World Bank Environment Paper 6. Here is a holistic approach to analyzing the environmental impact of various power systems. Unlike standard impact studies that begin at the project level, this method calls for environmental assessments that start a

With the growing number, complexity, and importance of environmental problems come demands to include a full range of intellectual disciplines and scholarly traditions to help define and eventually manage such problems more effectively. Decision Making for the Environment: Social and Behavioral Science Research Priorities is the result of a 2-year effort by 12 social and behavioral scientists, scholars, and practitioners. The report sets research priorities for the social and behavioral sciences as they relate to several different kinds of environmental problems.

Planning, operating, and policy making in the electric utility and natural gas sectors involves important trade-offs among economic, social, and environmental criteria. These trade-offs figure prominently in ongoing debates about how to meet growing energy demands and how to restructure the world's power industry. Energy Decisions and the Environment: A Guide to the Use of Multicriteria Methods reviews practical tools for multicriteria (also called multiobjective) decision analysis that can be used to quantify trade-offs and contribute to more consistent, informed, and transparent decision making. These methods are designed to generate and effectively communicate information about trade-offs; to help people form, articulate, and apply value judgments in decision making; and to promote effective negotiation among stakeholders with competing interests. Energy Decisions and the Environment: A Guide to the Use of Multicriteria Methods includes explanations of a wide range of methods, tutorial applications that readers can duplicate, a detailed review of energy-environment applications, and three in-depth case studies.

This study provides economic models of the sustainability and affordability of renewable energy support schemes alongside operational advice on how the regulatory design may need to be modified to minimize the impact on the budget and be affordable to the poor, as well as how to identify and fill the financing gap.

The importance of violence as a contributory factor to urban poverty in Jamaica has gone largely unresearched. This paper outlines the results of a study undertaken by the World Bank and the government of Jamaica to focus on the issue. The study uses a participatory urban appraisal methodology in five poor urban areas, mainly in Kingston, to identify and understand local community perceptions of four different aspects of violence: its causes; its interrelationship with poverty; its impact on employment, economic and social infrastructure, and local social institutions; and ways in which government, communities, households, and individuals can work to reduce it.

The consequences of climate change for society are analysed in this landmark assessment from the IPCC. This book assesses the available knowledge on the many issues that society has to face, including the international decision-making framework; applicability to climate change of techniques for assessing costs and benefits; the significant social costs of projected climate change; and the economic assessment of policy instruments to combat climate change, nationally and internationally. Some important conclusions of this Second Assessment Report indicate that 10 to 30% of greenhouse gas emissions in most countries can be reduced at negative or zero cost - 'no regrets' measures. Also, the literature indicates that climate change will cause aggregate net damage, which provides an economic rationale for going beyond 'no regrets' measures. It also indicates that a portfolio of mitigation, adaptation and research measures is a sound strategy for addressing climate change given the remaining uncertainties. This report speaks directly to the issues that are faced by the many countries committed to limit emissions of greenhouse gases by the year 2000, and currently negotiating actions to be taken beyond that date. Will be of great value to the international community of policymakers interested in the consequences of climate change, as well as to economists, social and natural scientists.

This paper contains two separate but intimately linked reports that deal with corporate social responsibility. The first explores the critical success factors supporting the integration of social concerns into the planning and implementation of privately financed projects in the mining, oil, and gas sectors. The second reviews corporate practices with respect to social and environmental assessment, and the integration between the two.