Environmental Resource Economists Convene at WCERE in June

Leading Environmental & Resource Economists (EREs) will come together from 25-29 June in Gothenburg, Sweden for the 6th World Congress of Environmental and Resource Economists (WCERE) to discuss and debate theoretical, empirical and policy issues, including issues on green growth. The event is hosted by the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (EAERE), a new GGKP partner.  

This quadrennial Congress will showcase the latest research, debates and policy applications from the field of environmental and resource economics. Keynote speakers include Nava Ashraf (London School of Economics), Sir David Hendry (Oxford University), Lata Gangadharan (Monash University), and Meredith Fowlie (University of California, Berkeley). This leading line-up will give green growth-related talks on household behavioural economics, the economics and econometrics of climate science, the environment and development nexus including adaptation to climate change, and energy economics. Conference sessions will cover equity and the provision of environmental quality, inter-generational equity, land-use and its impact on biodiversity, the economics of sustainability and the economic costs of climate change. Policy sessions detail the evolving policy applications of environmental and resource economics research, with the aim of learning from the successes and failures.

Green Growth in Environmental and Resource Economics

While the concept of green growth, that is, growth compatible with improved environmental quality and more efficient use of natural resources, has only recently gained traction in policy communities, its essence and principles have long been the subject of study by environmental and resource economists. ERE are concerned with environmental assets, or natural capital, and the flow of eco-system services that they provide. Biodiversity extinction, climate change, air pollution, aquifer depletion, deforestation, fisheries collapse, depletion of non-renewable resources (such as oil and minerals) and eco-systems in general, are key areas of study for environmental and resource economists, and all closely related to green growth and sustainability. By accounting for natural capital alongside human and man-made capital, the hope is that maintaining this aggregated measure of comprehensive wealth will secure the well-being of current generations without impinging on the wealth and well-being of future generations. Indeed, accounting for and maintaining a measure of wealth comprehensively defined to include natural capital is central to the economic definition of sustainable economic development: non-declining well-being. The concept of green growth is now a part of environmental and resource economics and may enhance efforts towards sustainable economic development.

Today, discussions of sustainable economic development and green growth are dominated by the issue of global climate change. How are we to meet the commitments of the Paris Climate Agreements? Can countries be expected to adhere to their voluntary emission reduction commitments under the Paris agreement? What role is there for carbon taxes versus cap and trade policies, versus traditional pollution standards? To what extent can renewable energy substitute for fossil fuels within the current economic system, and what are the most efficient incentives for innovation? These questions on the emissions mitigation side have recently been accompanied by questions concerning geo-engineering as a technological fix for climate change, as opposed to say reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation in the tropics. Finally, one of the great uncertainties associated with climate change is the economic damage that it will cause in the future, and the incidence of this damage across sectors and income groups. For this reason an emerging issue in environmental and resource economics is the so-called “new climate-economy” literature. This empirical literature attempts to estimate the incidence of the damages associated with climate change in terms of losses in sectoral productivity and growth, and other aspects of society such as crime, health and migration. These are some of the other critical questions that will be addressed by environmental and resource economists at the WCERE.  

Mainstreaming Environmental Metrics

ERE research has had direct influence on the policy, with many countries now mainstreaming sustainable economic development in their fiscal and national accounting frameworks.  Environmental and resource economists have helped mainstream the idea that GDP is a poor measure of long-term wellbeing and sustainability, and that focus should shift to a nation’s comprehensive wealth. A comprehensive measure of national wealth can include natural, human and social capital, alongside the usual balances for manufactured capital. The idea that future wellbeing can be determined by current stocks of comprehensively defined wealth is now beginning to take hold in many countries around the world. The UK Natural Capital Committee and the World Bank WAVES programme are good examples of how the theoretical results in ERE concerning sustainable economic development have entered the policy discussion, and, in countries such as the UK, Botswana, and India, into policy itself.

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6^th World Congress of Environmental and Resource Economists

For more information about the 6^th World Congress of Environmental and Resource Economists, please visit: http://www.wcere2018.org

Please note that regional associations of economists working on environmental and resource issues including the American Association of Environmental (AERE), Resource Economists and the East Asian Association of Resource Economists (EAAERE), and the Environment for Development Initiative EfD will also be present at the conference to share their knowledge and experiences with green economy transitions.