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• A novel approach to parametrize countryside species-area relationship for projecting extinctions in any region and scale. • The parametrized model was used to project mammal, birds and amphibian species extinctions in 804 terrestrial ecoregions. • We identified global hotspots of projected species extinctions as well as major land use drivers in each country. • We combine projected extinctions with a MRIO database to estimate production, consumption, and trade impacts per country. • Out of a total of 927 projected extinctions due to current global land use, 25% is due to land use for export production. Effective and equitable conservation requires understanding of the global biodiversity impacts inflicted by consumption in individual countries and those embodied in international trade. Research to date has ascertained these impacts in terms of threats, but not on species directly. Here we use a novel approach, by parametrizing the countryside species-area relationship (SAR) (a). Using a recent high-resolution and harmonized global land use map along with (b). IUCN habitat classification data for all 22,386 mammal, bird, and amphibian species, to project endemic species extinctions due to habitat loss to date across all 804 terrestrial ecoregions; and then, (c). Validating the projected extinctions with IUCN Red List. We allocate projected extinctions to the agriculture, pasture, urban, and forestry areas used, traded, and consumed in 129 countries, using an environmentally extended global multi-regional input output database. Results show that for the three taxa combined, a total of 927 endemic species are projected to go extinct due to the impacts of current global land use. The taxonomic breakdown is 186 projected mammal extinctions, 170 birds, and 571 amphibians, with global agriculture land use responsible for 267 projected extinctions; pasture 314, forestry 313, and urbanization 32. Importantly, countryside SAR projections compare well with the number of extinct and threatened species documented by the IUCN Red List. We found that land use for export production is responsible for 25% of these projected global extinctions. Our approach enables parametrization of countryside SARs in any world region even without extensive field studies, and therefore allows quantitative assessment of biodiversity impacts under alternative land use scenarios. Overall, our approach and findings can inform sustainability assessment of commodity supply-chains as well as specific national actions toward achievement of the Aichi 2020 and UN Sustainable Development Goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic globalization is deepening China’s opening up to the world. China has promoted the development of foreign trade by extensively improving the level of its open economy. However, to determine whether the development of foreign trade has aggravated environmental pollution, attention needs to be paid. Taking Guizhou Province as an example, this study examines the relevant studies on the interaction between foreign trade and environmental pollution, and summarizes the current environmental pollution in Guizhou Province, and uses panel data at the municipal level of Guizhou Province from 2007 to 2016 to analyse the dynamic relationship between foreign trade and environmental pollution and further explore the environmental effect law of foreign trade. Results are found to be inconsistent with those of existing studies on the relationship between foreign trade and environmental pollution possibly due to the incorrect source of sample data and different estimation methods. The current situation of environmental pollution in Guizhou Province shows that the total discharge of industrial wastewater and industrial waste gas is on the rise and that the discharge of industrial solid waste increases in a small fluctuation. Emissions of environmental pollutants, gross domestic product, and foreign investment show a U-shaped relationship. Foreign trade layout affects the adjustment of the industrial structure, and its growth has resulted in negative effects. This study can provide a reference for understanding the internal relationship between trade and the environment, and diminishing the negative effects of foreign trade on the environment, and providing advice on environmental regulation, and promoting the coordinated development of trade and the environment in Guizhou Province [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this Article is to explain new horizons and perspectives in international economic law in the context of sustainable development. This Article explores the potential of the trading system in helping mitigate climate change and enhancing sustainable energy. The argument is that trade agreements have tremendous potential to help mitigate climate change, which is currently underexplored. The Article explains how trade agreements may be a legal instrument to mitigate climate change and enhance sustainable energy. It then provides an analysis of the challenges of mitigating climate change and enhancing sustainable energy. Next, it examines the synergistic links between the trading and climate regimes and offers forum options that best deal with them with the aim of helping to mitigate climate change and enhance sustainable energy. The Article ends with what the future may hold on the links between international trade and renewable energy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of foreign trade in China, industrial import and export has been an absolute subject in recent years. The huge trade surplus of import and export trade of industrial products brings not only high profits, but also pollution costs as well. Based on the concept of water pollution footprints (WPFs), this study applies the input-output method and calculates pollutant-producing coefficients of 20 major industrial sectors in China and investigates the WPFs caused by the import and export trades of these industrial sectors. The research results show that WPF resulting from exports exceeds that of imports from 2011 to 2015 in China. The net inflow of pollution footprint is mainly from paper mills, printing and stationery manufacturing, and textile industry; whereas a great number of WPFs are transferred to other countries by these sectors, such as metal mining and dressing industry and oil and natural gas exploitation industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trade-related CO 2 emissions are an important component in global emissions. Understanding the role of international trade in emissions is of direct relevance to global and national emission reductions, particularly for major exporters and importers. In