Recently bankers have come to realise that banking operations, especially corporate lending, affect and are affected by the natural environment and that consequently the banks might have an important role to play in helping to raise environmental standards. Although the environment presents...

The financial crises of the late 1990s have marked a watershed for the global economy and for regionalism. Prior to these crises, deregulation and liberalisation, in particular of financial markets, enjoyed widespread support. On the other hand, regional integration was aimed at improving...

This paper considers the current proposals by the World Bank to curb the potential for ?free riding? in relation to financial support and multilateral debt relief to low-income countries. Measures to address the ?free rider? issue will form a pivotal plank in the World Bank?s future strategy...

In Ulph (2002) I analysed how the possibility of future resolution of uncertainty about damage costs affected the incentives and timing for countries to join a self-enforcing international environmental agreement (IEA). I analysed two membership rules – fixed (countries commit whether to join...

Much of the literature on international environmental agreements uses static models, although most important transboundary pollution problems involve stock pollutants. The few papers that study IEAs using models of stock pollutants do not allow for the possibility that membership of the IEA may...

In this paper I address the question of how uncertainty about damage costs and the possibility of resolving that uncertainty in the future affects the incentives for countries to join an international environmental agreement. I use a two-period model with a stock pollutant where the number of...

The discussions about adaptation finance have mostly been about process: how money should be raised and how adaptation spending should be governed and monitored. This paper seeks to move the focus of the debate back towards the substance of adaptation by asking what “good adaptation” in...

This paper uses the EPO/OECD World Patent Statistical Database (PATSTAT) to provide a quantitative description of the geographic distribution of inventions in thirteen climate mitigation technologies since 1978 and their international diffusion on a global scale. Statistics suggest that...

This paper surveys the evidence that environmental auditing systems (EMSs), and the standard setting bodies represented by ISO 14001 and EMAS, have failed to meet their objectives on two counts. First, the standards will not lead to sustainability and second, they will not be any more...

The idea of road pricing as a function of congestion costs in the United Kingdom (U.K.) was put forward in a seminal report published by the U.K. Ministry of Transport in 1964. After 35 years, little has been done and the reasons behind this delay are mainly political, as the failure to...