In response to global opportunities and domestic challenges, Ethiopia is revising its energy policy to switch from high-cost imported fossil fuel to domestically produced biofuels. Currently, there are biofuel investment activities in different parts of the country to produce ethanol and...

Traditionally, wood fuels, like other bioenergy sources, have been considered carbon neutral because the amount of CO2 released can be offset by CO2 sequestration due to the regrowth of the biomass. Thus, until recently, most studies assigned a global warming potential (GWP) of zero to CO2...

This article discusses how different climate policy instruments such as CO2 taxes and renewable energy subsidies affect the profitability of fossil fuel production, given that a fixed global climate target shall be achieved in the long term. Within an intertemporal framework, the model analyses...

The Stern Review has had a major influence on the policy discussion on climate change. One reason is that the report has raised the estimated cost of unmitigated climate damages by an order of magnitude compared to most earlier estimates, leading to a call for strong and urgent action on climate...

In their 1963 classic Scarcity and Growth Howard Barnett and Chandler Morse argued that resource scarcity did not threaten economic growth. A second investigation in the late 1970s, Scarcity and Growth Reconsidered, reached largely the same conclusion. The 25 years since that work was published...

According to proponents, voluntary agreements (VAs) negotiated with polluters sidestep weak institutions and other barriers to conventional environmental regulation in developing countries. Yet little is known about their effectiveness. We examine VAs in Colombia, a global leader in the use of...

To help inform pollution control policies in the Indian electricity sector we estimate the health damages associated with particulate matter, sulfur dioxide (SO2), and nitrogen oxides (NOx) from individual coal-fired power plants. We calculate the damages per ton of pollutant for each of 89...

The restitution of parkland to the Khomani San “bushmen” and Mier “agricultural” communities in May 2002 marked a significant shift in conservation in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park and environs in South Africa. Biodiversity conservation will benefit from this land restitution only if...

Soil fertility depletion is considered the main biophysical limiting factor to increasing per capita food production for most smallholder farmers in Africa. The adoption and diffusion of sustainable agricultural practices (SAPs), as a way to tackle this impediment, has become an important issue...

Much of the guidance about potential impacts of reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) speculates how efforts would be implemented and draws lessons from other mechanisms, such as payments for ecosystem services (PES). However, with few REDD activities underway, little...