Waste Not, Want Not: How Utilities Can Help Consumers Save Energy

Energy consumption by households plays an important part in the creation of greenhouse gasses and thus contributes to climate change. Decreasing this consumption can thus help to reduce emissions. In this article, we look at means to assist consumers in controlling their energy use, by giving them customized feedback on their electricity meter readouts. During a one-month test, customers of Dutch energy utility Greenchoice could upload their electricity meter readouts and receive information to monitor their consumption. Feedback on consumption is thought to stimulate consumers to use less energy. The results of the experiment support this theory, as participating customers consumed 6-7 percentage points less electricity compared to non-participants

A new approach to explain farmers’ adoption of climate change mitigation measures

The determinants of farmers’ decisions to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are currently not well understood. This study takes several new angles in investigating farmers’ climate change mitigation behaviour. Based on two identical surveys among representative samples of Dutch farmers, this study examines the underlying determinants and motivating factors for three different types of climate change mitigation measures on farms: energy saving, the production of renewable energy and reduction of emissions of methane and nitrous oxide (non-CO2 emissions). Furthermore, the study explores whether farmers’ awareness and behaviour has been influenced by a communication campaign carried out by the government of the Netherlands between 2012 and 2015. Four major conclusions emerge. Firstly, the analyses demonstrate that accounting for the cost-effectiveness and technology readiness level (TRL) of different types of climate change mitigation measures provides for a better understanding of the factors that motivate farmers to adopt these measures. Secondly, neither the willingness to take GHG reduction measures nor knowledge on GHG emissions are consistent motivating factors for energy-related measures. Thirdly, it seems that external factors, such as economic hardship, dominate the overall environmental awareness of farmers. Fourthly, the farmer’s propensity to innovate proved to be the strongest and most consistent predictor of both the willingness and the actual adoption of climate change mitigation technologies. Therefore, focusing on making farmers more open to change and general innovation in campaigns in the agricultural sector might be more effective than campaigns focusing specifically on climate change mitigation

Estimating Benefits of Nature-based Solutions:Diverging Values From Choice Experiments With Time or Money Payments

Nature-based solutions (NBS) provide a promising means to a climate resilient future. To guide investments in NBS, stated preference studies have become a common tool to evaluate the benefits of NBS in developing countries. Due to subsistence lifestyles and generally lower incomes, SP studies in developing countries increasingly use time payments as an alternative to the traditionally implemented money payments. It remains unclear, however, how time values should be converted into money values, how the payment affects willingness to pay (WTP) estimates, and how this influence varies across settings with different levels of market integration. We compare the results of choice experiments that use either time or money payments and that are implemented in urban and rural Ghana. The choice experiments target to value different NBS aimed at erosion prevention and other ecosystem service benefits along the highly erosion prone Ghanaian coastline. Time payments are converted into monetary units using two generic wage-based conversion rates and one novel individual-specific non-wage-based conversion rate. We find higher WTP estimates for the time payments. Moreover, we find that the underlying implicit assumptions related to the currently commonly applied generic wage-based conversion rates do not hold. Finally, we find higher levels of market integration and smaller WTP disparities in the urban site, providing evidence that market integration allows for convergence of WTP estimates. These results provide guidance on the accurate estimation of NBS benefits through the implementation of stated preference studies with time payments

GIS-Based Mapping of Ecosystem Services: The Case of Coral Reefs

This chapter illustrates the process of mapping ecosystem service values with an application to coral reef recreational values in Southeast Asia. The case study provides an estimate of the value of reef-related recreation foregone, due to the decline in coral reef area in Southeast Asia, under a baseline scenario for the period 2000 – 2050. This value is estimated by combining a visitor model, meta-analytic value function and spatial data on individual coral reef ecosystems to produce site-specific values. Values are mapped in order to communicate the spatial variability in the value of coral reef degradation. Although the aggregated change in the value of reef-related recreation due to ecosystem degradation is not high, there is substantial spatial variation in welfare losses, which is potentially useful information for targeting conservation efforts

Modelling and analysis of international recycling between developed and developing countries

Abstract To deal with the complexity of recycling, a wide variety of models have been developed, each serving a specific purpose. Despite the current trend increasing international trade in recycling-related material flows, the international dimension of physical and economic relationships in recycling is often ignored in current models and analyses. This paper develops a formal model of an international materialproduct chain (MPC) that represents the mechanism behind international recycling. The attention is focused on the case of a developed and a developing country that exchange material commodities, final products and recyclable waste. Among others, the model demonstrates that taking into account environmental externalities results in higher levels of recycling. Moreover, we show that international recycling is mainly driven by regional differences in the quantity and quality of factor endowments and economic efficiency of recycling. Given that industrialised countries are relatively well endowed with recyclable waste, the recovery rate usually exceeds the utilisation rate. In developing countries, an opposite pattern is observed

