P9 SUSTAINABLE CITIES - cvut.czaldebaran.feld.cvut.cz/vyuka/environmental... · when Karl Benz built the first automobile. • Motor vehicles are the world’s largest source of air

SUSTAINABLE CITIES

Enviromental Engineering

Part 1

The Ecocity Concept

• Enviromental and urban designers envision the deveplopment of more sustainable cities called Ecocities or Green cities.

• The ecocity is not a futuristic dream• One of the world’s most livable and

sustainable major cities is Curitiva, Brasil, with more than 2,5 million peolple.

Curutiba, Brasil

• In 1969 this city decided to focus on mass transit.

• It has, probably, the world’s best bus system which each day carries more than three-fourths of it’s people.

• Bike paths run throughout most of the city.• Cars are banned from 49 blocks of the

city’s downtown area.

Curutiba, Brasil (2)• The bus system has two express lanes used

only by buses. Double and triple-length bus sections are hooked, and boarding is speeded up by the use of extra-wide doors and raised tubes that allow passengers to pay before getting on the bus.

Curutiba, Brasil (3)• Because Curitiba relies less

on automobiles it uses less energy per person and has less air polution, greenhouse gas emissions and traffic congestion than most comparable cities.

• This city tranformed flood-prone areas into parks that are crisscrossed by bike paths.

Curutiba, Brasil (4)

• Volunteers have planted more than 1,5 million trees throughout the city. Notrees in the city can be cutdown without a permit, and two trees must be planted for each one

cut

Portugal forest (Curitiba)

Curutiba, Brasil (5)• This ecocity was designed by architect

Jaime Lerner, who has served as the city’s mayor three times since 1969 .

• He found simple, innovative, fastcheap, and fun solutions to problems.

• He also established a goverment thatis honest, accountable, and open topublic scrutiny.

Jaime Lerner (13-12-1937)

Curutiba, Brasil (6)

• One of the goal for this century will be to reshape existing cities and design new ones like Curitiba that are more livable, sustainable and that have a lower enviromental impact.

Urbanization and urban growth

• At the beginning of the industrial revolution about 275 years ago most people lived in rural areas and small villages and towns.

• Today almost half of the world’s people live in densely populated urban areas, as rural people have have emigrated to cities with the hope of finding jobs and a better life.

Two ways to grow• Urban areas grow in two ways:

– Natural increase: more births than deaths– Inmigration: mostly from rural areas

• This urban inmigration is influenced by factors like poverty, lack of land to grow food, declining agricultural jobs.

• The immigration in Spain is, since the decade of 1990, a phenomenon of great importance in demographics and the national economy

Inmigration in Spain

Trends to understand the problem

1. The proportion of the global population living in urban areas is increasing.

2. The number of large cities is mushrooming.3. Urbanization and urban populations are

increasing rapidly in developing coutries.4. Urban growth is much slower in already

heavily urbanized developed countries(with 76% urbanization) than in developing countries

5. Poverty is becoming increasingly urbanized as more poor people migrate, mostly in developing countries.

1. Increase of population in urban areas

• Between 1850 aan 2004 the percentage of people living in urban areas increased from 2% to 48%. According to UN projections by 2030 the 60% of the world’s people will live in urban areas.

• The world’s urban population is projected to increase from 3,1 billion to 5 billion.

• Almost all of this growth will occur in already overcrowed cities in developing countries like India, Brasil, China and Mexico.

Population in Spain• We can see that the most populated areas are

ubicated in the urban areas like Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia , Andalucia, Galicia y Pais Vasco.

• In other areas like Castilla Leon and Castilla la Mancha the people have emigrated to these areas and are low populated.

2. The number of large cities is mushrooming.

• In 2004 more than 400 cities had a million or more people and this is projected to increase to 564 by 2015.

• Today there are 18 megacities with 10 million or more people, most of them in developing countries like El Cairo, Laos, Nueva Delhi and Sao Paulo.

3. Urbanization and urban populations are increasing

rapidly in developing coutries.

• Between 2004 and 2030 the degree of urbanization in developing countries is expected to increase from 41% to 56%.

• In Latin American and Caribbean developing countries, 75% of the people are urban dwellers compared to only 35% in Africa and 39% in Asia.

