Especially during the last decades, the natural forests of Ethiopia have been heavily disturbed by human activities. Some forests have been totally cleared and converted into fields for agricultural use, other suffered from different influences, such as heavy grazing and selective logging. The ongoing research in the Shashemane-Munessa-study area (Gu 406/8-1,2) showed clearly that, in spite of interdiction and control, forests continue to be cleared and degraded. However, it is not yet sufficiently known, how and why these processes are still going on. Growing population pressure and economic constraints for the people living in and around the forests contribute to the actual situation but allow no final answers to the complex situation. Concerning a sustainable management of the forests there is to no solid basis for recommendations from the socioeconomic and socio-cultural view. Therefore, a comprehensive analysis of the traditional needs and forms of forest use, including all forest products, is necessary. The objective of this project is, to achieve this basis by carrying out intensive field observations, the consultation of aerial photographs, satellite imagery and above all semi-structured interviews with the population in the study area in order to contribute to the recommendations for a sustainable use of the Munessa Shasemane forests.
Deviant behaviour on various levels of the food supply chain may cause food risks. It entails irregular technological procedures which cause (increased probabilities of) adverse outcomes for buyers and consumers. Besides technological hazards and hitherto unknown health threats, moral hazard and malpractice in food businesses represent an additional source of risk which can be termed 'behavioural food risk'. From a regulatory perspective, adverse outcomes associated with deviance represent negative externalities that are caused by the breaking of rules designed to prevent them. From a rational choice perspective, the probability of malpractice increases with the benefits for its authors. It decreases with the probability of detection and resulting losses. It also decreases with bonds to social norms that protect producers from yielding to economic temptations. The design of mechanisms that reduce behavioural risks and prevent malpractice requires an understanding of why food businesses obey or do not obey the rules. This project aims to contribute to a better understanding of malpractice on the restaurant/retail level through comparative case studies and statistical analyses of food inspection and survey data. Accounting for the complexity of economic behaviour, we will not only look at economic incentives but consider all relevant behavioural determinants, including social context factors.
The majority of the worlds forests has undergone some form of management, such as clear-cut or thinning. This management has direct relevance for global climate: Studies estimate that forest management emissions add a third to those from deforestation, while enhanced productivity in managed forests increases the capacity of the terrestrial biosphere to act as a sink for carbon dioxide emissions. However, uncertainties in the assessment of these fluxes are large. Moreover, forests influence climate also by altering the energy and water balance of the land surface. In many regions of historical deforestation, such biogeophysical effects have substantially counteracted warming due to carbon dioxide emissions. However, the effect of management on biogeophysical effects is largely unknown beyond local case studies. While the effects of climate on forest productivity is well established in forestry models, the effects of forest management on climate is less understood. Closing this feedback cycle is crucial to understand the driving forces behind past climate changes to be able to predict future climate responses and thus the required effort to adapt to it or avert it. To investigate the role of forest management in the climate system I propose to integrate a forest management module into a comprehensive Earth system model. The resulting model will be able to simultaneously address both directions of the interactions between climate and the managed land surface. My proposed work includes model development and implementation for key forest management processes, determining the growth and stock of living biomass, soil carbon cycle, and biophysical land surface properties. With this unique tool I will be able to improve estimates of terrestrial carbon source and sink terms and to assess the susceptibility of past and future climate to combined carbon cycle and biophysical effects of forest management. Furthermore, representing feedbacks between forest management and climate in a global climate model could advance efforts to combat climate change. Changes in forest management are inevitable to adapt to future climate change. In this process, is it possible to identify win-win strategies for which local management changes do not only help adaptation, but at the same time mitigate global warming by presenting favorable effects on climate? The proposed work opens a range of long-term research paths, with the aim of strengthening the climate perspective in the economic considerations of forest management and helping to improve local decisionmaking with respect to adaptation and mitigation.
