Designing Payments for Ecosystem Services

This Policy Series by James Salzman brings attention to a rapidly developing phenomenon—payments for ecosystem services (PES). Salzman, the Samuel F. Mordecai Professor of Law and the Nicholas Institute Professor of Environmental Policy at Duke University, explains when and where ecosystem services can be provided by voluntary markets rather than government actions. The key to understanding how PES work is rooted in the basis of any voluntary market transaction—gains from trade. One party agrees to take action because another party offers an incentive. Both parties benefit. A beekeeper, for example, brings her hives to an orchard to provide pollination services for a fee. But Salzman explores the less obvious services such as forests at the top of a municipal watershed that act as a filter providing clean water to people below. Salzman states that we receive many environmental benefits for “free,” which provides little or no incentive for people to pay for them or for entrepreneurs to provide them. Because price signals that alert individuals about scarce resources in traditional markets are absent, ecosystem services are taken for granted—until they stop providing benefits. Then the cost of remediation or building infrastructure, such as a water treatment plant, makes their value obvious. For decades the solution to environmental protection has been government action. Today, knowledge about environmental processes combined with increased environmental sensitivity provides opportunities for entrepreneurs to find innovative ways of developing markets for ecosystem services

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Role in International Law

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has played, and continues to play, an important and largely unrecognized role as a lawmaking body. The OECD occupies a unique space in the international lawmaking field, in large part because it was not established with lawmaking as a priority. In a small number of cases, however, it has played a significant role in crafting the emerging architecture of global governance. Case studies of the hazardous waste trade, the Bribery Convention, and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises are presented to demonstrate a clear pattern. A topic of major concern arises on the international stage, such as hazardous waste trade, bribery, or corporate conduct. Efforts within the United Nations or other international organizations to draft an agreement are unsuccessful. The OECD proceeds on its own and provides an agreement that serves as the basis for future negotiations in fora with wider membership. The keys to this approach are opportunism and path dependence. The OECD serves as an advantageous forum to host negotiations, in part because of its significant technical expertise, in part because of its membership of like-minded countries, and in part because of its closed proceedings. This can be a very effective strategy to provide the tracks on which the train of international agreements proceeds. But it does not always work. A case study on the Multilateral Agreement on Investment explores the OECD’s greatest failure in international lawmaking

A Policy Maker’s Guide to Designing Payments for Ecosystem Services

Over the past five years, there has been increasing interest around the globe in payment schemes for the provision of ecosystem services, such as water purification, carbon sequestration, flood control, etc. Written for an Asian Development Bank project in China, this report provides a user-friendly guide to designing payments for the provision of ecosystem services. Part I explains the different types of ecosystem services, different ways of assessing their value, and why they are traditionally under-protected by law and policy. This is followed by an analysis of when payments for services are a preferable approach to other policy instruments. Part II explains the design issues underlying payments for services. These include identification of the service as well as potential buyers and sellers, the level of service needed, payment timing, payment type, and risk allocation. Part II contains a detailed analysis of the different types of payment mechanisms, ranging from general subsidy and certification to mitigation and offset payments. Part III explores the challenges to designing a payment scheme. These include the ability to monitor service provision, secure property rights, perverse incentives, supporting institutions, and poverty alleviation

Thirst: A Short History of Drinking Water

From earliest times, human societies have faced the challenge of supplying adequate quality and quantities of drinking water. Whether limited by arid environments or urbanization, provision of clean drinking water is a prerequisite of any enduring society, but it is a daunting task for drinking water is a multi-faceted resource. Drinking water is most obviously a physical resource, one of the few truly essential requirements for life. Drinking water is also a cultural resource, of religious significance in many societies. A social resource, access to water reveals much about membership in society. A political resource, the provision of water to citizens can serve important communication purposes. And finally, when scarce, water can become an economic resource. As recent conflicts in developing countries make clear, managing and mediating these many facets of drinking water is no easy matter. Understanding a society\u27s ability to provide clean drinking water to its citizens, examining how it recognizes the different natures of this vital resource, provides a unique prism on the society\u27s organization, equity, and view of itself. In seeking to understand better how societies manage such a critical resource, this article considers three questions. How have different societies thought about drinking water? How have different societies managed access to drinking water? And how have these changed over time? These questions are, of course, interrelated. How we think of water, whether as a sacred gift or a good for sale, both influences and is influenced by how we manage access to drinking water. While not an obvious issue to us in 21st century America, management of drinking water as a resource -- who gets it, when they get it, and how much they get -- matters a great deal. Written for a symposium celebrating the scholarship of Carol Rose, this article synthesizes research to date from an ongoing book project on the history of drinking water. Using a case study approach, we journey on a wide-ranging geographical and historical tour, briefly exploring drinking water management in societies across five continents, from 5,000 years ago up through today. Along the route, we find that something as seemingly simple as drinking water washes clear a society\u27s views toward the role of government, norms, and the market

Noncontact temperature measurements in the microgravity fluids and transport phenomena discipline

The program of activities within the Microgravity Fluids and Transport Phenomena Discipline has been structured to enable the systematic pursuit of an increased understanding of low gravity fluid behavior/phenomena in a way which ensures that the results are appropriate to the widest range of applications. This structure is discussed and an overview of some of the activities which are underway is given. Of significance is the fact that in the majority of the current and planned activities, the measurement and, or control of the fluid temperature is a key experiment requirement. In addition, many of the experiments require that the temperature measurement be nonintrusive. A description of these requirements together with the current techniques which are being employed or under study to make these measurements is also discussed