34 research outputs found
‘Sub-Prime’ Water, Low-Security Entitlements and Policy Challenges in Over-Allocated River Basins: the Case of the Murray–Darling Basin
Environmental policy is often implemented using market instruments. In some cases, including carbon taxing, the links
between financial products and the environmental objectives, are transparent. In other cases, including water markets, the
links are less transparent. In Australia’s Murray–Darling Basin (MDB), financial water products are known as ‘entitlements’,
and are similar to traditional financial products, such as shares. The Australian water market includes ‘Low Security’
entitlements, which are similar to ‘sub-prime’ mortgage bonds because they are unlikely to yield an amount equal to their
financial worth. Nearly half the water purchased under the Murray–Darling Basin Plan for environmental purposes is ‘Low
Security’. We suggest that the current portfolio of water held by the Australian Government for environmental purposes
reflects the mortgage market in the lead-up to the global financial crisis. Banks assumed that the future value of the mortgage
market would reflect past trends. Similarly, it is assumed that the future value of water products will reflect past trends,
without considering climate change. Historic records of allocations to ‘Low Security’ entitlements in the MDB suggest that,
in the context of climate change, the Basin Plan water portfolio may fall short of the target annual average yield of 2075 GL
by 511 GL. We recommend adopting finance sector methods including ‘hedging’ ‘Low Security’ entitlements by purchasing
an additional 322–2755 GL of ‘Low Security’, or 160–511 GL of ‘High Security’ entitlements. Securing reliable
environmental water is a global problem. Finance economics present opportunities for increasing the reliability of
environmental flows
Towards a Political Ecology of EU Energy Policy
At the root of energy policy are fundamental questions about the sort of social and environmental futures in which people want to live and how decisions over different energy pathways and energy futures are made. The interdisciplinary field of political ecology has the capacity to address such questions, while also challenging how energy policy conventionally gets done. We outline a political ecology perspective on EU energy policy that illuminates how the distribution of social power affects access to energy services, participation in energy decision-making and the allocation of energy’s environmental and social costs
The Creation and Dissolution of Private Property in Forest Carbon: A Case Study from Papua New Guinea
This paper shows how the prospect of a forest carbon market in Papua New Guinea added a new element of instability to national forest policy and property processes that were already moving in contradictory directions. In particular we examine attempts by foreign investors to forge voluntary carbon agreements with customary landowners after the Bali climate change conference of 2007, and the mobilization of state institutions to counter these 'private dealings'. We highlight the connection between the ways that these processes played out at both national and local scales, with a focus on the highly contentious Kamula Doso forest area in Western Province. We conclude with some observations on the way that the constitutional protection of customary land rights inhibits the formalization of marketable rights in forest resources, including forest carbon, and creates an inconclusive circularity in the operation of forest policy and property processes at different levels of social and political organization