The global costs and benefits of expanding Marine Protected Areas

Marine ecosystems and the services they provide contribute greatly to human well-being but are becoming degraded in many areas around the world. The expansion of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) has been advanced as a potential solution to this problem but their economic feasibility has hardly been studied. We conduct an economic assessment of the costs and benefits of six scenarios for the global expansion of MPAs. The analysis is conducted at a high spatial resolution, allowing the estimated costs and benefits to reflect the ecological and economic characteristics and context of each MPA and marine ecosystem. The results show that the global benefits of expanding MPAs exceed their costs by a factor 1.4–2.7 depending on the location and extent of MPA expansion. Targeting protection towards pristine areas with high biodiversity yields higher net returns than focusing on areas with low biodiversity or areas that have experienced high human impact

The economic and ecological effects of water management choices in the upper Niger river: Development of decision support methods

One million people in the Inner Niger Delta make a living from arable farming, fisheries and livestock. Upstream dams (one built for electricity generation and one for irrigation) affect this downstream multifunctional use of water. Additionally, the Inner Niger Delta, which is one of the largest Ramsar sites in the world, is a hotspot of biodiversity and accommodates two of the largest known breeding colonies of large wading birds in Africa and in addition, is a vital part of the eco-regional network, supporting up to 3 to 4 million staging waterbirds, residents and migrants from all over Europe and western Asia. The hydrological and related ecological conditions in the Inner Delta largely determine the population size of these waterbird species. The major aim of the three-year study was to develop a decision-support system for river management in the Upper Niger, in which ecological and socio-economical impacts and benefits of dams and irrigation systems can be analysed in relation to different water management scenarios. The study involves various components: hydrology, arable farming, livestock, fisheries, ecology and socio-economics. An economic analysis has been conducted to determine the role of dams in the economy of the Inner Niger Delta and the Upper Niger region. By innovatively combining the above information on hydrology, ecology, fisheries, and agriculture, the study shows that building new dams is not an efficient way to increase economic growth and reduce poverty in the region. In fact, such efforts are counter-effective. Instead, development efforts should be aimed at improving the efficiency of the existing infrastructure, as well as of current economic activities in the Inner Niger Delta itself. This approach will also provide greater certainty for the essential eco-regional network functioning of the Inner Delta. © 2006 Taylor & Francis

Improving air quality in metropolitan Mexico City : an economic valuation

Mexico City has for years experienced high levels of ozone and particulate air pollution. In 1995-99 the entire population of the Mexico City metropolitan area was exposed to annual average concentrations of fine particulate pollution (particulates with a diameter of less than 10micrometers, or PM10) exceeding 50 micrograms per cubic meter, the annual average standard in both Mexico and the United States. Two million people were exposed to annual average PM10 levels of more than 75 micrograms per cubic meter. The daily maximum one-hour ozone standard was exceeded at least 300 days a year. The Mexico Air Quality Management Team documents population-weighted exposures to ozone and PM10 between 1995 and 1999, project exposures in 2010, and computes the value of four scenarios for 2010: A 10 percent reduction in PM10 and ozone. A 20 percent reduction in PM10 and ozone. Achievement of ambient air quality standards across the metropolitan area. A 68 percent reduction in ozone and a 47 percent reduction in PM10 across the metropolitan area. The authors calculate the health benefits of reducing ozone and PM10 for each scenario using dose-response functions from the peer-reviewed literature. They value cases of morbidity and premature mortality avoided using three approaches: Cost of illness and forgone earnings only (low estimate). Cost of illness, forgone earnings, and willingness to pay for avoided morbidity (central case estimate). Cost of illness, forgone earnings, willingness to pay for avoided morbidity, and willingness to pay for avoided mortality (high estimate). The results suggest that the benefits of a 10 percent reduction in ozone and PM10 in 2010 are about $760 million (in 1999 U.S. dollars) annually in the central case. The benefits of a 20 percent reduction in ozone and PM10 are about$1.49 billion annually. In each case the benefits of reducing ozone amount to about 15 percent of the total benefits. By estimating the magnitude of the benefits from air pollution control, the authors provide motivation for examining specific policies that could achieve the air pollution reductions that they value. They also provide unit values for the benefits from reductions in ambient air pollution (for example, per microgram of PM10) that could be used as inputs into a full cost-benefit analysisof air pollution control strategies.Montreal Protocol,Public Health Promotion,Global Environment Facility,Air Quality&Clean Air,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Montreal Protocol,Air Quality&Clean Air,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Global Environment Facility,Transport and Environment