This book addresses major issues such as a growing world energy demand, environmental degradation due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emission, and risk management of disastrous events such as pandemics, abnormal climate, and earthquakes. Using cutting-edge analytical tools, particularly computable general equilibrium (CGE) modelling, the analyses are focused on a very wide range of policy-relevant economic questions for the Asia-Pacific region, especially for Japan, China, India, Vietnam, and smaller nations, including Brunei, Timor Leste, and Fiji. The first part considers (a) the effects of climate change on agriculture sectors, energy policies, and future GHG emission trends, (b) adaptation to climate changes in energy policy and its impacts on the economies, and (c) risk management of catastrophic events such as global pandemics. The second part examines (a) energy environmental issues, (b) economic impacts of natural disaster and depopulation, and (c) effects of informatics development on risk management, using CGE modelling and other methods in regional science fields. Contributors are internationally active leading CGE modellers and environmental economists. The book should be greatly beneficial for scholars and graduate students as well as policy makers who are interested in the economic effects and management of risks relating to climate change and disastrous events.

Energy and Economic Myths: Institutional and Analytical Economic Essays is a collection of materials that deal with various issues and concerns in economics. The title aims to clarify the misconception in economics. The first part of the text deals with the issues in natural resources and the economics of production. Next, the selection tackles the problems in institutional economics. Part III covers the epistemological and methodological concerns in economics. The title also talks about economic theories. The book will be of great interest to economists and readers who want to enhance their understanding of economic concepts.

The chapters in the book cover a broad range of aspects regarding the relationship between natural resource use and long-term economic development. The book surveys existing literature as well as adds to frontier research. In particular, the following topics are studied: incentives for adoption and diffusion of clean technology, resource scarcity and limits to growth, international convergence of energy intensity, and the social norms shaping resource depletion.

With an original introduction, this title brings together key articles and essays on the economics of climate change and environmental policy written by Professor Stavins.

By making available the almost unlimited energy stored in prehistoric plant matter, coal enabled the industrial age – and it still does. Coal today generates more electricity worldwide than any other energy source, helping to drive economic growth in major emerging markets. And yet, continued reliance on this ancient rock carries a high price in smog and greenhouse gases. We use coal because it is cheap: cheap to scrape from the ground, cheap to move, cheap to burn in power plants with inadequate environmental controls. In this book, Mark Thurber explains how coal producers, users, financiers, and technology exporters drive this supply chain, while fragmented environmental movements battle for full incorporation of environmental costs into the global calculus of coal. Delving into the politics of energy versus the environment at local, national, and international levels, Thurber paints a vivid picture of the multi-faceted challenges associated with continued coal production and use in the twenty-first century.

ÔSome of us have spent our professional lives on energy and climate change but any new researcher or policy maker must find it daunting to even approach the subject. If so, this encyclopedic Handbook provides a wonderful and necessary introduction. It is creative and up to date, yet also takes the reader by the hand and introduces one topic after another while also providing much of the historical context that is so necessary to a deeper understanding.Õ Ð Thomas Sterner, Environmental Defense Fund This timely Handbook reviews many key issues in the economics of energy and climate change, raising new questions and offering solutions that might help to minimize the threat of energy-induced climate change. Constructed around the objectives of displaying some of the best of current thinking in the economics of energy and climate change, this groundbreaking volume brings together many of the worldÕs leading and most innovative minds in the field to cover issues related to: ¥ fossil fuel and electricity markets ¥ environment-related energy policy ¥ international climate agreements ¥ carbon mitigation policies ¥ low carbon behaviour, growth and governance. Serving as an indispensable guide to one of the fastest growing fields of economics, this invaluable resource will strongly appeal to students, academics and policy makers interested in energy, environmental and climate change issues.