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This study seeks to investigate how natural resources rents impact environmental sustainability measured by CO2 emissions and PM2.5 air pollution in Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) economies from 1995 to 2019. To enhance robust policy implications, natural resources are decomposed into disaggregated (coal, gas, oil, forest, and mineral rents) and aggregated (total natural resources rents) indicators. Besides, the intervening roles of affluence, urbanization, and green policies vectoring green technological innovation, green finance, green energy, and waste management within the theoretical underpinning of STIRPAT model are considered. The empirical verification is anchored on second-generation estimators entailing Common Correlated Effects Mean Group, Augmented Mean Group, and Panel Quantile Regression. Similarly, Fully Modified OLS is employed to gauge the country-specific effects amidst varying robustness analyses. The fallouts from the analyses reveal that natural resources rents inhibit the attainments of environmental sustainability in BRICS economies by positively driving CO2 emissions and PM2.5 air pollution. Conversely, green policies are observed to substantially drive environmental sustainability by mitigating both pollutants whereas affluence and urbanization escalate them. The distributional effects from Panel Quantile Regression and Fully Modified OLS corroborate the main findings divergently. Additionally, two channels of causality, including unidirectional and bidirectional nexuses, are apparent from the estimated models. Policy measures are suggested based on the empirical findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article articulates the historical entanglement of Ireland's big tech ecosystem with earlier forms of economic development and state-sanctioned polluting practices, particularly focusing on strategies for attracting multinational companies since the 1960s. The outsourcing of polluting multinational industries to Ireland's rural regions has a long history, one tied into fault-lines of the country's postcolonial condition and developmental economy in the 1970s and 1980s. During this era of economic liberalisation, Ireland's environmental politics were frequently organised against the outsourcing of toxic chemical, pharmaceutical, and technological industries to rural Ireland. Ireland's position as a western European nation-state undoubtedly means that wealth accumulated via these industries merits complicity in the global supply chains sustaining "green" extractivism in the Global South. But rural Ireland also bears an uneven share of responsibility for these industries, whose destructive externalities are often imposed on these places through large-scale infrastructures. Historical struggles for environmental justice in these rural sites foreground access to land, livelihoods, health, and cultures of place. Contributing to recent debates on the colonial endurances of contemporary "green" development, we argue that these rural movements should be a starting point for a "just" transition attuned to anti-imperialist goals in Ireland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental policy advocates are increasingly proposing 'bundled' clean energy policies to combat climate change while also creating jobs and transforming the economy. While such strategies may broaden the appeal of climate policies, these broad constituencies create challenges for policy communicators – how do messages about different aspects of the policy, coming from different messenger groups, influence public support for clean energy policies? This study uses a modified conjoint survey experiment (n = 2145) to test how the interaction between message frames (addressing climate change vs. creating jobs) and sources (business, environmental, or labor groups) influenced policy support for clean energy policies. Results show that job creation frames from business or environmental groups were most effective. We find evidence that certain message/source combinations work across partisanship divides: messages that were effective for one partisan group did not backfire – and often also increased policy support – when presented to the other group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In addition to taking advantage of clean technologies for energy from fossil fuels, China's current policy is to focus on renewable energy especially hydropower and wind. However, this policy is not practical due to climatic problems for installing wind turbines and solar collectors in some Chinese provinces. In this study, China's regional policy is examined in terms of renewable energy sources and solutions are provided. Based on the data available in the literature, it was found that the hydropower systems account for a significant share of energy required in China, except for Henan. Inner Mongolia was also introduced as the most important Chinese province for developing wind energy systems because over 30% of wind power capacity of China belongs to this province. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The most important characteristics and limitations of solar energy were reviewed in this study. The analysis of different aspects indicated that the most important global challenges of solar energy development were climatic challenges, technical constraints, and unwillingness to make investments. After describing current conditions and predicting the future of solar energy, this study analyzed the policies formulated by developed countries to develop this from of energy. Accordingly, China has gotten ahead of other countries in this industry due to the technological production of solar panels and governmental supports. Finally, the economic estimation of solar energy was presented by dealing with the economic barriers to this form of energy in developed countries. According to the significant growth in the reduction of solar energy electricity production cost, this source of energy can be used as a major source in the future. It was then recommended to use a hybrid of solar energy with other sources such as wind to reduce the costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses how 10 localities in the USA and England, recognised as leaders in clean energy and climate action, have used collaborative approaches to develop local climate change plans and energy conservation, efficiency, and renewable energy initiatives. It examines these planning and policy-making processes in the context of Margerum's [2008. A typology of collaboration efforts in environmental management.Environmental Management, 41 (4), 487–500] typology of “action”, “organizational”, and “policy-level” collaborations, as well as Gray's [1989.Collaborating: finding common ground for multiparty problems. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass] classification of collaboration in the “problem-setting”, “direction-setting”, and “implementation” phases. We conducted interviews with local elected officials, municipal staff, energy professionals, and citizen volunteers in each community, supplemented with an analysis of their adopted energy, climate change, and land-use plans. We find that despite the different government structures and political contexts between the two countries, there was a surprising amount of commonality in how the case study localities used collaborative planning to develop local climate plans and clean energy initiatives. These processes were most often initiated by local elected officials and/or high-level staff members, and then carried out in collaboration with local third-sector organisations and other community stakeholders. In the USA, collaboration was strongest at the policy level and in the direction-setting phase, with the distinguishing feature that citizen advisory boards or stakeholder working groups often took a more active role in shaping local plans and policies. The English localities had some of those same types of collaborations, but were more likely