4. Urban growth in developed countries

• Urban growth in developed countries is much slower than in developing countries.

• North America’s urbanization is 79%, the highest in the world.

• By 2030 urbanization in developed countries is projected to increase to 84%

5. Poverty is becoming increasingly in urban areas.

• Mostly in developing countries.• The United Nations estimates that at least

1 billion poor peoplelive in the urban areas of developing countries.

• In poor areas your senses may be overhelmed with a chaotic but vibrant crush of people, vehicles, street vendors, traffic jams, and people sleeping in the street.

Examples in Spain

• Here you can see two poor areas ubicated in urban areas Spain. First of them is “Las Barranquillas” in Madrid with more than 5000 people living in subhuman conditions. The second is “El Salobral”, in Barcelona.

Urban sprawl and It’s effects• When there is ample and affordable land,

urban areas tend to sprawl outward, swallowing up surrounding countryside

• Growth of low-density development on the edges of cities and towns gobbles up surronding countryside-frecuently prime farmland or forest- and increases dependence on cars. The result is a far-flung hodgepodge of housing developments, shopping malls, paking lots, and office complexes.

Urbanistic sprawl in Madrid

• In this image we can check the urbanistic sprawl in Comunidad de Madrid during last years.

Undesirable consequences of urban sprawl (1)

• Land and Biodiversity:– Loss of cropland– Loss of forests and grasslands– Loss of wetlands– Loss and fragmentation of wildlife habitats– Increase wildlife roadkill– Increase soil erosion


• Human Health and Aesthetics:– Contaminated drinking water and air– Weight gain– Noise pollution– Sky ilumination at night– Traffic congestion


• Water:– Increased runoff.– Increased surface water and groundwater

pollution.– Increased use of surface water and

groundwater.– Decreased of storage of surface water and

groundwater.– Increased flooding.– Decrease natural sewage treatment.


• Energy, Air and Climate:– Increased energy use and waste.– Increased air pollution.– Increased greenhouse gas emissions.– Enhanced global warming.– Warmer microclimate (heat island effect)


• Economics effects:– Higher taxes– Decline of downtown business districts– Increased unemployment in central city– Loss of tax base in central city.

Urban Resource and Enviromental Problems (1)

• Adventages of urbanization:– Urban areas can offer more job oppurtunities and

better education and heatlh, and can help protect biodiversity by concentrating people.

– The high density of urban populations provides goverments and busnesses with significant cost adventages in delivering goods and services.

– Urban residents live longer than rural residents. Urban residents have better medical care, family planning, education and social services.

– Enviromental adventages like recycling. It is more economically feasible because of the large concentration of recyclable materials.


• Disadventages of urbanization:– Cities are rarely self-sustaining, and they

threaten boidiversity, lack trees, grow little of their food, concentrate pollutants and noise, spread infectious diseases, and are centers of poverty, crime and terrorism.

– Also as cities expand they destroy rural cropland, fertile soil, forests, wetlands and wildlife habitants.

– In urban areas most trees, shrubs and other plants are destroyed to make way for buildings, roads and parking lots.


• More disadventages:– As cities grow and water demands increase,

expensive reservoirs and canals must be built.– Flooding also tends to be greater in cities, in some

cases because they are built on floodplains or in low-lying coastal areas subject to natural flooding.

– Because of their high population and resource consumption, urban dwellers produce most of the world’s air pollution, water pollution, and solids and hazardous wastes.

– Cities generally are warmer, rainies, foggier and cloudier than suburbs and rural areas, because of their buildings, pavement and lack of green space.


• And more and more disadventages:– Higher CO2 and soot concentrations from

fossil fuel-burning, cars, factories and buildings.

– There are also problems with the artificial light created by urban areas.

– Urban areas can intensify poverty and social problems

Transportation and urban development

• Land availability determines whether a city grows vertically or spreads out horizontally and whether it relies mostly on mass transportation or the automobile.

• Two main types of ground transportation are individual (such as cars, scooters, bicycles and walking) and mass (mostly buses and rail systems)

• About 90% of poeple travel by foot, bicycle, scooter or bus. Only about 10% can afford a car.

