Eloi Laurent - The New Environmental Economics: Sustainability and Justice

For Sylvie, for Lila, for Jonas, with everlasting love

loi Laurent

polity

Copyright loi Laurent 2020

The right of loi Laurent to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

First published in 2020 by Polity Press

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ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-3380-0 (hardback)

ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-3381-7 (paperback)

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Laurent, Eloi, author.

Title: The new environmental economics : sustainability and justice / Eloi Laurent.

Description: Cambridge, UK ; Medford, MA : Polity Press, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019017448 (print) | LCCN 2019021750 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509533831 (Epub) | ISBN 9781509533800 (hardback) | ISBN 9781509533817 (pbk.)

Subjects: LCSH: Environmental economics. | Sustainable development.

Classification: LCC HD75.6 (ebook) | LCC HD75.6 .L3785 2019 (print) | DDC 333.7--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019017448

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Three ages of human development

Oil prices, 20082018

Renewable internal fresh-water resources per capita

European Union emissions of GHG in production and consumption

Globalization in the last 50 years

Percentage of population residing in urban areas by country, 19502050

The population (on-going) problem

John Muir: Preservation and healing

The rules of the game of environmental cooperation

The top 20 of the Toxic 100

The ecological debt

The Cochabamba Declarations

Air (ine)quality

Environmental justice before the law

Kenneth Boulding

The monetary cost of air pollution

Biodiversity, human development, and political freedom

Fuel poverty in the UK

Stanley Jevons and the rebound effect

Four types of decoupling

Taxing and subsidizing carbon

How to mitigate climate change: A policy toolbox

Energy transition in France: The ngaWatt scenarios

Three lessons from the Chinese growth experiment

The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences 2018

Rousseau vs. Voltaire after the Lisbon earthquake of 1755

The CETA and environmental policy

The double penalty of urban sprawl: The case of France

Urban well-being: The case of Paris

Urban success stories

The many values of natural resources

Human well-being and the biosphere: The self-destructive vicious circle

Human well-being and the biosphere: The virtuous circle of sustainability

Three horizons for humanity: Well-being, resilience, and sustainability

The three linkages of sustainable development

Social-ecological trade-offs and synergies

Social discount rate options

Social cost of CO2, 20102050

World fisheries and aquaculture

Evolution of global forest, 19902015

Global and regional per capita food consumption, 19642015

Energy use, 19802014

The share of country groups in global material consumption in 2010

Physical and monetary trade of goods for the EU-28

Import dependency for the EU-28

Waste treatment in the OECD, 2013

Material flow accounting for Western industrial Europe, 19502010

Absolute decoupling between GDP and CO2 in 21 countries

The global energy mix in 1973 and 2015

Renewable energy competitiveness

Global emissions of CO2 in 2016

Emissions of carbon dioxide in 2015, country ranking, and shares

A simple model of fair and efficient climate justice

Environmental contribution to some diseases

Environmental deaths in different regions of the world

Environmentally related tax revenue for some OECD countries, 19942016

Internal and external water footprint (2011)

Goods transportation, 20002016

The global urban population, 2018 and 2030

Priority actions for a low carbon building strategy

Urban population in the EU-28 exposed to air pollutant concentrations (20122014)

Are we thriving or are we doomed? That is the question. In our early twenty-first century, two radically different views regarding the fate of humanity on Planet Earth co-exist.

The first one insists on the remarkable prowess of humankind: Once fearful creatures deprived of almost any significant natural advantages in a hostile environment, we have managed in a matter of a few thousand years and even more in the last two centuries to become Kings of Nature, Masters of the Biosphere, Rulers of Life. Driven by the power of social cooperation, humanitys journey toward prosperity in all corners of the world is truly impressive.

What is more, our collective success has allowed us to change for the better our biological and social self: We have become taller, stronger, healthier, smarter, freer, and, most probably, happier. To take just one striking example of our exponential progress, in the last fifty years alone, human health has been improved more than in the seven million years or so of human presence on Earth. Seen from this perspective, the future of humanity calls for reasonable optimism, if not outright cheerfulness. With the right combination of innovation and incentives, no insurmountable obstacle will stand in the way of our ingenuity.

The other view is decidedly grimmer. It argues that humanity is, to put it mildly, deeply disappointing: In a matter of a century, even more so since 1950, we have managed to substantially destroy our own habitat, the most hospitable planet for us in the Universe, harming our own well-being and that of our successors for shortsighted gains. To take just one illustration of how fast we are degrading the biosphere, cumulative man-made carbon dioxide emissions causing climate change in the last fifty years alone represent 70% of all recorded emissions (since 1750). Homo sapiens sapiens, the one who knows he knows, appears to be losing the great race between his intelligence and his avidity.