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\"While international negotiations to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have been less than satisfactory, there is a presumption that a significant level of multi-lateral commitment will be realized at some point. International air and marine travel have been left to one side in past talks because the pursuit of agreement proceeds on the basis of commitment by sovereign nations and the effects of these specific commercial activities are, by their nature, difficult to corral and assign to specific national jurisdictions. However, air travel is increasing and, unless something is done, emissions from this segment of our world economy will form a progressively larger percentage of the total, especially as emissions fall in other activities.\" -- Provided by publisher.

In the middle of the twentieth century, governments ignored the negative effects of large-scale infrastructure projects. In recent decades, many democratic countries have continued to use dams to promote growth, but have also introduced accompanying programs to alleviate these harmful consequences of dams for local people, to reduce poverty, and to promote participatory governance. This type of dam building undoubtedly represents a step forward in responsible governing. But have these policies really worked? Flooded provides insights into the little-known effects of these approaches through a close examination of Brazil's Belo Monte hydroelectric facility. After three decades of controversy over damming the Xingu River, a tributary of the Amazon, the dam was completed in 2019 under the left-of-center Workers' Party, becoming the world's fourth largest. Billions of dollars for social welfare programs accompanied construction. Nonetheless, the dam brought extensive social, political, and environmental upheaval to the region. The population soared, cost of living skyrocketed, violence spiked, pollution increased, and already overextended education and healthcare systems were strained. Nearly 40,000 people were displaced and ecosystems were significantly disrupted. Klein tells the stories of dam-affected communities, including activists, social movements, non-governmental organizations, and public defenders and public prosecutors. He details how these groups, as well as government officials and representatives from private companies, negotiated the upheaval through protests, participating in public forums for deliberation, using legal mechanisms to push for protections for the most vulnerable, and engaging in myriad other civic spaces. Flooded provides a rich ethnographic account of democracy and development in the making. In the midst of today's climate crisis, this book showcases the challenges and opportunities of meeting increasing demands for energy in equitable ways.

The Indian renewable energy sector has grown at a compounded annual growth rate of 15.51% in the last five years, where wind growth is about 8%. The Indian government has been adopting changes to create a safe, cheap, and sustainable energy system to fuel vigorous economic growth. The government has made significant efforts in ensuring universal access to energy, giving power to its residents. It is implementing a large-scale deployment of renewable energy, particularly solar and wind. This paper examines the country's wind sector in-depth, including the government policy, financial incentives, and accomplishments. The study goes on to discuss the prospects and problems of the wind sector, as well as solutions to overcome them to reach the estimated target of 140–150 GW by 2030. Wind power growth in the country has weakened in the last few years which may hamper the country’s ambitious renewable energy targets. Wind industry is facing several hindrances ranging from discontinuation of incentives, land acquisition, DISCOM’s poor health, change in bidding scheme, old wind sites, etc. Certain steps, such as repowering outdated wind farms, giving generation-based incentives, tax concessions, reassessing the country’s wind potential, and constructing competitive renewable energy zones could aid in reviving the wind energy sector.

On 25 September, 2015, world leaders met at the United Nations in New York, where they adopted the Sustainable Development Goals. These 17 goals and 169 targets set out an agenda for sustainable development for all nations that embraces economic growth, social inclusion, and environmental protection. Now, the agenda moves from agreeing the goals to implementing and ultimately achieving them. Across the goals, 42 targets focus on means of implementation, and the final goal, Goal 17, is entirely devoted to means of implementation. However, these implementation targets are largely silent about interlinkages and interdependencies among goals. This leaves open the possibility of perverse outcomes and unrealised synergies. We demonstrate that there must be greater attention on interlinkages in three areas: across sectors (e.g., finance, agriculture, energy, and transport), across societal actors (local authorities, government agencies, private sector, and civil society), and between and among low, medium and high income countries . Drawing on a global sustainability science and practice perspective, we provide seven recommendations to improve these interlinkages at both global and national levels, in relation to the UN’s categories of means of implementation: finance, technology, capacity building, trade, policy coherence, partnerships, and, finally, data, monitoring and accountability.

This paper studies the competition between the illegal recycling group and the legitimate recycling group in the recycling market of end-of-life vehicles, and we built an evolutionary game model of the competition process between the two groups. By constructing an evolutionary game model between illegal recycling and legitimate recycling strategy for end-of-life (EOL) vehicle recyclers, we investigate the long-term evolutionary characteristics of illegal recycling and legal recycling group in EOL vehicle recycling in different contexts. When there is government involving in the evolution game process of EOL vehicle recycling groups, we build our model to find out how its policies on EOL vehicle recycling change the legal recyclers’ evolutionary stable state. Meanwhile, we explore how the government’s different regulation policies affect its revenue from recycling EOL vehicles. Then, through a numerical simulation method, the influence of government policy in the evolutionary game model on the strategy choices on EOL vehicle recycling is tested and verified. With the research results, we find that it is very difficult to improve the evolutionary stable state when the government uses penalty policy only on the illegal EOL vehicle recycling, though the revenue of government can be guaranteed. Moreover, when the subsidy and penalty amount on legal and illegal EOL vehicle recycling increase to a certain extent, the revenue of government will start to decrease.Graphic abstract