the literature, the issue has seldom been studied using index decomposition analysis (IDA), which is a popular tool in assessing growth in national-level CO 2 emissions. In this paper, based on a multi-region I-O analysis, we introduce three inter-linked IDA models to quantify the impacts of trade on the production-based emissions, the consumption-based emissions, and the emission balance of economies, respectively. A salient feature of the models, when applied together, is that they can help to assess the role of trade and the emission performance of economies from multiple perspectives. We discuss the relevant methodological issues as well as the advantages and limitations of the models. We then apply the models to evaluate the impact of international trade on changes in global CO 2 emissions from 1995 to 2009. It is found that while the growing trade volume drove up the total emissions, changes in the emission intensity and goods composition related to trade led to some degree of emission mitigation, particularly after 2005. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study seeks to contribute to the recent literature by empirically investigating the causal effect of urban population growth and international trade on environmental pollution of China, for the period 1980–2014. The Johansen cointegration confirmed a long-run cointegration association among the utilised variables for the case of China. The direction of causality among the variables was, consequently, investigated using the recent bootstrapped Granger causality test. This bootstrapped Granger causality approach is preferred as it provides robust and accurate critical values for statistical inferences. The findings from the causality analysis revealed the existence of a bi-directional causality between import and urban population. The three most paramount variables that explain the environmental pollution in China, according to the impulse response function, are imports, urbanisation and energy consumption. Our study further established the presence of an N-shaped environmental Kuznets curve relationship between economic growth and environmental pollution of China. Hence, our study recommends that China should adhere to stricter environmental regulations in international trade, as well as enforce policies that promote energy efficiency in the urban residential and commercial sector, in the quest to mitigate environmental pollution issues as the economy advances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The carbon dioxide embodied in Chinese exports to developed countries increased rapidly from 1995 to 2008. We test the extent to which institutional reforms in China can explain this increase. We focus on five areas of reforms: trade liberalization, environmental institutions, legal and property rights, institutional risk and exchange rate policy. Our results show that trade liberalization, weak environmental institutions, exchange rate policy, and legal and property rights affect emissions. Our results also indicate that the lack of reform in the utilities sector is an important factor in the rapid increase in embodied emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effects of foreign trade on the environment in the cases of rice, cassava, and fish in Cambodia are examined in this article, but as a case study analyzing markers of developmental discursive practice. The study identifies and analyzes five rhetorical techniques in discursive practice—assertion, provincialism, dismissal of positive outcomes, reference to external causes, and policy fetishism—then argues that these have in common the denial of local voice. It argues that their deployment tends to increase where a discursive order is more contested. In general, the case study shows how much of development policy literature is rather disreputable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

CO 2 emission induced by international trade brings a plenty of pressure on global warming. Hence, it is important to understand multi-regional CO 2 flows that result from global trade and flow variation of different paths. After transforming capital flows into CO 2 carbon flows, we built an ecological network model of the global trade system's carbon metabolism. Through ecological network analysis, we identified the direct and indirect effects of temporal CO 2 flows in the network. We found that the total integral flow through the network experienced a remarkable increase during the study period. In addition, total import and export flows of four countries, including US, China, Germany and Russia, turned out to be rather big. Direct flow share was usually beyond 50% between two geographical adjacent countries, while that share was below 50% when two countries are far away. This research reveals the importance role of indirect flows and can therefore provide an empirical basis for adjusting and optimizing global trade network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United States and the European Union include several environmental clauses in their respective preferential trade agreements (PTAs). Building on an exhaustive and fine-grained dataset of PTAs' environmental clauses, this article makes two contributions. First, it shows that the United States and the European Union have initially favored different approaches to environmental protection in their PTAs. The United States' concerns over regulatory sovereignty and level playing field have led to a legalistic and adversarial approach, while the European Union's concerns for policy coherence have led to a more procedural and cooperative approach. Second, this article provides evidence that European and American trade negotiators have gradually converged on a shared set of environmental norms. Although the United States and the European Union initially pursued different objectives, they learned from each other and drew similar lessons. As a result, recent American agreements have become more Europeanlike, and European agreements have become more Americanized. This article concludes that U.S. and E.U. approaches, far from being incompatible, can usefully be combined and reinforce each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the 1995-2009 World Input-Output Databases, the multi-regional input-output analysis, and the generalized hypothetical extraction method to study the effect of the international trade on the embodied carbon emission of 41 countries. The results calculated by the hypothetical extraction method show that (1) America, Japan, and Germany were the top three countries with the largest gap of the embodied carbon emissions in 1995, and America, China, and Germany became the top three countries in 2009; (2) compared with the