世界経済・社会統計 = World development indicators

�Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are exter nalities and represent the biggest market failure the world has seen. We all produce emissions, people around the world are already suffering from past emissions, and current emissions will have potentially catastrophic impacts in the future. Thus, these emissions are not ordinary, localized externalities. Risk on a global scale is at the core of the issue. These basic features of the problem must shape the economic analy sis we bring to bear; failure to do this will, and has, produced approaches to policy that are pro foundly misleading and indeed dangerous. The purpose of this lecture is to set out what I think is an appropriate way to examine the economics of climate change, given the unique scientific and economic challenges posed, and to suggest implications for emissions targets, policy instruments, and global action. The sub ject is complex and very wide-ranging. It is a subject of vital importance but one in which the economics is fairly young. A central challenge is to provide the economic tools necessary as

/pdf/the-economics-of-climate-change-4wdlqpcyci.pdf

The Economics of Climate Change

A the many human activities that cause habitat loss (Czech et al. 2000), urban development produces some of the greatest local extinction rates and frequently eliminates the large majority of native species (Vale and Vale 1976, Luniak 1994, Kowarik 1995, Marzluff 2001). Also, urbanization is often more lasting than other types of habitat loss. Throughout much of New England, for example, ecological succession is restoring forest habitat lost from farming and logging, whereas most urbanized areas in that region not only persist but continue to expand and threaten other local ecosystems (Stein et al. 2000). Another great conservation challenge of urban growth is that it replaces the native species that are lost with widespread “weedy” nonnative species. This replacement constitutes the process of biotic homogenization that threatens to reduce the biological uniqueness of local ecosystems (Blair 2001). Urban-gradient studies show that, for many taxa, for example, plants (Kowarik 1995) and birds and butterflies (Blair and Launer 1997), the number of nonnative species increases toward centers of urbanization, while the number of native species decreases. The final conservation challenge of sprawl is its current and growing geographical extent (Benfield et al. 1999). A review by Czech and colleagues (2000) finds that urbanization endangers more species and is more geographically ubiquitous in the mainland United States than any other human activity. Species threatened by urbanization also tend to be threatened by agriculture, recreation, roads, and many other human impacts, emphasizing the uniquely far-reaching transformations that accompany urban sprawl. About 50% of the US population lives in the suburbs, with another 30% living in cities (USCB 2001). Over 5% of the total surface area of the United States is covered by urban and other built-up areas (USCB 2001). This is more land than is covered by the combined total of national and state parks and areas preserved by the Nature Conservancy. More ominously, the growth rate of urban land use is accelerating faster than land preserved as parks or conservation areas by the Conservancy (figure 1). Much of this growth is from the spread of suburban housing. It is estimated, for example, that residential yards occupy 135,000 acres in the state of Missouri (MDC 2002). This residential landscape represents nearly 1% of the total area of Missouri and is nearly three times the area occupied by Missouri state parks. Here I review the growing literature that documents how urban (and suburban) expansion harms native ecosystems. This knowledge can aid conservation efforts in two major ways. One is through the use of ecological principles—such as preserving remnant natural habitat and restoring modified habitats to promote native species conservation—to reduce the impacts of urbanization on native ecosystems. Rare and endangered species sometimes occur in urbanized habitats (Kendle and Forbes 1997, Godefroid 2001) and thus could be conserved there. Managing the large amount of residential vegetation (1% of the state area, as noted above) in ways that promote native plants and animals could also make a significant contribution to conservation.

https://bioone.org/journals/BioScience/volume-52/issue-10/0006-3568(2002)052[0883:UBAC]2.0.CO;2/Urbanization-Biodiversity-and-Conservation/10.1641/0006-3568(2002)052[0883:UBAC]2.0.CO;2.pdf

Urbanization, Biodiversity, and Conservation

Urbanization as a major cause of biotic homogenization

https://www.kth.se/social/upload/4ea53de1f27654240a000000/Bolund%20and%20Hunhammar%201999.pdf

Ecosystem services in urban areas

Ecological footprints and appropriated carrying capacity: what urban economics leaves out uses the concepts of human carrying capacity and natural capital to develop a framework to evaluate each ci...

Ecological footprints and appropriated carrying capacity: what urban economics leaves out:

Our ecological footprint

http://www.zo.utexas.edu/courses/THOC/Cities1997.pdf

Urban ecological footprints: Why cities cannot be sustainable—And why they are a key to sustainability

http://profwork.org/eee/support/Wackernagel_NK_footprint.pdf

Perceptual and structural barriers to investing in natural capital: Economics from an ecological footprint perspective

Conventional wisdom suggests that because of technology and trade, human carrying capacity is infinitely expandable and therefore virtually irrelevant to demography and development planning. By contrast, this article argues that ecological carrying capacity remains the fundamental basis for demographic accounting. A fundamental question for ecological economics is whether remaining stocks of natural capital are adequate to sustain the anticipated load of the human economy into the next century. Since mainstream (neoclassical) models are blind to ecological structure and function, they cannot even properly address this question. The present article therefore assesses the capital stocks, physical flows, and corresponding ecosystems areas required to support the economy using “ecological footprint” analysis. This approach shows that most so-called “advanced” countries are running massive unaccounted ecological deficits with the rest of the planet. Since not all countries can be net importers of carrying capacity, the material standards of the wealthy cannot be extended sustainably to even the present world population using prevailing technology. In this light, sustainability may well depend on such measures as greater emphasis on equity in international relationships, significant adjustments to prevailing terms of trade, increasing regional self-reliance, and policies to stimulate a massive increase in the material and energy efficiency of economic activity.

/pdf/revisiting-carrying-capacity-area-based-indicators-of-1w88kyi4fi.pdf

William E. Rees

Papers

Ecological footprints and appropriated carrying capacity: what urban economics leaves out:

Our ecological footprint

Urban ecological footprints: Why cities cannot be sustainable—And why they are a key to sustainability

Perceptual and structural barriers to investing in natural capital: Economics from an ecological footprint perspective

Revisiting Carrying Capacity: Area-Based Indicators of Sustainability