The importance of intact ecosystems for human-wellbeing as well as the dependence on functions and services they provide is undoubted. But still neither the costs of ecosystem degradation nor the benefits from ecosystem functions and services appear on socio-economic balance sheets when development takes place. Consequently overuse of natural resources is socio-economically promoted by conventional resource management policies and external effects (externalities), equally positives and negatives, remain unregarded. In this context the potential of payments for hydrological ecosystem services as a political instrument to foster sustainable natural resource use, and rural development shall be investigated. This paper introduces the principle concept of such payments, presents a case study from Nicaragua and highlights preliminary effects of the application of this instrument on natural resource use and development.
Northrhine-Westphalia (NRW) is the largest land of the Federal Republic of Germany. Until the 1970ies the Ruhr-area with a population of about 12 million people and a strong coal, steel and chemical industry had been plagued with severe pollution. In the 1970ies environmental protection had emerged on the international and national policy agendas. The federal and regional government launched massive legislative and economic public interventions for cleaning-up rivers, soils and air. As a result, a highly competitive eco-industry emerged. The article outlines main features of ecoindustries, the structural change of the Ruhr area and regional economic cluster policies in support of eco-industries in NRW. It draws conclusions for eco-industry policy developing from end-of-pipe towards integrated preventive approaches.
Global climate
(2010)
The fifteenth Conference of the Parties (COP 15) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the fifth Conference of the Parties serving as Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP 5) took place on 7–18 December 2010 in Copenhagen. According to the "Bali Action Plan", the "roadmap" of the negotiations agreed at COP 13/CMP 3 in Bali in 2007, the Copenhagen conference was to deliver a comprehensive agreed outcome on the future climate regime. Meeting this deadline was of urgency not only because of the ever more alarming messages from climate science, but also because the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. As ratification of a new agreement can be expected to take at least two years, a timely agreement on post-2012 emission targets is needed to prevent a "gap" after 2012. Expectations were high as more than 100 Heads of State and Government had announced their attendance and more than 40,000 participants had registered their names.
However, despite a record number of five preparatory meetings over the course of 2009, the fundamental differences between Parties proved to be too difficult to overcome. The main outcome of the conference, the "Copenhagen Accord", is only a political declaration, and even this declaration was not supported by all countries. In addition, Parties agreed to continue negotiations into 2010.
Natural gas makes an increasing contribution to the European Union's energy supply. Due to its efficiency and low level of combustion emissions this reduces greenhouse gas emissions compared to the use of other fossil fuels. However, being itself a potent greenhouse gas, a high level of direct losses of natural gas in its process chain could neutralise these advantages. Which effect will finally prevail depends on future economical as well as technical developments. Based on two different scenarios of the main influencing factors we can conclude that over the next two decades CH4 emissions from the natural gas supply chain can be significantly reduced, in spite of unfavourable developments of the supply structures. This, however, needs a substantial, but economically attractive investment into new technology, particularly in Russia.
Biogas and bio-methane that are based on energy crops are renewable energy carriers and therefore potentially contribute to climate protection. However, significant greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions resulting from agricultural production processes must be considered. Among those, the production and use of fertilizer, and the resulting leaching of nitrous oxide (N2O), are crucial factors. This article provides an integrated life cycle assessment (LCA) of biogas (i.e. bio-methane that has been upgraded and injected into the natural gas grid), taking into account the processes of fermentation, upgrading and injection to the grid for two different types of biogas plants. The analysis is based on different feedstocks from crop rotation systems for different locations in Germany. A special focus is on the sensitivity of assumptions of nitrous oxide emissions to overall GHG emissions. Much research exists on the measurement or modeling of the actual N2O emissions that result from farming processes. Since there is as yet no precise regional data, most analyses use tier-1 data from the IPCC national GHG inventories as a default. The present article coincides with recent research in indicating that this data varies at the regional level. However, it is not the scope of the article to evaluate the quality of existing data for N2O emissions, but to show the effects of different assumptions on the LCA of GHGs from bio-methane. Thus, a link between the provision of emission data and the practical implementation of biogas technology is provided. The main result is that the supply chain of substrates from agricultural processes appears to contribute the most to the GHG emissions of bio-methane. The "worst case" scenario where 5% of the nitrogen fertilizer used is emitted in form of N2O shows that the GHG mitigation potential of bio-methane versus natural gas is very small, so there is not much margin for error in the plant technology.
Japan
(2010)
This article addresses informational barriers to energy efficiency. It is a widely acknowledged result that an energy efficiency gap exists implying that the level of energy efficiency is at an inefficiently low level. Several barriers to energy efficiency create this gap and the presence of asymmetric information is likely to be one such barrier. The article finds that problems of moral hazard and adverse selection indeed can help explain the seemingly low levels of energy efficiency. The theory reveals two implications to policies on energy efficiency. First, the development of measures to enable contractual parties to base remuneration on energy performance must be enhanced, and second, the information on technologies and the education of consumers and installers on energy efficiency must be increased. Finally, it is found that the preferred EU policy instrument on energy efficiency, so far, seems to be the use of minimum requirements. Less used in EU legislation is the use of measuring and verification as well as the use of certifications. Therefore, it is concluded that the EU should consider an increased use of these instruments.
New technologies can be the basis for resource-efficient products and services and thus create eco-innovations, either by creating new functionalities in existing or new application fields or by substituting existing technologies in existing or new application fields. In this paper, an overview over different technology fields, products and strategies with resource efficiency potential, such as nanotechnolo- gies, material science, manufacturing technologies, process technologies and cross-cutting issues, is presented. There is a special focus on applications from nanotechnology issuing, e.g. functional surfaces or new "smart" materials with special functionalities. Furthermore, it is shown how companies can use the method Resource Efficiency Technology Radar to identify and evaluate technolo- gies with resource efficiency in order to incorporate them into their development activities.
In 1990 a sovereign wealth fund was founded in Norway in which the country invests surpluses from oil and gas industry sales. The fund is designed to secure the state's ability to act in a post-petroleum era. At the end of the 1990's the voice of Norwegian civil society insisted that the sovereign wealth fund should not only ensure intergenerational justice, but should also contribute to the implementation of values and norms of the present country. At the end of 2004 the parliament finally agreed upon ethical regulations for the investment of the sovereign wealth fund. Now the second largest sovereign wealth fund in the world only invests in businesses that adhere to those ethical regulations. In the present paper, I seek to illustrate the emergence and outcomes of this new development in the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund.
Renania del Norte-Westfalia (RNW) es el mayor estado federal (land) de la República Federal de Alemania. Hasta la década de 1970, la región del Rin-Ruhr, con una población de unos 12 millones de habitantes y una potente industria química, del carbón y del acero, se vio afectada por graves problemas de contaminación. En los años setenta, la protección medioambiental apareció en las agendas políticas nacionales e internacionales. Los gobiernos federales y el estatal lanzaron múltiples intervenciones legislativas y económicas para limpiar ríos, suelos y aire. Como resultado, surgió una ecoindustria muy competitiva. En este artículo, se resumen las características de las ecoindustrias y se describe el cambio estructural de la región del Ruhr. Asimismo, centrándose en el mesonivel y empleando los ejemplos de la gestión energética y la gestión municipal de residuos, se destacan los puntos fuertes y los puntos débiles de las políticas económicas regionales de clusters que apoyan las ecoindustrias en RNW.