The role that international trade plays in measuring sustainable development has come under recent scrutiny. We examine international resource flows using an input–output framework that is akin to ‘ecological balance of payments’ analysis. This framework allows us to use to calculate the...

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) provides some basic safeguards to ensure that HFC-23 reductions are additional, primarily aimed at establishing a realistic baseline scenario for HFC-23 projects. However, there have long been doubts about the additionality of HFC-23 projects (Wara,...

1 June 2007 marks the entry into effect of the REACH Regulation, the new EU-wide scheme for the control and circulation of chemicals on the European market. More precisely, it is the starting point for the introduction of a range of chemicals reporting, assessment and management measures which...

A conference titled 'Forecasting in Rio' was held at the Graduate School of Economics of Getulio Vargas Foundation, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in July 2008 to focus on most recent developments in forecasting. One of the papers presented during the conference was titled, 'Predictability of Stock...

The employment effect of climate policy has emerged as an important concern of policy makers, not least in the USA. Yet the impact of climate policy on jobs is complex. In the short term, jobs will shift from high-carbon activities to low-carbon activities. The net effect could be job creation,...

Local and global commons are under growing pressure worldwide. Their sustainable management requires not only an understanding of the environmental factors that affect them, but also a knowledge of the interactions and feedback cycles that operate between the resource dynamics and the...

Providing additional finance for adaptation is a key element of the emerging international climate change framework. This paper discusses how adaptation funding may be allocated among developing countries in a transparent, efficient and equitable way. We propose an approach based on three...

This paper reviews fundamental concepts in environmental economics and explores theoretical results regarding the choice of the key policy instruments for the control of externalities: taxes, subsidies and marketable permits. The paper explains why today market mechanisms are increasingly being...

A levy on the Clean Development Mechanism and other carbon trading schemes is a potential source of finance for climate change adaptation. An adaptation levy of 2% is currently imposed on all CDM transactions which could raise around $500 million between now and 2012. This paper analyses the...

Questions remain regarding how the skill of operational probabilistic forecasts is most usefully evaluated or compared, even though probability forecasts have been a long-standing aim in meteorological forecasting. This paper explains the importance of employing proper scores when selecting...