Unique survey data from a contingent valuation study conducted in three different countries (China, Sweden, and the United States) were used to investigate the ordinary citizen’s willingness to pay (WTP) for reducing CO2 emissions. We found that a large majority of the respondents in all three countries believe that the mean global temperature has increased over the last 100 years and that humans are responsible for the increase.

Wednesday 31 March 2010, EfD/EPRU Researcher Dr Stephanie Giamporcaro presented to investors, media and fellow academics the findings of the report: Environmentally Responsible Investment in South Africa: The state of play.

The state of play: a survey of responsible investor opinions and practices

Improving soil carbon through conservation agriculture in developing countries may generate some private benefits to farmers, as well as sequester carbon emissions, which is a positive externality to society. Leaving crop residue on the farm has become an important option in conservation agriculture practice. However, in developing countries, using crop residue for conservation agriculture has the opportunity cost of feed for livestock.

Since the economic reforms that began in 1978 China has experienced a dramatic decline in energy intensity until about 2002 when it flattened out and even rose slightly.

This paper reviews the literature on the economics of climate change adaptation in developing countries, and identifies three key points for consideration in future studies.

How can economics best contribute to the scientific and public debates? Professor Thomas Sterner, University of Gothenburg, together with Nicholas Stern, who wrote the The Stern Review, and Nobel laureates Thomas Schelling and Robert Solow are among the scholars who explain in this book both how economics has changed environmental understanding and how the study of climate change has modified the economy.

Research Fellow Alvaro Umaña is the Head and Political Coordinator of the Costa Rican Negotiating Team at Copenhagen.

Dr. Alvaro Umaña, Research Fellow at EfD Central America, was designated as Head and Political Coordinator of the Costa Rican Negotiating Team for the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (COP15), Denmark, 7-18 December 18, 2009.

In his own words yesterday, December 1st, after the presentation of the Negotiating Team to press, he said:

The authors studied the potential tradeoff between countries’ investments in mitigation versus adaptation to climate change. Mitigating greenhouse gases may be a public good, but adaptation to climate change is a private good, benefiting only the country or individual.

This paper investigates whether South African households and small businesses can take advantage of the country's substantial wind resources to produce their own power from small- scale wind turbines in a viable way.