The long road of climate negotiations: From Kyoto to Paris stopping over in Doha

4 p.Expectations about the COP18 Doha round of climate negotiations were low and countries were successful in making some progress, but only incrementally. A second commitment period (from 1 January 2013 to 31 December 2020) for reducing emissions by amendment to the original Kyoto Protocol were agreed. Doha has left the door open for more progress ahead as the new treaty is supposed to be signed in 2015 and come into effect in 2020. * Industrialised and heavily polluting countries such as Canada, Russia, Japan, and New Zealand who were members of Kyoto did not approve this second commitment, and the US and China, the world’s two largest carbon emitters, have also largely opposed it. Doha called (unofficially) for the remaining Kyoto Protocol countries to increase their ambition in committing to reduce emissions in the range of 25-40% by 2014. This was a call though, not a firm decision. * A debate ensued regarding the carbon market that exists in the EU, more specifically about how many non-used “emission credits” a country could transfer to the second commitment period. This is the so called “hot air” carbon credit issue. While some countries such as Poland wanted to keep the carbon credits, developing countries wanted such hot air credits to be abolished. The EU finally allowed Poland to keep its unused credits. * Developed countries spectacularly failed to put any real money on the table or to agree on the roadmap to the 2020 $100 billion a year target. The decision calls for public funds for adaptation without any specific figure calling in developed countries to make such a pledge “when their financial circumstances permit”. * Doha has brought an important innovation by agreeing to begin addressing the issue of “loss and damage”, due to the pressure of developing countries. The parties agreed to establish by COP 19 international mechanism to address loss and damage from climate change

The Equivalency Principle for Discounting the Value of Natural Assets: An Application to an Investment Project in the Basque Coast

Making decisions about optimal investments in green infrastructure necessitates setting social discount rates. This paper suggests a practical way for determining the discount rate for projects or programmes in which one of the options is to maintain or improve land in its natural state. We propose an “equivalency principle†to derive a simple rule that sets the discount rate. The rule is based on the premise that the long term value of a naturally preserved land track ought to be at least the same as the value of an identical land track in the vicinity to which permission has been granted for development. We illustrate this principle with various case studies and we apply it to a contentious investment project in the Basque Country associated with the regeneration of a large scale harbour in the province of Gipuzkoa (North of Spain) that involves reclaiming natural land that has important ecological value, including for the conservation of a marine ecosystem.Economic valuation, discounting, equivalency principle, Basque Country

The Economics of Biodiversity Conservation in Agricultural Transition

This paper explores the dynamic effects of biodiversity conservation on agricultural production in the context of specialised intensive farming systems that may be in transition towards more sustainable farming. The focus is on the analysis of the dynamic effects of changes in the levels of agrobiodiversity, on technical change and productivity in intensive agricultural systems. A theoretical model is used to derive hypotheses regarding these linkages that are empirically tested using a stochastic production frontier model with data from a panel of UK cereal farms for the period 1989-2000. The results suggest that the increased agrobiodiversity has positively helped to shift the production frontier outwards. This indicates that agricultural transition from more to less intensive agricultural systems can be consistent with non-decreasing output levels and an enhancement of biodiversity in agricultural landscapes.agrobiodiversity, intensive agriculture, productivity, technical change, Environmental Economics and Policy, Q12, Q16, Q24,

Identifying social determinants of urban low carbon transitions: the case of energy transition in Bilbao, Basque Country