Transportation and urban development (2)

• Today there are 1 billion of cars, trucks and buses on the world. By 2050, the number orf motor vehiclesis projected to increase to 3,5 billion, 2,5 billion of them in today’s developing countries.

• Is this sustainable? Some alalysts believe that phasing in motor vehicles with clean-burning hybrid and fuel cell engines would allow the world’s motor vehicle fleet to double while emitting less air pollution than today’s fleet.

Adventages of motor vehicles

• Motor vehicles provide personal benefits like mobility and are convenient and comfortable way to get from one place to another.

• They are also symbols of power, sex, social status, and success for many people.

• For some they also provide escape from an increasingly hectic world

Disadventages of motor vehicles

• Motor vehicles have many harmful effects on people and the enviroment.

• They have killed 22,8 million people since 1885, when Karl Benz built the first automobile.

• Motor vehicles are the world’s largest source of air pollution.

• They also have helped created urban sprawl• Another problem is the congestion. If current trends

continue people will spend 2 years of their lives in traffic jams.

• Building more roads may not be the answer.

Road growth in Madrid and Barcelona

Reducing Automobile use

• Some ideas to reduce the automobile can be:– Include the estimated harmful costs of driving

as a tax on gasoline– Use gasoline tax revenues to help finance

mass transit systems, bike paths and sidewalks

– Raise parking fees and charge tolls on roads, tunnels and bridges

– Have a car-sharing network

Alternatives to the car

• Bicycles:

Advantages DisadventagesAffordable Little protection in

an accidentProduce no

pollutionDo not protect riders

from bad weatherRequire little

parking spaceNot practical for trips

longer than 8 KmVery energy

efficientCan be tiring

Provide exercise Arriving to the destiny sweating

Alternatives to the car (2)

• Scooters: Advantages DisadventagesAffordable Little protection in

an accidentProduce less air

pollution than carsDo not protect riders

from bad weatherRequire little

parking spaceGasoline engines

are noisyEasy to maneuver

in traffic Gasoline engines emit large quantities

of air pollutionsElectric scooters

are quiet and produce little

pollution


• Mass transit Rail: Advantages DisadventagesMore energy

efficient than carsExpensive to build

and mantainProduces less air pollution than cars

Cost effective only along a densely

populated narrow corridorRequires less land

than roads and parking areas for

cars

Commits riders to transportation

schedulesCauses fewer

injures and deaths than cars

Can cause noise and vibration for nearby residentsReduces car

congestion in cities


• Buses: Advantages Disadventages

More flexible than rail system

Can lose money because they need low fares to attract

ridersCan be rerouted as needed

Often get caught in traffic unless

operating in express lanesCost less to develop

and mantain than heavy-rail system

Commits riders to transportation

schedulesCan greatly reduce

car use and pollutionNoisy


• Rapid Rail:

Advantages DisadventagesCan reduce travel by

car or planeExpensive to run and

mantain

Ideal for trips of 200-1000 km

Must operate along heavily used routes

to be profitableMuch more energy efficient per rider

over the same distance than a car

or plane

Cause noise and vibration for nearby

residents

END OF PART ONE

Thank you!

SUSTAINABLE CITIES


Part 2

Urban land-use planning and control

• Most urban and some rural areas use some form of land-use planning to determinate the best present and future use of each parcel of land.

• Much land-use planning is based on the assumptation that considerable future population growth and economic development should be encouraged, regardless of enviromental and other consequences.

• 90% of the revenue that local governementss use to provide public services such as schools, police, fire protection…

Urban land-use planning and control (2)


• Once a land-use plan is developed, governments control the uses of various parcels of land by legal and economic methods.

• The most widely used approach is zoning, in wich various parcels of land are designated for certain uses.

• Zoning has serveral draw-backs, oine being that some developers can influence or modify zoning decisions.


• Overly strict zoning can discourage innovative approaches to solving urban problems.

• There is growing use of the concept of smart growth or new urbanism to encourage more environmentally sustainable.

• Most European countries have been successful in discouraging urban sprawl and encouraging compact cities.


• One traditional way to preserve open space outside a city is to preserve significant blocks of open space in the form of municipal parks.

• Some cities provide open space and control urban growth by surrounding a large city with a greenbelt.