final goods trade, the intermediate input trade had a greater influence on the embodied carbon emissions for most countries in 1995 and 2009; the effect of the intermediate input trade on the emissions decreased, while the effect of the final goods trade increased from 1995 to 2009; and (3) the developed countries replaced the production of emission intensive goods by importing from the developing countries. These results implied that both producers and consumers should share the responsibilities for the carbon emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an overview of trade, environmental and related public issues and policies. It discusses the pollution problem, the recent global warming trend, the attempts of various institutions, including the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, regional, national and other organizations, to solve the global trade and environmental issues. The paper also discusses a number of basic theoretical issues and empirical findings, such as the free-rider problem, the tragedy of the commons, the theory of second best, the relative efficacy of price and quantity control, carbon leakage, border carbon adjustments, the cap-and-trade system, the pollution haven hypothesis, the optimal social discount rate and the environmental Kuznets curve. Some computable general equilibrium models are reviewed and several notable World Trade Organization environmental and health-related trade dispute cases are analysed, including the tuna-dolphin, shrimp-turtle, eco-labelling, beef-hormone and genetically modified organism cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores questions of leadership in navigating the futures of material production from the point of view of the open source and peer-to-peer movement. It puts forward the idea of cosmolocalization, which in basic terms sees a new production logic emerging from the advent of a global design commons coupled to new manufacturing technologies that democratize production. The study first uses the futures triangle to map the various factors at play. It then brings together the thinking of PR. Sarkar and Michel Bauwens, exploring questions of leadership in the development of this new model. The study ends with three brief scenarios, drawing on the scenario logic developed by Johan Galtung, that proposes potential future states based on the resolution of critical contradictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land-use change is increasingly driven by global trade. The term “telecoupling” has been gaining ground as a means to describe how human actions in one part of the world can have spatially distant impacts on land and land-use in another. These interactions can, over time, create both direct and spatially distant feedback loops, in which human activity and land use mutually impact one another over great expanses. In this paper, we develop an analytical framework to clarify spatially distant feedbacks in the case of land use and global trade. We use an innovative mix of multi-regional input-output (MRIO) analysis and stochastic actor-oriented models (SAOMs) for analyzing the co-evolution of changes in trade network patterns with those of land use, as embodied in trade. Our results indicate that the formation of trade ties and changes in embodied land use mutually impact one another, and further, that these changes are linked to disparities in countries' wealth. Through identifying this feedback loop, our results support ongoing discussions about the unequal trade patterns between rich and poor countries that result in uneven distributions of negative environmental impacts. Finally, evidence for this feedback loop is present even when controlling for a number of underlying mechanisms, such as countries' land endowments, their geographical distance from one another, and a number of endogenous network tendencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Green technology progress refers to the advancement of the energy-saving technology based on input factors. China's opening up policy plays an increasingly important role in its economic growth. Therefore, this study verifies the influence of opening up on the country's green technology progress. This study sets up a 2 × 2 × 2 green technology progress model with two countries (a developed country and a developing country), two goods (cleaner goods and dirty goods), and two factors (labor and capital) to analyze theoretically the influence of trade on green technology; thereafter, four propositions are developed. A method for measuring green technology progress based on inputs is developed and alternative measurement models are introduced to test the correctness of the four propositions. Since the coefficient on import trade, a key index, does not yield significant results, this study concludes that international trade affects green technology progress by changing the labor-capital ratio, as well as the research and development (R&D) cost. This study further uses this deduction to examine countries characterized by different development levels. Our final goodness-of-fit results are satisfactory. This study concludes that China can develop its domestic economy through exports, but must enhance the supervision of exporting enterprises. In addition, imports from developed countries seem to be able to improve China's green technology and, most importantly, its ability to innovate and cultivate talent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how income-induced environmental policy differences and damage heterogeneity interact to determine the comparative advantage in a polluting activity. In a non-cooperative framework, North and South regulate two types of pollution, local pollution (e.g., air and water pollution) and global pollution (e.g., greenhouse gas emissions), each of which induces heterogeneous damages for consumers. I find that (1) North or South can have the comparative advantage in the dirty sector; (2) whatever the region with this comparative advantage, the worldwide level of global pollution can either increase or decrease with trade; (3) local and global emissions evolve symmetrically in each region with trade, even though pollution regulations may be asymmetric. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on South African Eucalyptus' non-native infecting insect pests. Topics discussed include introduction of non-native insects through transportation of goods across the countries and cultivated regions' global homogenisation; reporting of six different species of pests like Glycaspis brimblecombei Moore, Ophelimus maskelli Ashmead and Psyllaephagus bliteus Riek; life history and feeding information of all the pests; and their impact on forestry industry.

