Topic 12: Dealing with negative environmental effects

Question 1

Identify and describe 3 ways in which governance of the environment can be conducted

Answer 1

• Governance by market mechanisms: neo-liberalisation of nature - attaching a price on natural resources to prevent overexploitation
  + allocate resource to people who are willing to pay
  + widely spreaded and used in this world where demand increases but supply can harly keep up with
• Governance by customary mechanisms: code of conduct, norms, social rituals
  + access to a particular resource in a specific way at a specific time and space
• Governance by official sanctions: national or international law, criminal sentence, codification

Question 2

Describe the concept of Tragedy of the Commons

Answer 2

If there is a resource opened to public access, it will soon be overexploited for personal benefits. So, there needs to be a market mechanism to attach prices to that resource.

Question 3

Identify and describe market-based governance options

Answer 3

• Polluter-pays principle: charging users of the resource a fee or levy or tax
• Payment of environmental (ecosystem) services: positive payment to entice self-interested individuals to act on others’ interests or receive money to encourage people do the right thing
• Privatisation: tackle problem of open access by privatising it via sale or auction, may cause other problems
• Quota assignment: assign quota or certain limits to an activity

Question 4

Describe Common Pool Resource/Governing the Common

Answer 4

Elinor Ostram argued that in response to Tragedy of the Common, instead of market mechanism, cooperation is better as people can cooperate to come up with norms and code of conduct instead of markets

Question 5

Describe vulnerability, resilience and dependence as well as diversification

Answer 5

• Vulnerability: the degree to which a system is susceptible to and is unable to cope with adverse effects; susceptability and coping ability
  + who and why
  + associated with environmental justice
• Resilience: either
  + how big the change needs to be before there is a system change, or
  + how long it takes for a system to recover
• Increasing livelihood diversity/decreasing dependence on 1 source of living/ increasing diversification –> increase resilience

Question 6

Describe adaptation, different methods of adaptation and role of cognition in adaptation

Answer 6

• Adapation refers to actions taken to either avoid negative effects or attain positive benefits.
• Methods of adaptation:
  + Co-benefits: adaptive action benefits other users
  + Maladaption: actions by 1 party cause negative consequences on others; “adverse impacts or increased vulnerability on other systems
• Cognition: awareness education allows people to be aware of the problems ahead and opt for more long-term solutions in a more willing manner

Question 7

Differences between environmental justice as distributive and as recognition

Answer 7

• Justice as distributive: fair distribution between the costs and benefits in the relationship between human and nature
• Justice as recognition: recognizing the root causes of the maldistributions –> reorganizing the connections

Question 8

Describe how gender has become a challenge in tackling climate change and the concept of gender blind/gender aware

Answer 8

• Due to customary norms, gender roles, women have become more prone to costs from climate chane –> accumulative disadvantage
• Gender Blind: an inadequate approach to climate change issues since it ignores different factors and experience between male and female
• Gender Aware: when gender is taken into account like who to prioritize, considering age, disability, etc.

Question 9

Explain environmental justice in the context of mitigation, adaptation, and inter-generation

Answer 9

• Mitigation: appropriate responsibility and burden between rich and poor countries
• Adaptation: since high costs are required to tackle climate change problems, should there be a global sharings in which rich countries can financially support poorer ones?
• Inter-generational: do we have the obligations to protect future generations?, how do we make sure the benefits we are creating now are still the same in the future?
  + involve law, the court, and climate litigation