• It’s an open area used for recreation, sustainable forestry, or other nondestructive uses.


• Residents get more open and recreational space.

• Developers can cut their costs for site preparation, roads, utilities and other forms of infrastructure.


• Some communities are going further and using principles of new urbanism to develop entire villages and recreate mixed-use neighborhoods within existing cities.• Walkability• Mixed-use and diversity• Quality urban design• Environmental sustainability• Smart transportation

Urban areas more livable and sustainable

• The primary problem is not urbanization but our failure to make cities more sustainable and livable.

• A more environmentally sustainable city , called ecocity, emphasizes:– Preventing pollution and reducing waste– Using energy and matter resources efficiently– Recycling and reusing at least 60% of all municipal

solid waste– Using solar and other locally available renewable

energy resources– …..

Urban areas more livable and sustainable (2)

• An ecocity is a people-oriented city. Its residents are able to walk, bike or use low-polluting mass transit for most of their travel.

• An ecocity requires:– Buildings, vehicles and appliances meet high

energy-efficiency standars.– Trees and plants adapted to the local climate.– Small organic gardens and a variety of plants

adapted to local climate conditions.


• The ecocity is not a futuristic dream.• Some sustinable and liviable cities include:

– Waitakere City, New Zealand– Helsinki, Finland– Leicester, England– Portland, Oregon– Davis, California– Olympia, Washington


• According to many environmentalists, urban planners, and economists, urban areas that fail to become more livable and ecologically sustainable over the next few decades are inviting economic depression and increased unemployment, pollution, and social tension

• What is your community doing???.

ECONOMIST, ENVIRONMENT AND

SUSTAINABILITYEnviromental Engineering

Part 1

The importance of the natural resources

• Economics is the study of how individuals and societies choose to use limited or scarce resources to satisfy their unlimited wants.

• Economic growth is an increase in a nation’s capacity to provide people with goods and services.

• Economic development is the improvement of human living standars by economic growth.

• Neoclassical, Ecological and Environmental economists are different points of view on economic development.

Economic resources and systems

• An economic system is the social institution through which goods and services are produced, distributed and consumed to satisfy people’s unlimited wants in the most efficient possible way.

• Three types of resources or capital are used to produce goods and services:

• Natural resources or natural capital.• Human resources or human capital.• Physical or manufactured resources.

Economic resources and systems (2)

• A pure free-market economic system is a theoretical ideal or model in which buyers and sellers freely interact in markets without any governments or other interference to make all economic decisions.

• In this system, all economic decisions are governed solely by the competitive interactions of demand, supply and price.

• There are two graphs that show the relation among quantity and price.

• The point at which the curves intersect is called the market price equilibrium point.


• Changes in supply and demand can shift one or both curves back and forth, and thus change the equilibrium price.

• Marginal cost and marginal benefits are two importants economics concepts.


• Marginal cost is the increase in total cost resulting from producing one more unit of a good or service.

• Marginal benefits is the increase in the benefit that it provides to a buyer when a seller produces one more unit of a product or service.

• In real world economics, marginal costs and benefits are what actually determine prices and benefits to consumers and costs and profits to producers.

• In practice truly free markets do not exist.


• Businesses strive to drive their competitors out of business and exert as much control as possible over the prices of the goods and services they provide.

• There are exceptions to the free market theory of supply and demand. Some consumers may buy a good or service regardless of its price.

• Economist call this price inelasticity.• Markets often work well in guiding the production

of private goods. But they cannot be relied upon to provide the adequate levels of public services.

• Thus government intervene in market systems to help correct market failures.


• Reasons for government interventions are to:– Provide public services (national security,

education…)– Provide an economic safety net for people who

because of health, age, and other factors cannot meet their basic needs

– Protect people from fraud, theft and bodily harm– Establish and enforce civil rights and property rights– Protect the health and safety of workers and

consumers– Prevent or reduce pollution and depletion of natural

resources– Manage public land resources such as national forest,

parks, and wildlife reserves.

Economists views of pollution control and resource

management• Neoclassical economists view the earth’s natural

capital as a subset or part of a human economic system

• Natural resources are seen as important but not vital because of our ability to find substitutes for scarce resources and ecosystem services.

