The use of conservation offsets to achieve environmental goals is becoming more prominent, both in Canada and around the world. In order to build new, effective programs, it is useful to evaluate current programs for the lessons that can be learned.
Ontario has lots of water. It’s a fact that the province holds about a third of the world’s fresh water. Unfortunately, it’s also a fact that elevated nutrient levels – particularly phosphorus – in Ontario’s streams, rivers and lakes pose a huge risk to this vital resource. Excessive phosphorus loads from industrial and agricultural sources can lead to algal blooms, which can threaten aquatic habitat and make water unsafe for swimming and drinking.
These two academic research papers look at how market-based instruments could have a significant impact in creating long term sustainable change in transportation, including detailed case studies from London, Paris and New York City.
Transportation - the movement of goods and people from one location to another - is responsible for about one quarter of Canada’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
Growing up in Venezuela, I always was very aware of environmental issues - telling my parents not to use the car so much in a country where gasoline is cheaper than water(external link) and working at a community centre in the design and implementation of water conservation campaigns. However, it wasn’t until I enrolled in my graduate microeconomics and environmental economics and policy courses at the University of Ottawa that I became interested in how economic instruments can be used to advance environmental goals.
the New Climate Economy (NCE, a major international initiative aimed at studying and communicating the benefits and costs of acting on climate change, which is part of the Global Framework on the Economy and Climate, launched its flagship report, Better Growth, Better Climate, on September 16th. It has already been garnering major media attention both abroadand here in Canada, and will feature prominently at the upcoming United Nations Climate Summit, scheduled to kick off in New York on September 23rd.
Water has been in the news a lot this summer — from the historic drought in California (check out the before and after photos in the top screen), to the algae blooms in Lake Erie (again, the photos are stunning). California doesn’t have enough water. Ohio has water – but it’s green.
“Never let the facts stand in the way of a good story,” Mark Twain famously wrote. In an op-ed published today in the Globe and Mail, a leading economist and a successful mining entrepreneur do just that.
