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9 results

  • Accounting for the Effects of Employment, Equity, and Risk Aversion in Cost–Benefit Analysis: An Application to an Adaptation Project

  • Ambika Markanday, Anil Markandya, Elisa Sainz de Murieta, Ibon Galarraga
  • Journal:
    Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis / Volume 12 / Issue 2 / Summer 2021
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    01 February 2021, pp. 313-334

  • This paper sets out to explore to what extent integrating employment effects, equity, and risk aversion within cost–benefit analysis (CBA) affect the economic appraisal of a climate change adaptation project designed to protect against flood risk in a region of Bilbao (Basque Country, Spain). Four CBAs are conducted: (i) a standard CBA; (ii) a standard CBA considering equity; (iii) a standard CBA considering equity and employment; and (iv) a standard CBA considering equity, employment and risk aversion. All CBAs are conducted using a time frame of 2014–2080 and considering a 100-year return period under a middle of the road emission scenario (RCP4.5). A sensitivity analysis is also undertaken. Results suggest that the economic efficiency of the adaptation investment is contingent on what types of considerations are included within CBA. Integrating elements of employment, equity and risk aversion can strengthen or weaken the case for action (leading to higher or lower net-present values) and (depending on the discount rate chosen) may even be the deciding factor for determining whether a particular action should be carried out or not (whether the net-present value is positive or negative).

  • Chapter 2 - Targets for Biodiversity and Deforestation

  • Edited by Bjorn Lomborg, Copenhagen Business School
  • Book:
    Prioritizing Development
    Published online:
    30 May 2018
    Print publication:
    07 June 2018, pp 38-53

  • Summary

    This is a first attempt at estimating benefit-cost ratios for the biodiversity and deforestation targets. Benefits in particular require more analysis. Also, the potential linkages between different targets need to be examined. The two most promising targets investigated in terms of benefit-cost ration are ÒBy 2030, stem the loss of coral reefs by 50%Ó, which has a BCR of 95.3 and ÒReduce global forest loss by at least 50%Ó, which has a BCR between 29.7 and 99.4.

  • 2 - Targets for Biodiversity and Deforestation

    • By Anil Markandya, Honorary Professor of Economics, University of Bath, UK and Distinguished Ikerbasque Professor of the Basque Centre for Climate Change in the Basque Country, Spain
  • Edited by Bjorn Lomborg, Copenhagen Business School
  • Book:
    Prioritizing Development
    Published online:
    30 May 2018
    Print publication:
    07 June 2018, pp 38-49

  • Summary

    Background

    The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), set up in 2000, tracked a number of indicators for sustainable development to 2015. Some of the goals, such as halving the poverty rate, have been met, and considerable progress has been made on others. Overall they are seen as a successful way of focusing attention and mobilizing resources to address the major gaps in human development, including those relating to the environment. The post-2015 agenda seeks to replace the MDGs with new goals that “move beyond meeting basic human needs and promote dynamic, inclusive and sustainable development” (CIGI, 2012).

    Biodiversity and deforestation are primarily covered in proposed Goals 14 and 15, dealing with marine and terrestrial resources, respectively. These targets draw significantly on the Aichi Targets that were adopted as part of the Convention of Biological Diversity's (CBD's) Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020, in Nagoya, Japan, in 2010 (see Table 2.1). However, there are differences between the two sets: the Aichi Targets include more quantitative values than the Sustainable Development Goals, and the SDGs cover a broader range of topics. Because the SDGs in this area are not quantitative and so cannot be adequately costed, this chapter looks in detail at the Aichi Targets and estimates the net benefits of those that are able to be evaluated in monetary terms.

    The Aichi Targets

    In this section the full set of 20 targets is discussed and a qualitative assessment made of the net benefits they provide (Table 2.1).