This project aims at analysing the influence of competing national and international bureaucracies on the fragmentation of the international forest regime complex (IFRC). Its objectives are: - describing the political dimension of fragmentation of the IFRC programme- explaining the political dimension of fragmentation based on the model of bureaucratic politics- analysing the steering consequences resulting from fragmentation - trans-disciplinary design of solutions for coping with political aspects of fragmentationBuilding on the bureaucratic politics approach these objectives will be pursued by testing the linking hypothesis: Interest and influence of the bureaucracies cause a fragmented programme of the IFRC. This programme supports the goal of profitable timber production but keeps the decision about biodiversity and CO2 sequestration open hindering the effective steering by the IFRC. The project develops an analytical framework consisting of the following independent variables: competing national and competing international bureaucracies, elected politicians, national and international non-state actors and media discourses. The fragmentation of the political programme of the IFRC is the overall dependent variable. This project will analyse the influence of bureaucracies and their coalitions on fragmentation at the international level as well as in national case studies in Sweden, Poland and Germany. The other independent variables will be covered by sub-projects 2, 3 and 4. The findings will be linked to the other political and to the economic and technic-ecological sub projects in order to contribute to the multi-disciplinary description and explanation of fragmentation and its steering consequences.
The rational calculus of farmers assumed in many agricultural economic models is unrealistic and non-predictive of their actual decision making. Understanding structural change in agriculture can thus be improved via a realistic modeling of the decision making by agricultural entrepreneurs. Specifically, slow disinvestment (i.e., postponing farm exit), persistence of market structures (i.e., failure to reallocate land plots towards higher efficiency), and more generally characterizing the decision making of farmers are crucial for a better understanding of structural change and policy advice. We apply economic experiments to better understand such disinvestment choices, land markets with economies of scale and private opportunity costs, different auction and bargaining forms to improve allocation efficiency of land markets, and to generally characterize the decision making of farmers.
Research in 'silviculture' and 'forest economics' very often takes place largely independent from each other. While silviculture predominantly focuses on ecological aspects, forest eco-nomics is sometimes very theoretic. The applied bioeconomic models often lack biological realism. Investigating mixed forests this proposal tries to improve bioeconomic modelling and optimisation under uncertainty. The hypothesis is tested whether or not bioeconomic model-ling of interacting tree species and risk integration would implicitly lead to close-to-nature forestry. In a first part, economic consequences of interdependent tree species mixed at the stand level are modelled. This part is based on published literature, an improved model of timber quality and existing data on salvage harvests. A model of survival over age is then to be developed for mixed stands. A second section then builds upon data generated in part one and concentrates on the simultaneous optimisation of species proportions and harvest-ing ages. It starts with a mean-variance optimisation as a reference solution. The obtained results are compared with data from alternative approaches as stochastic dominance, down-side risk and information-gap robustness.
Research Questions: Does the implementation of climate change mitigation policies in developing countries always involve a trade-off between economic development, poverty reduction, and climate protection, or is there space for 'win-win policies'? This question is relevant for todays fast-growing middle-income economies, which are already or will soon become very significant contributors to global warming. The project will analyse these economies from three different angles: a comparative politics perspective on domestic climate governance and mitigation policy options, an economics perspective on the poverty and distributional impact of mitigation policies, and an international relations perspective on the global discourse surrounding mitigation and economic development (see project in RP 4). The project staff will cooperate closely with domestic partner institutions in South Africa, Mexico and Thailand, the three case study countries. Contribution to International Research: Despite the increasing role of todays developing world in GHG emissions, 'climate and development' research to date has largely focused on developing countries vulnerability and adaptation to climate change, and on climate-related transfers in these countries, such as those of the Joint Implementation and the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Meanwhile, the critical issue of mitigation is slowly making its entrance into climate negotiation rooms. This focus on mitigation requires a shift in the analytical perspective. While the technological and natural science perspectives that tend to dominate the climate change discourse are clearly important, a social science perspective is warranted as well. This is particularly true because of the latters usefulness in analysing the possible trade-offs between mitigation and socio-economic development. Research Design and Methods: The project adopts a multidisciplinary social science approach with a comparative and global perspective. While they will remain firmly theoretically and methodologically grounded in their respective disciplines, the three study areas - (1) domestic climate governance, (2) poverty and distributional impacts of mitigation policies, (3) global perspective and the mitigation-development discourse - will interact continuously. The investigation of domestic climate governance will rely mainly on qualitative methods. These will include interviews with policy-makers, experts and practitioners to investigate their motivations and the driving and constraining forces behind their actions in climate change mitigation policy processes. We then plan to assess the poverty and distributional impacts of mitigation policies (possibly including most NAMAs) in the three case study countries using incidence-focused general equilibrium models, simulation models based on micro-data, and a combination of these two modelling approaches. usw.
