Reforming Infrastructure

Reforming Infrastructure PDF

Author: Ioannis Nicolaos Kessides

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13:

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Electricity, natural gas, telecommunications, railways, and water supply, are often vertically and horizontally integrated state monopolies. This results in weak services, especially in developing and transition economies, and for poor people. Common problems include low productivity, high costs, bad quality, insufficient revenue, and investment shortfalls. Many countries over the past two decades have restructured, privatized and regulated their infrastructure. This report identifies the challenges involved in this massive policy redirection. It also assesses the outcomes of these changes, as well as their distributional consequences for poor households and other disadvantaged groups. It recommends directions for future reforms and research to improve infrastructure performance, identifying pricing policies that strike a balance between economic efficiency and social equity, suggesting rules governing access to bottleneck infrastructure facilities, and proposing ways to increase poor people's access to these crucial services.

The Transport System and Transport Policy

The Transport System and Transport Policy PDF

Author: Bert van Wee

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Published: 2023-08-14

Total Pages: 403

ISBN-13: 1802206779

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This extensively updated textbook introduces the transport system and its societal impacts in a holistic and multidisciplinary way. A timely second edition, it includes new analyses of travel behaviour and the transport system’s impacts on health and well-being.

The Water Footprint Assessment Manual

The Water Footprint Assessment Manual PDF

Author: Maite M. Aldaya

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2012-08-21

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 1136538526

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People use lots of water for drinking, cooking and washing, but significantly more for producing things such as food, paper and cotton clothes. The water footprint is an indicator of water use that looks at both direct and indirect water use of a consumer or producer. Indirect use refers to the 'virtual water' embedded in tradable goods and commodities, such as cereals, sugar or cotton. The water footprint of an individual, community or business is defined as the total volume of freshwater that is used to produce the goods and services consumed by the individual or community or produced by the business. This book offers a complete and up-to-date overview of the global standard on water footprint assessment as developed by the Water Footprint Network. More specifically it: o Provides a comprehensive set of methods for water footprint assessment o Shows how water footprints can be calculated for individual processes and products, as well as for consumers, nations and businesses o Contains detailed worked examples of how to calculate green, blue and grey water footprints o Describes how to assess the sustainability of the aggregated water footprint within a river basin or the water footprint of a specific product o Includes an extensive library of possible measures that can contribute to water footprint reduction

Environmentally Harmful Subsidies

Environmentally Harmful Subsidies PDF

Author:

Publisher: OECD

Published: 2005-08-15

Total Pages: 170

ISBN-13:

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Subsidies are pervasive throughout OECD countries and worldwide. Every year, OECD countries transfer at least USD 400 billion to different economic sectors. Much of this support is potentially environmentally harmful. Reforming environmentally harmful subsidies is a significant policy challenge facing OECD countries. However, untangling and assessing the effects of subsidies on the environment is a complex task. A systematic approach is required to ensure that appropriate policies are developed and the benefits of reform fully realised. This report presents sectoral analyses on agriculture, fisheries, water, energy and transport. It proposes a checklist approach to identifying and assessing environmentally harmful subsidies. It also identifies the key tensions and conflicts that are likely to influence subsidy policy making. Can the political and economic impediments to subsidy reform be overcome? This book concludes with a discussion of politically feasible subsidy reform strategies. FURTHER READING Environmentally Harmful Subsidies: Policy Issues and Challenges (OECD, 2003)

Climate Rationality

Climate Rationality PDF

Author: Jason S. Johnston

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2021-08-19

Total Pages: 657

ISBN-13: 1108244254

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Most environmental statutes passed since 1970 have endorsed a pragmatic or 'precautionary' principle under which the existence of a significant risk is enough to trigger regulation. At the same time, targets of such regulation have often argued on grounds of inefficiency that the associated costs outweigh any potential benefits. In this work, Jason Johnston unpacks and critiques the legal, economic, and scientific basis for precautionary climate policies pursued in the United States and in doing so sheds light on why the global warming policy debate has become increasingly bitter and disconnected from both climate science and economics. Johnston analyzes the most influential international climate science assessment organizations, the US electric power industry, and land management and renewable energy policies. Bridging sound economics and climate science, this pathbreaking book shows how the United States can efficiently adapt to a changing climate while radically reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Green Logistics

Green Logistics PDF

Author: Alan McKinnon

Publisher: Kogan Page Publishers

Published: 2015-02-03

Total Pages: 448

ISBN-13: 0749471867

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Leading the way in current thinking on environmental logistics, Green Logistics provides a unique insight on the environmental impacts of logistics and the actions that companies and governments can take to deal with them. It is written by leading researchers in the field and provides a comprehensive view of the subject for students, managers and policy-makers. Fully updated, the 3rd edition of Green Logistics has a more global perspective than previous editions. It introduces new contributors and international case studies that illustrate the impact of green logistics in practice. There is a new chapter on the links between green logistics and corporate social responsibility and a series of postscripts examining the effects of new developments, such as 3D printing, distribution by drone, the physical internet and the concept of peak freight. Other key topics examined include: carbon auditing of supply chains; transferring freight to greener transport modes; reducing the environmental impact of warehousing; improving the energy efficiency of freight transport; making city logistics more environmentally sustainable; reverse logistics for the management of waste; role of government in promoting sustainable logistics. The 3rd edition of Green Logistics includes indispensable online supporting materials, including graphics, tables, chapter summaries, and guidelines for lecturers.