Sorry, this entry is only available in Deutsch.

Sorry, this entry is only available in Deutsch.

Which countries and regions are the biggest net importers and exporters of CO₂ emissions embodied in trade? How much CO₂ has been shifted between different regions through international trade? What are the implications of considering consumer responsibility for global climate and trade policies? Martin Bruckner, Christine Polzin and Stefan Giljum have addressed these questions in a new paper entitled “Counting CO₂ emissions in a globalised world: Producer versus consumer-oriented methods for CO₂ accounting”.

The paper, which is the final outcome of the project Global responsibility for CO₂ emissions, commissioned by the German Development Institute (DIE) in Bonn, can be downloaded here.

Which countries and regions are the biggest net importers and exporters of CO₂ emissions embodied in trade? How much CO₂ has been shifted between different regions through international trade? What are the implications of considering consumer responsibility for global climate and trade policies? Martin Bruckner, Christine Polzin and Stefan Giljum have addressed these questions in a new paper entitled “Counting CO₂ emissions in a globalised world: Producer versus consumer-oriented methods for CO₂ accounting”.

The paper, which is the final outcome of the project Global responsibility for CO₂ emissions, commissioned by the German Development Institute (DIE) in Bonn, can be downloaded here.

Sorry, this entry is only available in Deutsch.

Sorry, this entry is only available in Deutsch.

In 2010, it has taken humanity less than nine months to exhaust its available ecological budget for the year, according to data from Global Footprint Network, in which SERI is one of the partner organisations.

Global Footprint Network calculates nature’s supply in the form of biocapacity, the amount of resources the planet regenerates each year, and compares that to human demand: the amount it takes to produce all the living resources we consume and absorb our carbon dioxide emissions, the so-called “Ecological Footprint”. Its data reveal that, as of August 21, humanity will have demanded all the ecological services – from filtering CO₂ to producing the raw materials for food – that nature can provide this year.

From now until the end of the year, we will meet our ecological demand by depleting resource stocks and accumulating greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

“If you spent your entire annual income in nine months, you would probably be extremely concerned,” said Global Footprint Network President Mathis Wackernagel. “The situation is no less dire when it comes to our ecological budget. Climate change, biodiversity loss, deforestation, water and food shortages — these are all clear signs that we can no longer finance our consumption on credit. Nature is foreclosing.”

Learn more about the Earth Overshoot Day 2010: www.footprintnetwork.org
SERI is also member of the Austrian Footprint Platform: www.footprint.at

Sorry, this entry is only available in Deutsch.

Sorry, this entry is only available in Deutsch.

Sorry, this entry is only available in Deutsch.

Bockermann, A., Meyer, B., Omann, I., Spangenberg, J.H. (2000)

Sustainable Development is probably the key new paradigm on which to base policies for the future. However, so far the concept remains vague at best in many aspects, and in particular as regards the interaction environmental, economic and social politics. Based on some theoretical considerations this paper defines minimum conditions for sustainable development. They provide criteria for assessing the suitability of different economic models for sustainability questions, as well as means to prove the sustainability of the scenarios presented in the remainder of the paper.

This paper presents two models suitable for simulating sustainability strategies. One (PANTA RHEI) is a highly sophisticated econometric model for the German economy (Meyer, Bockermann, Ewerhart, Lutz 1999). The other one (SuE) is a less disaggregated system dynamics model for the EU 15 economy (Spangenberg, Scharnagl 1998). Both include the measuring of energy and material consumption and are thus well suited to indicate the linkage of economic development and environmental impact. Similarly, both calculate the employment effects of a given policy, permitting to include one key social concern in the evaluation of sustainability policies as well. Both models introduced are shown to meet the sustainability requirements as defined earlier.

When identifying similarities in the outcome of comparable strategy simulations runs on both models, their inherent structural difference rules out any methodological bias or system artefact. All the more relevant are those outcomes that point into a similar direction for policy development, having a base in two structurally independent policy impact assessments. Key results include:
• There is a trade off between growth and employment on the one and environmental concerns on the other hand, however sustainable compromises are possible.
• No single policy instrument (neither legal measures nor economic incentives) is able to deliver a sustainable economy. What is needed is an intelligent mix of economic, social, environmental and labour policy measures.
• If such a combined strategy is applied, it is possible to reduce the currently unsustainable high unemployment levels to significantly below five percent of the labour force, while at the same time reducing resource consumption and safeguarding or increasing the standard of living without running into significant public debt.

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Rauschmayer, F., Berghöfer, A., Omann, I., Zikos, D. (2008)

UFZ Discussion Papers, GoverNat5

Evaluating environmental governance processes is a precondition for their improvement in contexts of change. In order to do so, one can (1) examine the outcome of a governance process, which consists of outputs and their consequences, or (2) look at the governance process itself. Outcome-oriented and process-oriented approaches have different strengths and weaknesses. This paper discusses the challenges associated with both options when applied to European biodiversity and water governance – namely the implementation of the Habitats and Water Framework Directives

Current evaluation practice focuses mainly on outcomes. Can the process-oriented approach reduce or compensate for the weaknesses of outcome-oriented evaluation? We argue that there are three reasons why it makes sense to combine both approaches: a normative reason, relating to good governance; a substantive reason, relating to the complexity of governance; and a third, instrumental reason concerning the governance cycle. A combined approach makes it possible to evaluate governance processes convincingly with regard to all criteria associated with ‘good governance’. This paper also describes some of the challenges posed by such a combination; these require particular attention, given that existing concepts are not yet sufficiently sensitive to the distinctions between process and outcome orientation.

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Sorry, this entry is only available in Deutsch.

The European Science Foundation (ESF) – in partnership with Bielefeld University and the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF) – is organising a conference on “Environmental Degradation and Conflict: From Vulnerabilities to Capabilities” which will be held from 5 – 9 December 2010 in Germany.

This conference will be chaired by Prof. Thomas Faist, University of Bielefeld, Germany. Prof. Jill Jäger, from SERI, will attend as an invited speaker.

For more information you can download the flyer for the conference here.
The closing date for applications is the 15th of August, 2010. Download Call for paper.