ECON 101: 12.3 + 12.4 - Environmental Laws + International Environmental Issues

Benefits of a cleaner environment

1. people may stay healthier and live longer

2. certain industries that rely on clean air and water: farming, fishing and tourism, may benefit

3. property values may be higher

4. people may simply enjoy a cleaner environment in a way that does not need to involve a market transaction

Marginal Costs of Environmental Protection

• generally increasing

• least expensive and easiest reductions can be made first, leaving the more expensive methods for later

Marginal Benefits of Environmental Protection

• generally declining

• steps that provide the greatest benefit can be taken first, and steps that provide the greatest benefit can be taken first, and steps act provide less benefit can wait until later

Biodiversity

Full spectrum of animal and plan genetic material

International externalities

cross national borders and that a single nation acting alone cannot resolve

• high-income countries have historically been the primary contributors to greenhouse gas warming by burning fossil fuels

Legally Binding International Treaty on Climate Change

• Paris Climate Agreement committed participating countries to significant limits on Co2 emissions

• limit global warming to well below 2, preferably to 1.5 degrees celsius

Intervgovernmental Panel on Climate Change

United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change

• created to provide policymakers with regular scientific, its implications and potential risks, as we’ll last o put forward optation and mitigation options

• practical details of an international system and how it would operate across international borders are complex

• decentralized and market-oriented approach may be the only particle way to address international issues such as global warming and biodiversity

Tradeoff Between Economic Output and Environmental Protection

• Can be analyzed with a Production Possibility Frontier (PPF)

• economists believe that an inefficient choice on the PPF is undesirable

• market-oriented environments tools offer a mechanism for providing either the same environmental protection at. lower cost or providing a greater degree of environmental protection for the same costs