Stranded Assets: How Policy Uncertainty affects Capital, Growth, and the Environment

The paper considers stochastic environmental policy and its effects on the environment, portfolio composition, and economic growth. Capital accumulation causes pollution which is reduced by private green services and public abatement. The government subsidizes green services and taxes dirty capital albeit at a rate which may become random, causing unexpected capital write-offs. Tax jumps depend on natural degradation and environmental activism. We derive how uncertainty and political activism affect the risk premia for investors. We analyze the incentives for firms to increase the greenness of production in order to reduce political uncertainty. Stochastic taxation is shown to act as a substitute for green subsidies when uncertainty decreases in the ratio of green services to capital and agents use their green activities strategically. Tax uncertainty may trigger precautionary savings, causing additional growth and enhanced environmental deterioration.

Jordan’s coming climate crisis will hit youth hard

Significance Young people, who will be most affected in their lifetimes, are disadvantaged by a lack of relevant education and information provision. They are also more preoccupied by immediate challenges of poverty and unemployment -- even though the country’s acute vulnerability means environmental challenges are already exacerbating these problems. Impacts Climate change will further undermine employment prospects, driving more young people to emigrate. Environmental deterioration will have most impact on the poorest, further worsening inequality. Water shortages will constitute an acute regional challenge, with spillover effects into and from neighbouring countries.

ARQUITECTURAS REINVENTADAS. HOTELES SOSTENIBLES EN CONSTRUCCIONES INDUSTRIALES

Se realiza en este trabajo un recorrido por restos industriales en desuso reconvertidos en hoteles, evidenciándose que la reutilización de estos viejos contenedores para nuevos usos turísticos ha servido por una parte para recuperar patrimonio, mientras por otra se logra una actuación sostenible que evita el despilfarro que supone la nueva construcción. No obstante, queda de relieve también la paradoja de actuaciones de rehabilitación, donde la reutilización puede conllevar un deterioro ambiental, pese a la recuperación patrimonial que en principio supone. This work includes a tour of disused industrial remains transformed into hotels, It is evident that the reuse of these old containers in order to new tourist uses has helped on the one hand to recover heritage, while on the other hand a sustainable action is achieved and it avoids the waste that implies the new construction. However, the paradox of rehabilitation actions is also highlighted, where reuse can lead to environmental deterioration, despite the recovery of heritage that initially it means.

The perspective of SMEs on the challenges of the circular economy in the 21st century Hungary

As the world is facing numerous global ecological issues at once, the question arises of what will help mitigate and solve contemporary matters related to resource management or climate change without devastating the economies. Fortunately, the widespread application of the circular economy would help countries worldwide simultaneously ensure economic growth without significant environmental deterioration, essentially decoupling the two factors. While Hungary’s contribution to environmental problems is not significant in absolute terms, the economic sector’s circular transition could help the country decrease its impact in relative terms and pave the path for a green economy. Nevertheless, companies, especially SMEs, tend to struggle the most with the initial phases of the shift thus it is crucial to assess the factors that prevent and support their transition.

The Significance of “Green” Skills and Competencies Making the Transition Towards the “Greener” Economy

Climate change and environmental deterioration have been recognized as global drivers of change, and the shift to the “greener” economy is the key to sustainable development. The green economy is a priority field for developing and developed economies. However, as the authors of the publication have realised, there is no consensus about the meaning of the green economy and “green” jobs, that is why an uncertainty as in measurement of economic trends and an impact of it, as well as in what skills and competencies should be assigned to the “green” ones, arises. The new “green” processes and technologies are arising in a progressive trend, that is why it is important to ensure there are properly skilled candidates with appropriate “green” skills and competencies on the labour market, as well as to prepare fresh graduates with the “green” skills that will meet requirement of both, the recent and the future companies, especially operating in the “green” sector. In the framework of “SB Bridge” project an online survey was conducted by interviewing the “green” companies to identify which skills and competencies are needed for “green” jobs recently, and whether candidates and fresh graduates are enough with the “green” skills and competencies for fruitful engagement to “green” jobs. As the survey identified, fresh graduates and candidates for “green” jobs lack technical and (or) mechanical knowledge, IT skills, as well as experience and ability to work independently and in the team to resolve arising problems.

The Impact of Reinsurance

Reinsurance is perceived to have a stabilizing effect on the direct insurance industry and thereby on the economy overall. Yet, research into how exactly reinsurance impacts various areas is scarce. Traditionally, studying the impact of reinsurance used to be in the domain of actuaries; since the 1960s, they have tried to assess how different contract elements can provide what came to be called “optimal reinsurance.” In the 2010s, such research was intensified in developing countries with the aim to deploy reinsurance to support economic growth and security. Interest in reinsurance increased when the industry became more visible in the 1990s as the impact of natural catastrophes started being linked to a changing climate. Reinsurers emerged as spokespeople for climate-related issues, and the industry took a lead role in arguing in favor of implementing measures to reduce environmental deterioration. Reinsurers, it was argued, have a vested interest in managing the impact of natural catastrophes. This triggered discussions about the role of reinsurance overall and about how to assess its impact. In the wake of the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008, interest in reinsurance again surged, this time due to perceived systemic impacts.