• To neoclassical economist, economic growth is necessary, desirable and essentially unlimited.

• The global economy is, and should be, hard-wired to accelerating growth based mostly on increasing throughputs of matter and energy resources.


management (2)• Ecological and environmental economists view

the economic system as subsystems of the environment that depend heavily on the earth’s irreplaceable natural resource .

• Ecological economics also believe that conventional economic growth eventually is unsustainable because it can deplete or degrade the natural resources on which economic systems depend.

• Ecological and environmental economist distinguish between unsustainable economic growth and environmentally sustainable economic development.


management (3)• Eight strategies to help make the shift to

an eco-economy over the next several decades.– Use resources more efficiently– Use indicators that monitor economic and

environmental health– Have the market prices of goods and services

include their harmful effects on the environment and human health

– Phase out environmentally harmful government subsidies and tax breaks


management (4)– Shift taxes by lowering taxes on income and

wealth and increasing taxes on pollution and resource waste.

– Pass laws and regulations to prevent pollution and resource depletion in certain areas.

– Use tradable permits or rights to pollute or use resources within programs that limit overall pollution and resource use in given areas.

– Use eco-labeling to identify products produced by environmentally sound methods and thus help consumers make informed choices.


management (5)• Economists agree that technological

developments and more efficient production systems can mean that fewer resources are needed to produce the same amount of a good or service.

• Economists agree that increases in technological and production efficiencies can cause significant changes to supply, demand and prices for a good or service.

• Scarcity of a resource can stimulate: – research and development for new and more efficient

technologies and production systems – search for new reserves and for substitutes for such

resources.


management (6)• An important concept in environmental

economics is that of optimum levels for pollution control and resource use.

• We might think that pollution control is an all-or-nothing proposition.

• There are optimum levels for various kinds of pollution, because the marginal cost of pollution control also goes up for each unit of a pollutant removed from the environment.


management (7)• The marginal benefits of pollution contgrol

decrease with each unit of pollution removed.

• The cost of removing the pollutant gets higher than what people are willing to pay, as their demand for clean-up lessens.

• That point is the equilibrium point, or the optimum level for clean-up.


management (8)• Another factor determining the shape and

placement of the demand curve is how much people value their resources.

• Pollution control that is optimum for some will be high or low for others.

• That point is the equilibrium point, or the optimum level for clean-up.


management (9)• Another factor determining the shape and

placement of the demand curve is how much people value their resources.

• Pollution control that is optimum for some will be high or low for others.

• Another widely used tool for making economic decisions about how to control pollution and manage resources is cost-benefit analysis (CBA).


management (10)• CBA is one of the main tools economists and

decision makers throughout the world use to help them make decisions about pollution control, biodiversity protection an much more.

• Making a CBA involves determining who or what might be affected by a particular or project.

• Direct cost involving land, labor, materials and pollution-control technologies are often fairly easy to estimate

• Indirect cost of things we value are difficult to make and are controversial


management (11)• CBA is controversial because making

accurate estimates of costs and benefits is difficult.

• CBA can lead to wide ranges of benefits and costs with a lot of room for error.

• Some environmental groups use CBA to help evaluate proposed environmental projects and regulations.

• CBA is a useful tool for helping making economic decisions


management (12)• Some environmental groups use CBA to

help evaluate proposed environmental projects and regulations.

• CBA is useful tool for helping making economic decisions.

• Various economists make use of tools such as optimum levels and CBA in different ways.

• Environmental and ecological economists would tend to be less bound by market prices.

END OF PART TWO

Thank you!

SUSTAINABLE CITIES


Part 3

Monitoring Environmental Progress

• Economists and environmental scientists want measurements that can indicate what is happening in an economy and in nature’s economy.

• Gross domestic product (GDP) and per capita GDP provide a standarized and useful method for measuring and comparing the economic outputs of nations.

Monitoring Environmental Progress (2)

• The gross domestic product (GDP) or gross domestic income (GDI) is one of the measures of national income and output for a given country’s economy. GDP is defined as the total market of all final goods and services produced within the country in a given period of time (usually a calendar year). It is also considered the sum of value added at every stage of production (the intermediate stages) of all final goods and services produced within a country in a given period of time, and it is given a money value.