33 p.Cities are widely defined as complex systems formed by coupled social, ecological and economical systems. The complexity of urban dynamics goes far beyond its boundaries due to the strong influence of larger scales and the deep dependence of cities on outside resources. Such crucial cross-scale effects can fuel maladaptive behaviour, conducting cities to rigid and unsustainable traps. Urban energy systems have all the ingredients of complexity, dependence and vulnerability to global environmental change. Presumably, transformability, like adaptability, depends on perceptions, values and culture of each society. Here it is hypothesized that often social behaviours related to the scepticism, close-minded attitudes, traditional economic models, lack of trust in institutions and in self-capacities are those which limit the potential of transformation in cities (favouring lock-in status). The type of energy and the way it is supplied depends largely on utilities, urban planning and design, economic incentives, regulations, investment opportunities etc. These determinants, together with household factors depending on lifestyle, rent, etc. affect the level of consumption and choices. Altogether, these determinants play a decisive role in decision making processes at individual and institutional level and therefore can limit the transformation potential. We use a case study in Bilbao (Basque Country) to illustrate barriers and hidden opportunities of a local energy transition through an analysis of its cognitive dimension. This is done by applying a semi-quantitative methodology (Q method) which aids to investigate the stakeholders’ perceived capacity of change. This results in four distinct discourses with direct implications in the potential of transformation of the city of Bilbao

Economics and Biodiversity in Intensively Managed Agro-Ecosystems

This paper explores the dynamic effects of biodiversity conservation on agricultural production in the context of specialised intensive farming systems. The focus is on the analysis of the dynamic effects of changes in the levels of agrobiodiversity, on technical change and productivity in intensive agricultural systems. A theoretical model is used to derive hypotheses regarding these linkages that are empirically tested using a stochastic production frontier model with data from a panel of UK cereal farms for the period 1989-2000. The results suggest that the increased agrobiodiversity has positively helped to shift the production frontier outwards. This indicates that the evolution of an intensive agricultural system to less intensive use of inputs can be consistent with non-decreasing output levels and an enhancement of biodiversity in agricultural landscapes.Agrobiodiversity, Intensive Agriculture, Productivity, Technical change, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, Q12, Q16, Q24,

Pobreza, degradación ambiental y liberalización del comercio: Hacia una intervención de políticas «second best»

[EN] Forest based agricultural systems in the tropics are being opened up to international trade at an unprecedented rate.This is the case of tropical agriculture in Mexico under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which is also having significant impacts on the decentralized land use decisions of small-scale farmers and on the natural resource base on which they depend. This paper develops a bioeconomic model of a typical forest-land based farming system that is integrated with the non-farm labour sector, as typically found in tropical regions. The data used to generate the simulations were gathered in two communities of Yucatan (Mexico) in 1998-2000. Through a systemdynamics framework, the agro-ecological and farming economic subsystems are integrated and the current situation of price liberalization that is negatively affecting soil capital and income levels is compared to a scenario that precludes an «optimal path to extinction» through careful policy intervention. This second-best case is based on a targeted policy mix that seeks to maintain the system viable for as long as possible above an irreducible poverty level. The policy intervention involves, simultaneoulsy, subsidizing off-farm wage rates, intensification of land use, and the control of households’ rights to the forest commons. The model shows that such policy intervention can result in a large positive discounted net payoff basedon the increased incomes for the farming community after deducting the implementation costs of such intervention.[ES] Los sistemas agro-forestales tropicales están siendo expuestos al comercio internacional a un ritmo sin precedentes. Este es el caso de la agricultura en México en el contexto del Tratado de Libre Comercio de América del Norte (TLCAN) que está teniendo impactos importantes sobre las decisiones descentralizadas de los campesinos y la base de los recursos naturales del cual dependen. El presente artículo desarrolla un modelo bio-económico basado en un típico sistema agro-forestal del trópico que, a su vez, se encuentra integrado con el sector laboral no-agrícola. Los datos empleados para generar las simulaciones han sido obtenidos en dos comunidades campesinas de Yucatán (México) entre los años 1998-2000. Mediante un marco teórico dinámico se integran el subsistema de producción campesina y el agroecológico. El objetivo es poder comparar la situación actual, con políticas macroeconómicas de liberalización de precios agrícolas (p.ej., maíz) que están afectando negativamente tanto el capital natural y el nivel de renta de los hogares campesinos, con un posible escenario basado en intervenciones de política económica con el objetivo de evitar una posible «senda óptima de extinción» del capital natural. Se trata de poner en práctica de forma simultánea varias políticas «second-best» manteniendo viable el sistema productivo durante el mayor tiempo posible y manteniendo, a su vez, los hogares por encima del umbral de pobreza. La integración de varias políticas implica (a) intervenir los salarios nominales fuera de la agricultura, (b) la intensificación del uso de la tierra, y (c) el control de los derechos de propiedad de los hogares sobre la tierra comunal. El modelo demuestra que este tipo de intervención «second best» es rentable si se tienen en cuenta la renta generada por las comunidades campesinas y el coste de la puesta en práctica de dichas políticas.Pascual, U.; Martínez-Espiñeira, R. (2006). Poverty and environmental degradation under trade liberalization: Searching for second-best policy options. Economía Agraria y Recursos Naturales - Agricultural and Resource Economics. 6(12):121-144. doi:10.7201/earn.2006.12.06SWORD12114461