    The CBD and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) have grouped the targets into five strategic goals:

  • A. Address the underlying causes of biodiversity loss be mainstreaming it across government and society (Targets 1–4)

  • B. Reduce the pressures on biodiversity and promote sustainable use (Targets 5–10)

  • C. Improve status of biodiversity by safeguarding ecosystems, species, and genetic diversity (Targets 11–13)

  • D. Enhance benefits to all from biodiversity and ecosystem services (Targets 11–16)

  • E. Enhance implementation through participatory planning, knowledge management, and capacity building (Targets 17–20)

  • Environment and development economics: past, present and future challenges

  • Anil Markandya
  • Journal:
    Environment and Development Economics / Volume 19 / Issue 3 / June 2014
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    05 June 2014, pp. 328-329

  • The journal Environment and Development Economics has made a major contribution over the last 20 years to our understanding of the ways in which the environment interacts with the process of development. The risks of ignoring environmental considerations was raised at the outset when the journal was launched and the discussion has gone on to become more informed and sophisticated as time has passed. We know more about where development may bring about an improvement in environmental quality and where it may not, unless the right policies are followed. We also better appreciate what those policies are and what challenges governments face in implementing them.

  • 2 - Ecosystems and Biodiversity

  • Edited by Bjørn Lomborg
  • Book:
    Global Problems, Smart Solutions
    Published online:
    05 June 2014
    Print publication:
    14 November 2013, pp 72-136

  • Summary

    Introduction

    In this chapter we look at the costs and benefits of three possible interventions that would enhance the planet's biodiversity and improve its ecosystems over the next forty years. The results are based on a study carried out across four research institutes and coordinated by the Scottish Agricultural College (Hussain et al., 2011) that combined a global biophysical model (IMAGE-GLOBIO), which analyzed the biophysical impacts of different development scenarios compared to the counterfactual, with a set of valuation studies that placed monetary values on the outcomes resulting from the different policy options in terms of biodiversity and ecosystem services (ESSs).

    While reference is frequently made in the popular press to biodiversity losses, in practice it is difficult to quantify and value them. There are several studies that attempt to do this in specific cases but no one has successfully estimated the value of the loss of biodiversity at a global level. This is because the links between biodiversity and biolo-gical systems and the economic and social values that they support are extremely complex. Even the measurement of biodiversity is problematic, with a multi-dimensional metric regarded as appropriate (Purvis and Hector, 2000; Mace et al., 2003), but with further work considered necessary to define the appropriate combination.

  • Linking reduced deforestation and a global carbon market: implications for clean energy technology and policy flexibility

  • VALENTINA BOSETTI, RUBEN LUBOWSKI, ALEXANDER GOLUB, ANIL MARKANDYA
  • Journal:
    Environment and Development Economics / Volume 16 / Issue 4 / August 2011
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    08 February 2011, pp. 479-505

  • This study uses a global climate-energy-economy model to investigate potential implications of linking credits from reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries to a global carbon market, focusing on reducing emissions from deforestation (RED) and effects on energy technology innovation. Integrating RED into a global carbon market lowers the estimated total costs of a policy to achieve 535 ppmv of CO2-equivalent concentrations in 2100 by up to 25 per cent. Alternatively, a global RED program could enable additional reductions of about 20 ppmv by 2100 with no added costs compared with an energy-sector-only policy. The results indicate that market linkage of RED induces modest reductions in clean energy innovation overall but slightly enhances development of particular technologies, including carbon capture and storage. We also find that RED in combination with credit banking encourages greater mitigation in the near term, enhancing flexibility to potentially tighten emission targets at lower cost in response to future information.

  • 5 - Climate change

  • Edited by Bjørn Lomborg, Copenhagen Business School
  • Book:
    Global Crises, Global Solutions
    Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    09 July 2009, pp 236-304

  • Summary

    Multiple changes are occurring simultaneously around the globe at an increasing pace. Energy and resource scarcities have emerged or intensified. Different trade regimes have evolved. New communication and information technologies have exploded into daily life. New human health issues have appeared, and old health issues have, in some cases, been exacerbated. Changes in global climate and associated patterns of extreme weather events must be added to this list, especially for the global poor whose very livelihoods depend directly in many instances on the use of specific natural resources.

    The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in its Fourth Assessment Report (AR4, 2007), concluded that a portfolio of mitigation and adaptation will prove to be the best option for dealing with climate change; see IPCC (2007b, 2007c). In this Challenge paper, we provide some additional evidence in support of such a multi-faceted approach – a combination of mitigation, investment in research and development (R&D) on less-carbon-intensive technologies, and adaptation is found to be superior to adopting any single option at the expense of all others. In addition, it will become clear that ignoring climate change would mean that efforts which have been designed to ameliorate many of the other challenges contemplated in the Copenhagen Consensus exercise will ultimately be “swimming upstream” – i.e. expending effort unnecessarily simply to stay in place.