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One of the plausible hypotheses I have seen raised is that China’s internal environmental problems (air, water) are improving but it is the regional and global problems that are continuing to worsen. This article in The Economist suggests that internal problems are not improving – they are worsening. The only possible ray of light is the [...] I posted on the Gulf oil spill a while back and a discussant argued I was being alarmist. The NYT thinks he is right. It is bad but there seem to be worse environmental problems. 74% of the oil released was captured which reduces the scale of the problem and ”much of the rest is so diluted that it [...] Green groups often have naive political philosophies that they couple with sound environmental policy strengths. The Greens are generally preferencing dumb-dumb Labor in the forthcoming House of Representatives election in exchange for Labor preferences in the Senate. Its a good deal for the Greens since the Senate preferences matter to them and most Green preferences anyway [...] My friend Liam - who is interested in ‘sports economics’ – sent me this paper which is worth a look. Golf courses sometimes have a bad environmental reputation – for using fertilisers that contaminate water supplies, for destroying wildlife and for simply using too much water. This need not be the case. In urban areas, particularly, environmentally [...] Craig Emerson capably discusses the collapse of the comprehensive RSPT and the adoption instead of a much narrower resource rental tax (an MMRT) on coal, oil and iron ore. Readers of this blog will know (see last post) that I have changed my view on the RSPT. It was a (possibly justifiable) grab for resources by [...]
It is interesting to look at BP’s share price. Its above where it was last July though it has fallen markedly (by one-third) since the oil spill began in April in the Gulf of Mexico. Yesterday $11b was wiped off the value of the company as further efforts to stop the leak failed. 19,000 barrels [...] India and China the world’s emerging economic giants will determine the world’s environmental future – there is also the threat of resource-driven conflicts between the two. This Science Magazine report sets out the issues. The report has to be purchased - I’ll summarise the main issues. Continue reading China & India & cooperation to sustain the global environment I provided these remarks at the 54th Annual Conference of AARES (Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society) that I am now attending in Adelaide. It is in the main a simple argument for using adaptive management techniques for managing highly uncertain and complex environmental systems. Very provisional. Revised, comments welcome. Continue reading Does environmental economics fail to account for ecological complexity? Following the Obama reforms, Australian states and commonwealth governments are today considering introducing compulsory fuel standards on Australian cars to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Continue reading Fuel standards The bypass around Frankston will be toll free and will cost taxpayers $750 million. It will go ahead as a public-private partnership even if the Commonwealth Government gives not a cent towards its funding. To Premier John Brumby it is another instance of Kevin Rudd’s ‘nation-building’. Quote: ‘..quite frankly, the economy and the construction industry (need it)’. The private firm operating the road will be paid a fee not from users but from the state government under an ‘availability charging’ regime. The state and the firm share construction costs and the firm is then paid a quarterly fee if the road is kept in good condition with all lanes operating. Macquarie Bank is interested – why wouldn’t it be? Continue reading Radially-directed roads on borders of congested cities a silly idea In many Australian cities an attempt has been made to regulate levels of parking by controlling levels of on- and off-street parking. The dominant trend has been to heavily restrict on-street parking but to keep that which is available priced at relatively low levels. The resulting excess demands are rationed primarily by restrictions on the length of time that a spot can be occupied and by means of restrictions on the type of vehicle that can be parked such as residency permits. Privately-owned off-street parking has been encouraged as a more higher-priced alternative to on-street parking. A strongly-held policy objective is to discourage long-term parking. Continue reading Parking economics Road use congestion costs arise because travellers do not consider the impact of their travel decisions on the travel times of other road users. This creates what is the most significant externality associated with road travel. For the UK congestion is estimated by Samsom et al. (2001) to provide between 75-84 per cent of total estimated marginal external road costs. For the US, Parry et al. (2007, p. 384) estimate that congestion costs constitute about 50 per cent of all distance-related externality costs. There are no comparable estimates of the relative importance of congestion costs for Australia but the estimates of absolute size that are available suggest a substantial importance. The most plausible traffic congestion pricing solutions for Australia involve specific cordon pricing for some of its major cities along with pricing of major arterials and ring roads. Most plausibly these cities would be Sydney and Melbourne. Other cities face high per km congestion costs but have limited aggregate congestion costs that would mean fixed costs of operating cordon pricing schemes would make them at best, only marginally viable. There are serious issues of providing extra public transport infrastructure to encourage modal shifts from the use of private vehicles. Background. Traffic accident costs are a significant component of total road transport costs. I have been examining proposals for introducing distance-based car insurance charges as a way of addressing traffic accident issues as well as environmental externalities associated with road use. There are arguments for utilising per kilometre (km) insurance charges rather than lump-sum annual fees. This is consistent with the principal that prices should reflect costs. Such charges more accurately reflect the risks of traffic accidents than do risk-adjusted fixed charges since they directly limit distances travelled. Spinoff benefits of such measures include reduced congestion and local pollution. Per km charges could be imposed, in states such as Victoria, by modifying the Transport Accident Charge (TAC) that is levied as a compulsory component of the annual vehicle registration charge to cover third-person damages. The overall registration charge could be based on a per km charge that is both driver and vehicle specific. Political objections to the scheme could be eliminated by offering motorists the chance to stick with a higher fixed charge or utilising the per km charging. Comprehensive insurance covering personal accident costs and property damage costs could be provided privately on the same basis. Increasingly insurance markets are offering such options. More of the same here. It’s my first post on my new WordPress site. A post over at Catallaxy suggests that policies of preventing the exploitation of oil and gas reserves near national parks in the US harm the poor (mainly blacks) and are therefore unacceptable – there is even the suggestion in the original news story* that such policies are racist . It is at best a partial story and in [...] The imminent destruction of the freshwater ecology of the lower lakes of the Murray River on the grounds that upstream freshwater supplies are insufficient to flush them out and that stored water suppliesin the river system must be safeguarded for human consumption might well be justified on triage grounds but it is nevertheless an alarming policy [...] I don’t have strong views on the proposed use of the particular park in Kensington for Sir Ron Eddington’s proposed tunnel to connect the eastern freeway with the western suburbs in Melbourne*. Public protests are being organised on this use of the park. However I am concerned at the propensity of governments at all levels to [...] Honey bees around the globe are disappearing and nobody knows why – maybe it is due to bloodsucking mite called varroa – pictured above. One-third of US honey bees were wiped out last year. Bees are crucial for the pollination of 90 major crops. Albert Einstein is claimed to have said that if honey bees disappeared [...] In many wetlands along the Murray and Darling Rivers, sediments flooded for decades by locks and weirs, are being exposed to air as drought-affected water levels fall. Inland sulfidic sediments have been found in NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia. Waterlogged soils often contain sulphides produced by bacteria decomposing organic matter, but if [...] I have long been interested in the phenomenon of hormesis and teach this topic to environmental economics students. This idea – developed by toxicologists – suggests that low concentrations of certain apparently dangerous substances (gamma rays, dioxins, even pesticides), may be good for your health. The health damage function is therefore J or U-shaped in levels [...] |
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