This paper proposes a comprehensive decomposition method to estimate how changes in domestic economic scale, industrial composition, domestic technology, export scale of intermediate products, export composition of intermediate products, export scale of final products, export composition of final products, import scale of intermediate products, import composition of intermediate products, import scale of final products, import composition of final products, and foreign technology affect the volumes of both territorial CO emissions (including emissions induced by producing exports) and extraterritorial CO emissions induced by imports. Specifically, the sources of the territorial CO emissions of each of 40 nations from 1995 to 2009 were examined using the Environmentally Extended World Input-Output Tables in 2009 prices. Based on the results, the patterns of structural change in the 40 nations can be classified into eight types and it can be seen that domestic industrial structure changes and import structure changes have different roles according to the group types. This study demonstrates the need for global warming countermeasures that consider the differences in the role that each country's structural changes play in CO emissions. We also found that the export composition effect was negligibly small in both the high-income and middle-income group of countries during 1995-2008 and it has not played an important role in climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Product-oriented climate policies such as labels, financial incentives, and emission standards for vehicles and buildings have achieved considerable reductions in emissions and triggered innovations that offer very low emissions during the use phase. In contrast to other climate-policy instruments, these policies are successfully applied in an increasing number of regions. However, a major proportion of global emissions—namely, those from industry—remain outside the scope of most current forms of product-oriented climate policies. All economic activities could be included by extending product-oriented policies to embodied emissions (i.e. emissions resulting from manufacturing products). To guide such a development, we need a better understanding of the current state and potential future development of this policy approach. Therefore, in this paper, we review and evaluate policy evolution over the past decade in terms of both measures implemented and emissions addressed. On this basis, we synthesize a framework for developing policy towards greater stringency and broader scope. The framework describes a step-wise process to achieve increasingly stringent standards. Once established, standards can extend their scope to include additional, similar products, and related embodied emissions. Our framework and policy review informs the reinforcement and extensions of current product-oriented climate policies. A relevant implication for international climate policy is that the regional adoption of such policies incentivizes the global diffusion of low-GHG products. International climate policy can foster this development by supporting the harmonization of carbon-footprint norms for products in order to enhance conformity with international trade, and facilitate the extension of product-oriented climate policy to embodied emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global trade in amphibians is widespread, involves hundreds of species, and has been implicated in amphibian population declines. The pet trade is the primary driver for population declines in one Southeast Asian newt species ( Laotriton laoensis ), and is a known threat to most of the 13 other known species from the region. Despite this, there has been little attempt to assess the impact of collection for the pet trade on Southeast Asian newts. We examined available import data from the US, Europe and Hong Kong, assessed current online trade and surveyed local pet traders within Southeast Asia. Large numbers of Southeast Asian newts are harvested from the wild to meet the demands of the international pet trade, with more than 7500 individual newts imported into the US alone during 2005–2014. Internet trade surveys revealed the global extent of the trade, with Southeast Asian newts for sale as pets in 15 countries throughout Europe, Asia and North America, at between ~ USD30–260 each. The trade in newts within Southeast Asia appears negligible in comparison. Urgent measures are required in order to conserve Southeast Asian newts but the lack of data on the species and number of individuals impacted by the pet trade makes it difficult to monitor and accurately assess its threat. We strongly recommend that all Southeast Asian newts be listed on CITES. This measure should improve monitoring of trade and provides importing countries opportunity to curb trade in species that were illegally harvested, thus helping to safeguard wild populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The results of the current study converge with prior research on how domestic and regional political economies and national security concerns influence the outlines of particular worldwide environmental governance proposals, the economic aspects of global environmental governance schemes, and the increase and effectiveness of market-based governance processes. The