Internationally tradeable emission certificates: efficiency and equity in linking environmental protection with economic development

Three topics dominate the formulation an international greenhouse-gas regime as part of an effective global environmental policy. Efficiency, equity, and uncertainty. And three major policy instruments are discussed as regards the implementation of the 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change: A carbon tax/C02-charge, joint implementation, and tradeable emission certificates. This paper tries to answer a question that has not been rigidly asked before: How could tradeable emission certificates be tailored in such a way as to be of benefit to the developing countries, to facilitate global environmental protection and economic development at the same time, and to meet both the efficiency and the equity criterion in international relations. Next to market organization and rules of procedure, allocation of the entitlements is crucial. The author suggests a dynamic formulae, by which the initial allocation of certificates starts on the basis of current greenhouse-gas emissions but over time turns towards equity in the form of equal per capita emissions. In this way, making emission entitlements tradeable among countries implies not only that a globally effective limit to total emissions is attained with certainty, but also that the current unfair allocation of emission entitlements is consecutively shifted in favour of the poor countries. --

Globalisation and the environment: On triangle concepts and three pillars' strategies

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How to lead world society towards sustainable development?

In political terms it all started with the World Commission on Environment and Development which in its 1987 report Our Common Future stated that ...humanity has the ability to make development sustainable - to ensure that it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (WCED, p. 8). The Commission defined sustainable development as ... a process of change in which the exploitation of resources, the direction of investment, the orientation of technological development, and institutional change are made consistent with future as well as present needs (WCED, p. 9; italics added), Sustainable development thus deals with two fundamental issues, i.e. inter-generational equity and comprehensive structural adjustment. --

Global environmental governance: speeding up the debate on a world environment organization

With the beginning of the new millennium, the longstanding need for reform of the United Nations system has gained new momentum. Efficiency gains and better coordination are desirable, though not sufficient to bring about improvement in international relations. There is need, therefore, to look for institutional innovations that would upgrade the pressing tasks of environmental and development policy in the eyes of national governments, international organizations, and nongovernmental organizations, improve the institutional setting for the negotiation and implementation of new agreements and action programs, and strengthen the action capacity of the developing countries on these matters. The present essay points to and elaborates the need . for global environmental governance with the help of a »World Environment and Development Organization» within the United Nations system, and outlines the shape it might be given. --Global environmental problems,capacity building for development and environmental protection,UN reform,WEDO

Bioregionalism: a pragmatic European perspective

In Europe, the recent debate on globalisation of the economy has - ironically - given a notable push for various concepts of regionalisation. Regions always played a strong role in people's perceptions of a good life, but regions were predominantly understood as political boundaries of states, provinces or counties. Bioregionalism, however, addresses the biological basis for a sustainable future. This concept gains in importance with the acknowledgement that ecological limits exist and that the ecological footprint of modern society is too large to be sustained in the future. Some preliminary steps have been made in Europe to define - or even impose - such limits, which in the end could lead to new and different patterns of regional development. -- Die jüngste Debatte um die Globalisierung der Wirtschaft hat in Europa - ironischerweise - eine Reaktivierung verschiedener Konzepte der Regionalisierung bewirkt. Regionen haben stets eine Rolle gespielt bei der Frage nach Identität und gutem Leben, doch wurden sie zumeist nur als politische Grenzen (von Ländern, Provinzen oder Kreisen) verstanden. Bioregionalismus meint dagegen die biologisch-physikalische Basis einer nachhaltigen, zukunftsfähigen Entwicklung. Dieses Konzept erhält Gewicht mit der Anerkennung bestimmter ökologischer Grenzen der Entwicklung und der Erkenntnis, daß der ökologische Fußabdruck (ecological footprint) der modernen Gesellschaft zu groß geworden ist, um verallgemeinerbar und zukunftsfähig zu sein. Einige vorläufige Schritte sind in Europa unternommen worden, Regionen neu, das heißt auch ökologisch zu definieren, was zu neuen und damit unterschiedlichen Mustern regionaler Entwicklung führen kann.

Review of the list of LDCs

The Committee for Development Policy is required by Economic and Social Council resolution 1991/46 to conduct triennially a review to determine the countries to be added or graduated from the list of least developed countries (LDCs). Since the previous review was conducted in 2000, the Committee conducted another review in 2003. The Committee bases its identification of the LDCs on the consideration of three dimensions of a country's state of development - its income level, its stock of human assets and its economic vulnerability. The Committee thus uses (a) Gross National Income (GNI) per capita as an indicator of income; (b) the Human Assets Index (HAI) as an indicator of the stock of human assets; and (c) the Economic Vulnerability Index (EVI) as an indicator of economic vulnerability. In addition, because the underlying concept of the LDC category excludes large economies, in 1991 the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) endorsed the principle that no country with a population exceeding 75 million should be considered for addition to the list. --

World ecology and global environmental governance

Environmental problems have always been part of our history, of life, and work. Yet the way in which environmental problems are perceived and politicized has changed: If it was at first chiefly local and regional environmental problems that were recognized, in recent years global environmental problems that have been a major cause of concern. Global problems can be tackled only by means of an internationally coordinated, global environmental policy; local and regional environmental policies have to be integrated into this context. --

Distributive justice in international environmental policy - theoretical foundation and exemplary formulation

Questions of international distributive justice are certainly not new. We need only think of the demand made by the developing countries in the 1970s for a New World Economic Order, which aimed at a more equitable distribution of the benefits derived from the international division of labor. Demands were at that time raised for improved chances for exports to the industrialized countries, stepped-up financial and technology transfers, and a larger share in the decision-making processes in international institutions, above all in the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Even though these demands have remained largely unheard, and the debate on a New World Order is as good as over, there are, at the outset of the 21st century, a number of highly topical reasons why the issue of international distributive justice is again attracting more and more attention. Many of these reasons are bound up with the phenomenon of globalization. --

Needed now: a world environment and development organization

Global environmental policy certainly could gain strength if the management of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) or of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) were made more efficient. However, such a minimalist strategy of efficiency improvement is no panacea: it can only be an element, not the core of a new global environmental policy. Therefore, instead of merely calling for improved efficiency and coordination, in this paper a proposal is made to establish a World Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) as a new specialized agency of the United Nations. At the very least, such an Organization should integrate UNEP, the CSD and the relevant Convention Secretariats (climate, biodiversity, desertification conventions); close cooperation with the Bretton Woods institutions - the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Trade Organization (WTO) - and the existing UN specialized agencies would need to be ensured. Also, ideas are being presented on the decision-making procedures, the participation of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), and on the financing of such a World Environment and Development Organization. --