to also employ action collaboration, in the implementation phase, in which third-sector organisations coordinated with the locality to directly provide clean energy services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To mitigate climate change, governments ranging from city to multi-national have adopted greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction targets. While the location of GHG reductions does not affect their climate benefits, it can impact human health benefits associated with co-emitted pollutants. Here, an advanced modeling framework is used to explore how subnational level GHG targets influence air pollutant co-benefits from ground level ozone and fine particulate matter. Two carbon policy scenarios are analyzed, each reducing the same total amount of GHG emissions in the Northeast US: an economy-wide Cap and Trade (CAT) program reducing emissions from all sectors of the economy, and a Clean Energy Standard (CES) reducing emissions from the electricity sector only. Results suggest that a regional CES policy will cost about 10 times more than a CAT policy. Despite having the same regional targets in the Northeast, carbon leakage to non-capped regions varies between policies. Consequently, a regional CAT policy will result in national carbon reductions that are over six times greater than the carbon reduced by the CES in 2030. Monetized regional human health benefits of the CAT and CES policies are 844% and 185% of the costs of each policy, respectively. Benefits for both policies are thus estimated to exceed their costs in the Northeast US. The estimated value of human health co-benefits associated with air pollution reductions for the CES scenario is two times that of the CAT scenario. Implications: In this research, an advanced modeling framework is used to determine the potential impacts of regional carbon policies on air pollution co-benefits associated with ground level ozone and fine particulate matter. Study results show that spatially heterogeneous GHG policies have the potential to create areas of air pollution dis-benefit. It is also shown that monetized human health benefits within the area covered by policy may be larger than the model estimated cost of the policy. These findings are of particular interest both as U.S. states work to develop plans to meet state-level carbon emissions reduction targets set by the EPA through the Clean Power Plan, and in the absence of comprehensive national carbon policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Along with the large middle-income countries Brazil, China, and South Africa, India has been put under increasing pressure to shoulder parts of the mitigation burden and commit to national emission reduction targets. India, however, refers to its limited capacity and widespread poverty. Is India hiding behind its poor? While others examine the distribution of emissions within the country to answer this question, we study domestic policy making for energy subsidies and access to clean energy. Empirical evidence suggests that domestic policy making is at least partially consistent with the pro-poor arguments advanced at the international level. Given their large number and the country's democratic system, the poor do have some weight in Indian politics. However, pro-poor policies end where they do not translate into greater vote shares. Moreover, India's international position ignores the existing complementarities between climate-friendly and pro-poor activities. Policy relevance Despite India's recent growth spurt, its concern to fight energy poverty at home before engaging in any commitments on climate policy at the international level should be taken seriously within the international negotiations. Policy making in India is driven by democratic incentives, which, in this case, work to the benefit of the poor. Pro-poor policies may not go as far as one would wish from a developmental perspective, but the impact of the masses of the poor on domestic policy making is politically significant and cannot be ignored. This also provides some broader lessons for mitigation and adaptation policies in developing countries: politicians respond to incentives and support will only reach the needy if the appropriate incentives are in place. While we observe some significant commitment and implementation problems even in a democratic country like India, such problems must be expected to be even more serious elsewhere. This should not be overlooked when designing institutions for the allocation of climate finance, such as the Green Climate Fund. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

One of the stated aims of the EU ETS is to promote investment in clean, low-carbon technologies. Against this background, this paper aims to provide an original analysis of how the EU ETS has impacted on corporate investment decisions and whether it does so at a level adequate to reach the long-term political targets required for a decarbonization of the European economy. In this paper, the authors provide empirical evidence for this question by analyzing corporate reactions to the EU ETS for Belgian EU ETS sites. Despite the fact that most managers use prices that are much higher than spot prices in their appraisal reports, expected prices are still far too low to mobilize additional financing for new investments in lower carbon modes of production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Air quality co-benefits can potentially reduce the costs of greenhouse gas mitigation. However, whereas many studies of the cost of greenhouse gas mitigation model the macroeconomic welfare impacts of mitigation, most studies of air quality co-benefits do not. We employ a U.S. computable general equilibrium economic model previously linked to an air quality modeling system and enhance it to represent the economy-wide welfare impacts of fine particulate matter. We present a first application of this method to explore the efficiency and distributional implications of a Clean Energy Standard (CES) and a Cap and Trade (CAT) program that both reduce CO2emissions by 10% in 2030 relative to 2006. We find that co-benefits from fine particulate matter reduction (median $6; $2 to $10/tCO2) completely offset policy costs by 110% (40% to 190%), transforming the net welfare impact of the CAT into a gain of $1 (−$5 to $7) billion 2005$. For the CES, the corresponding co-benefit (median $8; $3 to $14/tCO2) is a smaller fraction (median 5%; 2% to 9%) of its higher policy cost. The eastern United States garners 78% and 71% of co-benefits for the CES and CAT, respectively. By representing the effects of pollution-related morbidities and mortalities as an impact to labor and the demand for health services, we find that the welfare impact per unit of reduced pollution varies by region. These interregional differences can enhance the preference of some regions, such as Texas, for a CAT over a CES, or switch the calculation of which policy yields higher co-benefits, compared with an approach that uses one valuation for all regions. This framework could be applied to quantify consistent air quality impacts of other pricing instruments, subnational trading programs, or green tax swaps. Implications: Policies that reduce CO2 emissions can also reduce PM2.5 (particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter <2.5 μm), yielding unintended economic benefits. Using an integrated assessment model linking policies and emissions to a consistent treatment of costs and co-benefits, we find that PM2.5 co-benefits offset the costs of reducing CO2 through Cap and Trade (CAT) in the United States. An equivalent Clean Energy Standard is more costly, and its higher PM2.5 reductions offset up to a tenth of its costs. Most co-benefits accrue to eastern states, and interregional differences and indirect economic effects shift those gains further to New York and New England. Economy-wide co-benefits reduce the costs and shift the distributional impacts of U.S. carbon policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]