paper generates insights about the role of private economic participants in international environmental sectors, the underlying forces of transnational climate governance, and the performance and strength of environmental governance entities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Navies are the only resource that many states have to protect the international trading system, but naval authorities must be realistic about the complexity of the criminal threats they are likely to encounter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the advance-retreat course (ARC) model - a growth model under environmental pressure, this paper builds a bilateral import and export trade growth model under environmental pressure. By using the model, the paper analyzes the impacts of innovation on import and export growth, presents a method for computing the optimal levels of imports and exports, derives the limit values of imports and exports, and obtains the limit equilibrium between exports and imports. Finally, a strategy for promoting import and export growth and achieving a bilateral trade balance according to the limit equilibrium is designed. The findings are the following: (i) innovation growth will gradually reduce goods import and export, and services import and export will increase, (ii) the U.S. import-export structure is more reasonable than that of China, and (iii) there is big room for services import and export growth for China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An increase in virtual water export (VWE) could exacerbate the shortage of water resources in a water-stressed country. An analysis of VWE changes through time could be important for international trading strategies in water-stressed countries. China has been experiencing increased water shortages concurrent with astonishing economic growth. In this study, the VWE changes in China between 2002 and 2007 were quantitatively assessed. An input-output model was adopted to analyze the changes in VWEs including the contribution of each economic sector to such changes. The model indicated that the total VWE increased by 2.96 × 1010 m3 in 2007 compared with export levels in 2002. Agriculture was the sector making the highest contribution (3.33 × 1010 m³) to this increase. Instead of the previously published decomposition analysis method for VWE changes, a weighted average decomposition (WAD) method was introduced to further quantify the contributions of the three major driving factors to VWE. These driving factors included technological upgrade, structural adjustment, and variations in export volume. The results of WAD were also compared with a previous method in decomposition analysis of VWE changes, revealing that accuracy of results could be improved through the adoption of WAD. Moreover, the results showed that the change in export volume and structural change led to increases in the VWE of 1.41 × 1011 m³ and 3.11 × 1010 m³, respectively. Comparatively, technological change reduced the VWE by 1.43 × 1011 m³. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change and environmental policies are widely discussed, but much less is known about emissions embodied in goods traded internationally, and the distinction between emission producers and consumers. The carbon dioxide emissions embodied in international trade in Central European countries are subject to examination in this paper. As a result of industrial restructuring and environmental legislation, air pollution has improved significantly in Central European countries since the 1989 transition. On the other hand, economic growth has been accompanied by a rise in consumerism. Despite the increasing role of exports, the Visegrad group countries have become net importers of carbon dioxide emissions between 1995 and 2008. This seems to be the 'standard trajectory' of a country's transition toward a more developed and consumption-oriented economy. The global patterns of carbon dioxide emissions embodied in manufacturing exports are also mapped, using network analysis and constructing 'product space'. The analysis confirms that industrial re-structuring played an important role in lowering the production of carbon dioxide emissions in the Visegrad countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses several reports published within the issue on topics including intersection of trade and animal welfare, managing the environment through international investment arbitration, and impact of international trade on the environment.

The article examine intergovernmental regulation of trade affecting animals in the U.S. Topics discussed include role of free trade agreements (FTA) such as the Dominican Republic-Central America U.S. FTA and the U.S.- Peru Trade Promotion Agreement; FTA's potential impacts on wildlife conservation and animal welfare; and protections of animals involved in international trade.

The article examines the impact of Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) trade negotiations between the U.S. and European Union on effectiveness of Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals Regulation (REACH). Topics discussed include EU's chemical legislation to protect human health; free trade agreement between the U.S. and the EU; and conflict between environmental law and international trade law.