Developing a Method for Assessing Environmental Sustainability Based on the Google Earth Engine Platform

Environmental sustainability is the foundation and of great significance for the sustainable development of urban agglomerations. Taking the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration as an example, we developed a method to effectively assess long-term regional environmental sustainability based on the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform. We used the GEE to obtain 5206 Landsat remote sensing images in the region from 1983 to 2016 and developed the comprehensive environmental index (CEI) to assess regional environmental sustainability based on the theme-oriented framework proposed by the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development. We found that the environmental sustainability of the urban agglomeration showed a trend of first rising, then falling, and then rising again in the past 30 years. The average CEI increased from 0.621 to 0.631 from 1985 to 1990, dropped to the lowest value of 0.618 in 2000, and then rose to the highest value of 0.672 in 2015. In particular, the extent of areas in which environmental sustainability improved (56% of the region) was greater than the extent of areas in which environmental deterioration occurred. The environmental sustainability of Hengshui, Xingtai and Cangzhou in the southeast of the region has been significantly improved. The method proposed in this study provides an automatic, rapid and extensible way to assess regional environmental sustainability and provides a scientific reference for improving the sustainability of the regional ecological environment.

Deterioration characterization of land cover and land use in Muqdadiya district center for the period 1995 to 2019

The research dealt with the analysis of environmental changes in the types of land cover and land uses within the Muqdadiyah district center in Diyala governorate and revealed between 1995 and 2019 in order to determine the environmental deterioration of the land cover and land uses and the resulting environmental changes. For the American satellite (Landsat). It turned out that there were changes during the research period, as the amount of change in the area of agricultural land amounted to (-91,16) km2, and the area of pastures decreased as the amount of change reached (-39.89) km2, while the amount of change in the area of urbanization was (44, 38) km2, while the change amount was recorded (100,19) km2 for barren lands, which means a decrease in the area of agricultural and pasture lands in favor of built-up lands and barren lands, which negatively affected the biodiversity within the study area.

Curva de Kuznets Ambiental y determinantes de las emisiones de C02 en Ecuador: un enfoque de cointegración

La hipótesis de la Curva de Kuznets Ambiental es de gran importancia para comprender la relación entre la actividad económica y la degradación ambiental. Dada la situación actual de cambio climático y crisis ambiental, se ha vuelto importante investigar el impacto de la expansión económica en el medio ambiente. El presente estudio tiene como objetivo comprobar la hipótesis de una CKA para Ecuador, para lo cual se estima un modelo empírico que permite identificar los principales determinantes de corto y largo plazo de las emisiones de dióxido de carbono per cápita como medida del deterioro ambiental para el período 1965-2019. La metodología propuesta está sustentada en el enfoque de cointegración de Pesaran y Shin (1999) en el marco de un modelo autorregresivo de rezagos distribuidos (ARDL). Los resultados confirman la relevancia del impacto del nivel de desarrollo o ingreso, apertura económica, precio del petróleo y consumo de energía primaria en relación con las emisiones per cápita de dióxido de carbono; asimismo, se verifica la CKA, lo que implica que el deterioro ambiental es una función creciente del nivel de actividad económica hasta un determinado nivel crítico de renta, que se ubicó en 3.688,6 USD a precios constante. Despues de ese nivel, el crecimiento se asocia con niveles progresivamente mayores de calidad ambiental. Sin embargo, las emisiones pueden incrementarse ante variaciones en el precio del petróleo y el consumo de emergería primaria. De este modo, se concluye que un crecimiento más elevado a corto plazo puede acelerar la transición del país hacia niveles de ingreso compatibles con menores emisiones. The Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis is of great importance for understanding the relationship between economic activity and environmental degradation. Given the current situation of climate change and environmental crisis, it has become important to investigate the impact of economic expansion on the environment. The present study aims to test the hypothesis of a CKA for Ecuador, for which an empirical model is estimated that allows identifying the main short and long-term determinants of per capita carbon dioxide emissions as a measure of environmental deterioration for the period 1965-2019. The proposed methodology is based on the cointegration approach of Pesaran and Shin (1999) within the framework of an autoregressive model of distributed lags (ARDL). The results confirm the relevance of the impact of the level of development or income, economic openness, oil price and primary energy consumption in relation to per capita emissions of carbon dioxide; Likewise, the CKA is verified, which implies that environmental deterioration is a growing function of the level of economic activity up to a certain critical income level, which was located at USD 3,688.6 at constant prices. After that level, growth is associated with progressively higher levels of environmental quality. However, emissions may increase in the face of variations in the price of oil and consumption of primary emergencies. In this way, it is concluded that higher growth in the short term can accelerate the country's transition towards income levels compatible with lower emissions.