantum of public expenditure earmarked in the state budget for environmental sustainability initiatives as well as reducing expenditure in unsustainable sectors. For implementing such a process in Punjab, the Planning Department and Finance Department will need to play a role in coordinating the process along with nodal support from the Department of Science Technology and Environment.
This paper argues in favour of an approach that has growth-oriented climate investment and social inclusion at its core. It presents a roadmap to a green economy in South Asia where interventions are categorized under: i) priority programmatic interventions that can contribute to an inclusive green economy; ii) strategies for mainstreaming green growth in macro-economic development policy and planning; iii) upscaling of policy and technology innovations; and iv) regional cooperation. The challenge, however, would be to have the roadmap implemented in an integrated manner accompanied by equitable benefit sharing arrangements at the institutional level. The constraints arise primarily because of inadequate stakeholder awareness and engagement in the transition process, which makes the approach to a green economy in South Asia as much a socio-cultural challenge at the country level, as that of the political leadership at the regional level.
This paper first reviews the conceptual case for, and appropriate design of, fiscal policies to address major externalities associated with energy use — global warming, local air pollution, and various side effects (e.g., congestion) from motor vehicles. Techniques for (roughly) estimating the magnitude of these externalities, and corrective energy taxes, on a country-by-country basis are then described. The implications for reforming energy taxes, and the potential environmental, health, and fiscal benefits from reform, are then discussed. A theme of the paper is the critical role of finance ministries in administering tax reforms and ensuring efficient use of revenues.
This paper calculates, for the top twenty emitting countries, how much pricing of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions is in their own national interests due to domestic co-benefits (leaving aside the global climate benefits). On average, nationally efficient prices are substantial, $57.5 per ton of CO2 (for year 2010), reflecting primarily health co-benefits from reduced air pollution at coal plants and, in some cases, reductions in automobile externalities (net of fuel taxes/subsidies). Pricing co-benefits reduces CO2 emissions from the top twenty emitters by 13.5 percent (a 10.8 percent reduction in global emissions). However, co-benefits vary dramatically across countries (e.g., with population exposure to pollution) and differentiated pricing of CO2 emissions therefore yields higher net benefits (by 23 percent) than uniform pricing. Importantly, the efficiency case for pricing carbon’s co-benefits hinges critically on (i) weak prospects for internalizing other externalities through other pricing instruments and (ii) productive use of carbon pricing revenues.