The technical variation between countries in the production of goods and services, in terms of not only input coefficients, but also emission coefficients, creates scope for international trade to reduce environmental pressures. For this purpose we extend the theory of trade and the environment as to accommodate technical variation between countries in production and emissions. We use and steer close to the extended input and output tables, which include emission data. By treating environmental standards analogous to capital and labor capacity constraints, the aggregation problem for economic and environmental measures gets the same format as the well-understood aggregation problem for labor and capital. In a pilot application we determine the gains to free trade in products and emission permits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers how the WTO can make better use of the principle of "mutual supportiveness " as an interpretative tool. It examines the success of the WTO in enhancing the relationship between trade and environment and between the WTO agreements and Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs), compares the different interpretative approaches in the United States - Shrimp and EC - Biotech decisions,1 and argues that a mutually supportive approach that allows consideration of MEAs that are not binding on WTO parties does not change the rights and obligations of WTO members [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cross-border consumption has become more popular, prompting a growing interest in the problems related to international trade. At the same time, trans-boundary air pollution has become a major environmental problem, meriting increased attention in environmental economics literature. This study considers these problems in the context of environmental taxes and tariffs (or customs duties on imports), assuming quadratic environmental damage. We compare the environmental tax rate with and without a tariff and demonstrate that the former is lower than the latter. We then compare the level of social welfare with and without a tariff and demonstrate that when the degree of trans-boundary air pollution is low (high), welfare without the tariff is higher (lower) than with it. Thus, a tariff is not always necessary from the viewpoint of social welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years there has been a dramatic increase in the number of firms shifting stages of their production processes overseas. In this paper we investigate whether firms outsource the dirtier stages of production to minimise domestic environmental regulation costs-a process broadly consistent with the pollution haven hypothesis. We develop a theoretical model of international environmental outsourcing that focuses on the roles played by firm size and productivity, transport costs and environmental regulations. We test the model's predictions using a firm-level dataset for Japan and do find evidence of an 'environmental outsourcing' effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the complex environmental relationships of coastal cities with their shorelines and the sea. Cities developed in coastal locations because they offered easy access to fisheries, trade and commerce, transport, attractive scenery and recreational opportunities. However, coastal cities have also been vulnerable to the natural hazards of hurricane-force winds, tsunamis and tidal flooding; and climate change will exacerbate flood risks in the future. Many of the world's largest cities are situated by the sea, and today in every continent except North America the highest share of urban dwellers live in coastal zones. These issues, together with growing concerns over the state of the world's oceans - declining fish stocks, aquatic ecosystem degradation, and marine acidification - have attracted growing historical interest in coastal cities and their role in environmental change. Using examples of different types of coastal cities, I survey how growing urbanisation, trade, industrialisation and tourism impacted on shorelines and the sea over time. 1 also examine how communities have adapted to the challenges and risks of living in coastal cities. The paper concludes by offering some suggestions for further inquiry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The introduction of invasive alien species (IAS) is generally acknowledged to depend both on the propagule pressure imposed by openness to international trade and on the health of the receiving ecosystem. Bio-geographic factors however play a crucial role in determining the level of risk associated with trade. We develop an analytical treatment of bioclimatic similarity between trade partners, within a model that links the incidence of invasive species to resource extraction, pollution and to import volumes disaggregated by country and region of origin. The model, estimated with data on invasive species of all taxa in 123 countries, shows that considering the geographical structure of trade flows and the bioclimatic similarity between sources and destinations substantially improves our understanding of the drivers of biological invasions. The results allow us to identify, in a worldwide perspective, the relative risk of biological invasions (in general, and by habitat type) entailed by different commercial partners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As increasingly complex modelling approaches to quantifying embodied carbon in trade have become popular, the lack of disaggregation has been identified as a key weakness. This paper quantifies embodied carbon in bilateral trade at the product level. This is done using the material balance approach, by collecting product carbon intensity factors from multiple data sources and combining with bilateral trade data in physical quantities. The dataset covers trades between 195 countries for 1080 products in 2006. The detailed mapping of trade embodied carbon provides detailed insights into the nature of the flows that were previously masked or under-reported. For example, it finds that the lion's share of global trade embodied emissions are concentrated in a relatively small number of product categories of traded goods, suggesting that focusing mitigation efforts and trade-measures on these products would be an effective strategy to address potential carbon leakage, and to decarbonise international supply chains. The results also highlight that embodied carbon is focused in regional trade, thus regional harmonisation of climate mitigation policy will be effective in mitigating leakage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With rapidly increasing trade volumes, resource use and environmental pressures related to traded products are high on research and policy agendas. Robust accounts of biophysical resources used in the production processes of traded goods are required to support sustainable consumption and to expose problem shifting related to environmental policies. In this context, multi-region input-output analysis (MRIO) is becoming a widely applied tool to establish consumption-based accounts and to analyse production-consumption links along complex international supply chains. Using the example of China's trade in cropland products and embodied cropland, we make the case for a re-evaluation of its application to land and other resources. While analyses based on physical trade matrices show that China is a major net importer of cropland products and embodied cropland, MRIO-based results suggest exactly the opposite. We do not find convincing arguments that could explain these large differences. Based on our knowledge of land systems and biomass metabolism and on the results from physical accounting, we question the plausibility of MRIO-derived results. We conclude by outlining next steps in research that are required to improve assessments of trade-related resource use in order to produce more robust results, a prerequisite for the formulation of policy recommendations. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]