Combining debt reduction with halting deforestation seems to be an attractive way of solving two urgent global problems at the same time at hardly any cost. But this view may be overly optimistic. What are the advantages and the drawbacks of debt-for-nature swaps? Are there any better alternatives?

The first Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change opened the path for a new policy instrument to mitigate anthropogenic climate change. It instituted a pilot phase for international emission offsets, "Joint Implementation", open for all signatories to the...

Environmental problems are encountered today all over the world, but they raise by their causes and nature two clearly distinguishable sets of problems in the economies of developing and developed countries. While those facing the industrialized nations result in the main from the industrial...

In the October issue of INTERECONOMICS the author already published an article on "Environmental issues and the Developing Economies". The present continuation deals with the effects which the adoption of environmental controls in the developed countries may have on the developing economies.

The long-forgotten subject of the ecological disadvantages of the tropics has been brought to the fore once again by the catastrophic droughts in the Sahel and in southern Africa. The naive belief that economic development is simply a matter of finding the right technology and of spreading...