Developing nations, including India, face a number of daunting challenges in the twenty-first century, including population growth, political strife, rapid urbanization, food and water scarcity, environmental pollution, infectious diseases, and climate change. In this turbulent era, there is a need for resilience at every level—from the village family to the corporate boardroom to the halls of government. We argue that achieving resilience will require both enlightened government policies and successful initiatives by social and environmental innovators that demonstrate the capacity for adapting to these challenges. Such practical first steps can serve as models for creating a more resilient and sustainable economy in India. One way to stimulate rapid progress is development of circular economy solutions that create innovative pathways for utilization of discarded materials, thus seeking to eliminate waste. Previous research has shown that such initiatives reduce environmental pressures and improve community resilience, while stimulating the regional economy. An international conference on Waste Management Innovation, held in 2017 in Mumbai with funding from the US Consulate General, resulted in the award of seed grants to two Indian non-profits that sought to apply circular economy principles to regional communities—one urban and one rural. These initiatives provide case studies of circular economy implementation. The World Institute of Sustainable Energy has developed an action plan to capture at least 60 percent of the electronic waste generated in the city of Pune, one of the largest metropolitan areas in India. Their approach is based on circular economy principles, and has been embraced in stakeholder meetings with city officials as well as local residents and non-governmental organizations. Barefoot College has established and demonstrated a low-cost, end-to-end solid waste management model for rural villages that is designed by the local community. Their unique approach ensures sanitation, environmental protection, income and livelihood generation, and drives behavioral change in village residents by motivating them to maintain community hygiene. This paper presents the results of these two efforts, and suggests what lessons were learned. One overarching insight is that an integrated systems view is necessary to understand the interplay of economic, environmental, and social forces.Graphic abstract

City action is critical to achieving global visions for sustainability such as the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, SDG ‘localisation’ is complex procedure, with divergent outcomes depending on context and diverse city processes. This paper considers the operational challenges faced by city actors in taking on the SDGs, and subsequent implications for initiating local (and global) sustainability transitions. We analyse emergent approaches to SDG localisation within the Asia–Pacific, using a policy analysis framework (transition management) to assess transformation potential. We find that SDG localisation can influence urban sustainability, but effective implementation requires sufficient data, resourcing, and guidance—which are not readily, nor equally available to all city governments. City-to-city peer learning can accelerate SDG uptake, but realising the transformative ambition set out by the SDGs will require an approach to localisation that clearly demonstrates why and how any city government can and should engage with global sustainability frameworks.

One of the challenging tasks for governments is to curtail the production and consumption of single-use plastic bags. Despite multiple advantages of plastic and its ubiquity, the environmental damage of single-use plastic bags is irreversible. However, policy intervention by the governments is also a need of the time to reduce its production and consumption. This study provides a strategic analysis of government policy options regarding the ban on single-use plastic production in Pakistan. A game-theoretic model is developed to examine the behavior of plastic bag producers vis-à-vis the government’s climate change policy. The study concludes that game theory is very effective in analyzing the efficient promulgation and productive implementation of environmental management policy regarding banning single-use plastic in Pakistan.Graphic abstract

Construction and demolition waste generated in the Republic of Korea accounts for about half of the annual waste. The generation of construction waste is expected to increase gradually due to obsolete structures and reconstructions that have reached the end of their service life. Considering the geographical characteristics of Korea, where the land area is small and about 70% of which is mountainous, landfilling of waste is absolutely limited. Therefore, resource circulation such as recycling of construction waste is an urgent and important task. This paper overviews the current status of construction waste generation, treatment, and the flow of government policies in Korea. Furthermore, the current status, limitations, and stakeholder efforts regarding recycling of recycled aggregate from construction waste were reviewed. Data used in this paper were mostly collected from government reports, construction waste regulations, and research papers. The results show that construction waste management systems have been enacted and revised in line with social needs, and each stakeholder is making an effort to use the construction waste practically. The findings can provide valuable examples for countries that lack construction waste management systems.Graphic abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic induces the worst economic downturn since the Second World War, requiring governments to design large-scale recovery plans to overcome this crisis. This paper quantitatively assesses the potential of government investments in eco-friendly construction projects to boost the economy and simultaneously realise environmental gains through reduced energy consumption and related greenhouse gas emissions. The analysis uses a Computable General Equilibrium model that examines the macroeconomic impact of the COVID-19 crisis in a small open economy (Belgium). Subsequently, the impact of the proposed policy is assessed through comparative analysis for macroeconomic parameters as well as CO2 equivalent emissions for four scenarios. Our findings demonstrate that the COVID-19 pandemic damages economies considerably, however, the reduction in emissions is less than proportionate. Still, well-designed public policies can reverse this trend, achieving both economic growth and a disproportionally large decrease in emissions. Moreover, the positive effect of such a decoupling policy on GDP is even stronger during the pandemic than compared to the pre-COVID-19 period. This is the result of a targeted, investment-induced green transition towards low energy-intensive economic activities. Finally, this paper describes how the net effect on the government budget is positive through the indirect gains of the economic uptake.