The economics of agrobiodiversity conservation for food security under climate change

Subsistence-based and natural resource-dependent societies are especially vulnerable to climate change. In such contexts, food security needs to be strengthened by investing in the adaptability of food systems. This paper looks into the role of agrobiodiversity conservation for food security in the face of climate change. It identifies agrobiodiversity as a key public good that delivers necessary services for human wellbeing. We argue that the public values provided by agrobiodiversity conservation need to be demonstrated and captured. We offer an economic perspective of this challenge and highlight ways of capturing at least a subset of the public values of agrobiodiversity to help adapt to and reduce the vulnerability of subsistence based economies to climate changeClimate change, adaptation, agrobiodiversity, economic incentives, resilience, Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Environmental Economics and Policy, Q18, Q24, Q54,

Environmental justice: instrumental for conserving natural resources

4 p.Environmental justice constitutes an instrumental element for conservation. - Environmental justice is based on the principles of equity, recognition of different values and inclusive decision processes. - Social equity is the catalyst of ecological effectiveness. - Conservation measures that ignore the Social context imply higher cost and stand the risk of failure in the long term

Large-scale Irrigation Impacts Socio-cultural Values : An Example from Rural Navarre, Spain

Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu MdM-2015-0552Large-scale irrigation is a form of agricultural intensification aimed at increasing productivity and adapting to climate change. However, we know little about how large-scale irrigation affects socio-cultural values over nature's contributions to people (NCP) in agrarian systems. In this article, we fill this gap by investigating how a large-scale irrigation project in Navarre, Spain, has affected farmers' values in relation to their farming systems and the local environment. We find that large-scale farmers who participate in the irrigation project value more highly regulating NCP than small-scale farmers who have not adopted such technology, while the latter hold higher values for non-material NCP related to cultural identity and traditional knowledge and experience. These findings suggest that the adoption of large-scale irrigation technology is associated with a set of values that underestimate the long-term ecological effects of agricultural intensification and neglect the relevance of traditional farming in sustaining more ecologically and culturally diverse landscapes

Farmers' vulnerability to global change in Navarre, Spain : large-scale irrigation as maladaptation

Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu MdM-2015-0552Agricultural landscapes are dynamic environments which change in response to cropping and trade opportunities, available technologies and climatic conditions. In this article, we investigate farmers' vulnerability to climate-related stressors and crop price volatility in rural Navarre, Spain. Specifically, we analyse the extent to which livelihood differences and vulnerability can be partly explained by the development of a large-scale irrigation project promoted by the Spanish and regional governments. Grounded on qualitative and quantitative data gathered across 22 villages, we demonstrate that small-scale diversified farmers appear the most vulnerable and least able to adapt to climate-related stressors and crop price volatility. In contrast, more market-driven, large-scale intensive farmers, who participate in the irrigation project, are the least vulnerable to these stressors. We argue that the irrigation project has increased the short-term adaptive capacity of irrigation adopters while establishing the institutional conditions for the displacement of small-scale farming. Therefore, we suggest that farmers' vulnerability in Navarre can be explained by maladaptive irrigation policies designed to favour large-scale and market-driven agriculture