Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
di
ects are all
other changes in emissions per unit of output at the sectoral level, including energy
e
ff
erential growth rates among sectors within an economy, and technique e
ff
ciency, energy mix, and other technique e
ff
ects.
nd that increased economic growth will trigger a compositional shift of
economic activity away from heavy manufacturing to services, and that economic growth
may also generate environmental bene
Selden et al.
fi
ts through the development and adoption of new
technology, i.e. cleaner production and improved energy e
fi
ciency. Therefore the policy
prescription for alleviating at least some environmental problems may be more economic
growth, but their
cant role in
bringing about improvement in environmental quality points towards a policy-induced
response. They also
fi
nding that emissions abatement technology played a signi
fi
nd that global energy prices may signal emissions downturns
because price incentives most likely provide incentives for increased energy e
fi
ciency.
Therefore the question remains if emissions will rise again as international energy prices
fall from their peaks or if policy is not introduced.
The empirical literature has also examined a range of other factors that may in
uence
environmental quality, such as democracy, literacy, income inequality and civil society
strength. Using the panel data with which Grossman and Krueger (Grossman and
Krueger, 1993; 1995) established the EKC, Torras and Boyce (1998) de
fl
ne higher politi-
cal and civil liberties and increased literacy rate as constituting a more equitable power
distribution. They
fi
nd that a more equitable power distribution tends to result in better
environmental quality and that literacy and rights appear to be strong predictors of pol-
lution levels in low-income countries. Therefore the policy implications may be not to put
a brake on economic growth in LDCs, but to focus on interventions that may lead to a
more equitable power distribution, such as increased literacy and rights.
Barrett and Graddy (2000), using the same data,
fi
fi
nd that for air and water pollution,
an increase in civil and political freedoms signi
fi
cantly improves environmental quality.
They
nd, especially with SO
2
, that a low-freedom country with an income level near the
peak of the EKC can reduce its pollution at least as much by increasing freedoms as it can
by increasing income per capita. However, freedoms show up as signi
fi
cant for measures
directly related to human health but not for others; therefore perhaps something other
than an induced policy response lies behind the EKC relationships for water quality mea-
sures (e.g. nitrates).
In contrast to these studies, Neumayer (2002b) argues that there is at best weak evidence
for a link between democracy and environmental outcomes. He shows that there is much
stronger evidence for a link between democracy and international environmental com-
mitment. For example, democracies are more likely to ratify multilateral environmental
agreements than non-democracies. Even if democracy were to have a positive e
fi
ect on
environmental outcomes, we need to understand what it is about democracies that
impacts on environmental commitments - is it rule of law, speci
ff
c types of institutions,
etc? Binder and Neumayer (2005), using the same data as Torras and Boyce (1998),
fi
nd
that environmental non-government organization (ENGO) strength is associated with
lower air pollution levels even after controlling for variation in income, democracy, busi-
ness lobby strength, literacy and income inequality. Thus they highlight that ENGOs are
important drivers of policy-induced responses. Furthermore, Neumayer (2003a)
fi
nds
that countries with left-wing governments improve environmental quality more than
those with right-wing governments, whereas the e
fi
ff
ect of a corporatist governance of the