The European project initiative TRUST will produce knowledge and guidance to support TRansitions to Urban Water Services of Tomorrow, enabling communities to achieve sustainable, low-carbon water futures without compromising service quality. We deliver this ambition through close collaboration with problem owners in ten participating pilot city regions under changing and challenging conditions in Europe and Africa. Our work provides research driven innovations in governance, modelling concepts, technologies, decision support tools, and novel approaches to integrated water, energy, and infrastructure asset management. An extended understanding of the performance of contemporary urban water services will allow detailed exploration of transition pathways. Urban water cycle analysis will include use of an innovative systems metabolism model, derivation of key performance indicators, risk assessment, as well as broad stakeholder involvement and an analysis of public perceptions and governance modes. A number of emerging technologies in water supply, waste and storm water treatment and disposal, in water demand management and in the exploitation of alternative water sources will be analysed in terms of their cost-effectiveness, performance, safety and sustainability. Cross-cutting issues include innovations in urban asset management and water-energy nexus strengthening. The most promising interventions will be demonstrated and legitimised in the urban water systems of the ten participating pilot city regions. TRUST outcomes will be incorporated into planning guidelines and decision support tools, will be subject to life-cycle assessment, and be shaped by regulatory considerations as well as potential environmental, economic and social impacts. Outputs from the project will catalyse transformation change in both the form and management of urban water services and give utilities increased confidence to specify innovative solutions to a range of pressing challenges.
This report analyses the taxation of energy use in 41 countries, covering 80% of global energy use. It appears at a juncture when many countries struggle to sustain orreconnect with economic growth and face formidable fiscal consolidation challenges. At the same time, concerns over the very highhuman costs of air pollution are mounting and the urgency of acting to limit greenhouse gases isnow abundantly clear.Energy use is an important source of greenhouse gas emissions and of air pollution. It also is acritical input into production and consumption in modern economies. If deployed effectively, taxes onenergy use are a powerful tool to balance the benefits and costs of energy use. Energy use taxes canalso play a useful role in fiscal consolidation. What this report tells us, however, is that with currentpolicies energy taxes fail to live up to their potential.Taxes on energy use influence the price and use of energy. Ideally, end-user energy prices wouldreflect their environmental impacts to ensure that resources are used most productively and that thenegative side-effects of energy use are contained. Taxes can help to achieve this, while also providingincentives to seek alternative, cleaner technologies.To employ energy taxes more effectively, it is necessary to understand the signals they providein respect of energy use. This report systematically analyses the structure and level of energy taxesacross 41 countries: the OECD countries and seven selected partner economies (Argentina, Brazil,China, India, Indonesia, Russia and South Africa). Effective tax rates, expressed per unit of carbonand per unit of energy, are situated within the energy market structures and other pricing policies ineach country, allowing the price signals they send to be better understood.Our analysis highlights vastly different levels of energy use and taxation among these41 countries, but also some common patterns. Transport energy is typically taxed at higher ratesthan other forms of energy use whereas fuels for heating and process use or electricity generationare more likely to be untaxed or taxed at lower rates. Fuels used for similar purposes are often taxeddifferently, with low rates applying to some of the fuels most harmful for human health and theenvironment. Tax rates on coal are particularly low.The picture is not, however, entirely bleak. The awareness about the need to curb negative sideeffectsof energy use is rising on governments political agendas, with many, including the selectedpartner economies, reconsidering price signals and taxes on harmful forms of energy use andinvesting in renewable sources of energy. This report can serve as a reference for policy makers andanalysts to identify reform options to ensure that energy taxes are best adapted to their economic,social and environmental goals - that is, to develop better tax policies for better lives.
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