• Environmental and ecological economists and environmental scientists call for the development of new indicators to help monitor environmental quality and human well-being.

• One approach is to develop indicators that add to the GDP things not counted in the market place that enhace environmental quality and human well-being.


• They would also subtract from the GDP the costs of things that lead to a lower quality of life and depletion of natural resources.

• One such indicator is the “genuine progress indicator” (GPI).

Genuine benefits notharmfulprogress = GDP + included in - environmentalindicator market transactions and social costs


• INDEX OF SUSTAINABLE ECONOMIC WELFARE (ISEP)• The Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare is an economic

indicator intended to replace the gross domestic product. Ratherthan simply adding together all expenditures like gross domesticproduct, consumer expenditure is balanced by such factors as income distribution and cost associated with pollution and othereconomically unsustaining costs. It is similar to the Genuine Progress Indicator.

•Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW) is roughly defined by the following formula.

• ISEW = personal consumption + non-defensive public expenditures- defensive private expenditures + capital formation+ services from domestic labour - costs of environmental degradation- depreciation of natural capital


• Environmental and ecological economists have developed various tools for estimating the values of the ecological services.

• This involves estimating nonuse valuesnot represented in market transactions:- Existence value- Aesthetic value- Bequest or option value.


• Economist have developed several ways to estimate the monetary value of resources that cannot be priced by conventional means:– One approach is to estimate a migration cost

of how much it would take to offset an environmental damage.

– Another is to estimate a willingness to pay by using aq survey to determinate how much people would be willing to pay to help environmental.


• The discount rate is an estimate of a resource’s future economic value compared to its present value.

• It is based on the idea that having something today may be worth more than it will be in the future.

• The size od the discount rate (usually given as percentage) is a primary factor affecting how a resource such a forest or fishery is used or managed.

Harmful External Costs and Full-Cost Pricing

• All economies goods and services have internal or direct costs associated with producing them.

• They also have indirect or external costs or benefits not included in the market price and affecting people other than the buyer and seller.

• Economists call such costs and benefits externalities.

Harmful External Costs and Full-Cost Pricing (2)

• A negative externality is a harmful cost borne by someone not involved in an economic transaction.

• Because these harmful external costs are not included in the market price of a product, most people do not connect them with product.


• For many economists, creating and environmentally transparent or honest market system is a way to deal with the harmful costs of goods and services.

• It requires including costs, as much as possible , in the market price of any good or service, such its price would come as close as possible to its full cost.


• With full-cost pricing, some eco-friendly (or green) goods and services that now cost more would eventually cost less because internalizing external costs encourages producers to invent more resource-efficient and less-polluting methods of production, thereby cutting their production costs.


• Governments can use several strategies to encourage or force producers to work toward full-cost pricing including phasing out environmentally harmful subsidies, levying taxes on environmentally harmful goods and services, passing laws to regulate pollution and resource depletion, and using tradtable permits for pollution or resource use.

Ways to improve environmental quality and shift to full-cost

pricing• Government subsudies and tax breaks can

accelerate resource development, depletion and degradation.

• One way to encourage a shift full-cost procing is to phase out environmentally harmful subsidies and tax breaks, which costs the world governments about $1.9 trillion a year.

• Some countries are beggining to reduce environmentally harmful subsidies (Japan, France, Belgium, Germany…)


pricing (2)• Another way to discourage pollution and

resource waste is to use green taxes or effluent fees to help internalize many of the harmful environmental costs of production and consumption.

• To many analysts, the tax system in most countries is backwards.– It can discourage what we want more of (jobs,

income and profit-driven innovation.– And encourage what we want less of (pollution,

resource waste and environmental degradation).


pricing (3)


pricing (4)• Most economists agree that government

intervention in the marketplace is needed to control or prevent pollution, reduce resource waste, and encourage full-cost pricing.

• REGULATION: is a widely used form of government intervention. It involves enacting and enforcing laws that set pollution standards, regulate harmful activities and requiere that certain irreplaceable or slowly replenished resources be protected from unsustainable use.


pricing (5)• Many environmentalists and business

leaders agree that innovation-friendly regulations can motivate companies to develop eco-friendly products and processes that can increase profits and competitiveness in national and international markets.

• Experience shows that an innovation-friendly regulatory process emphasizes pollution prevention and waste reduction.


pricing (6)• Finally, pollution control regulations have

to be designed to improve environmental quality while not being too costly.

• Recall that the marginal cost for removing a specific pollutant from gases or wastewater being discharged rises with each additional unit of pollutant that is removed.


pricing (7)• Problems with the regulatory approach:

– Ecological economists, health scientists and business leaders often disagree in their estimates of the harmful costs of pollution.

– Many regulations are geared toward achieving optimum levels of pollution over a large area such as a whole state.

– Assigning monetary values to lost lives, ecosystems, and ecological services is difficult and controversial, and varies widely because of lack of data and different assumptions and value judgments.


pricing (8)• Evolution of several phases of

environmental management trough regulation:

• Phase 1 Pollution control and confrontation

• Phase 2 Acceptance without innovation---------------------------------------------------------

• Phase 3 Total quality management; Pollution prevention and increased resource productivity.


pricing (9)• Phase 4 Life-cycle management;

Product stewardship and selling services instead of things.

• Phase 5 Process design management; Clean technology.

• Phase 6 Total life quality management. Ecoindustrial webs, environmentally sustainable economies and societies.


pricing (10)• A market approach is for the government

to grant tradable pollution and resource-use permit.

• The government sets a limit or cap on total emissions of a pollutant or use of a resource as a fishery.

• Then it issues or auctions permits that allocate the total among manufacturers or users.


pricing (11)Disdvantages of using tradable pollution and resource-

use permits:• Big polluters and resource wasters can buy their way

out.• May no reduce pollution at dirtiest plants.• Can exclude small companies from buying permits.• Caps can be too low.• Caps must be gradually reduced to encourage

innovation.• Determining caps is difficult.• Must decide who gets permits and why.• Administrative costs high with many participants• Self-monitoring can promote cheating.


pricing (12)

• We can use product eco- labeling to encourage companies to develop green products and services and to help consumers select more environmentally beneficial products and services.

(European eco-label)

Reducing poverty to improve environmental quality and human

well-being• Poverty is usually defined as the inhabity to

meet one’s basic economics needs.• Povery has numerous harmful health and

environmental effects and has been identified as one of the five major causes of the environmental problems we face.

• “The planet’s richest three people have more wealth than the combined GDP of the world’s 47 poorest countries and their 600 million people”(Ismail Serageldin)


well-being (2)


well-being (3)• The World Bank is the major player in global

economy development. • In response of some protests, the bank has

begun trying to carry out more detailed reviews of the environmental and social impacts of its loan. But it remains to be seen how such reviews will affect the bank’s lending policies.


well-being (4)• How can we reduce poverty? Analysts point out

that reducing poverty requieres the governments of most developing countries to make policy changes:– To shift more of the national budget to help the rural

and urban poopr work their way out of poverty.– To give villages and the urban poor title to common

lands and to crops and trees they plant.


well-being (5)• Critics say that many countries relieved of some

debt will take on more debt, and they want assurances that most of the savings from debt relief are passed on to poor in the form of titles to land, education, jobs, and better health care.


well-being (6)• Developed countries can help developing

countries create more environmentally sustainable economies, or eco-economies.

• “If emerging economies have to relive the entire industrial revolution with all its waste, its energy use, and its pollution, I think it’s all over”

(Robert B. Shapiro, former of CEO of Monsanto)


well-being (7)• According to the United Nations development

Programme (UNDP), it will cost about $50 billion a year to provide universal access to basic services such as education, health, nutrition, family planning, safe water and sanitation.

Making the transition to more environmentally sustainable

economies• An eco-economy copues nature’s four principles

of sustainability and environmental economic strategies.

• An eco-economy mimics the processes that sustain the earth’s natural system.

• “Leave the world better that you found i, take no more than you need, try not to harm life or the environment, and make amends if you do”

(Paul Hawken)

END OF PRESENTATION

Thank you!

Documents

P9 SUSTAINABLE CITIES - cvut.czaldebaran.feld.cvut.cz/vyuka/environmental... · when Karl Benz built the first automobile. • Motor vehicles are the world’s largest source of air