Corvinus
Corvinus

Effective Choice of Consumer-Oriented Environmental Policy Tools for Reducing GHG Emissions

Csutora, Mária ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0749-3923 and Zsóka, Ágnes ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6938-5277 (2012) Effective Choice of Consumer-Oriented Environmental Policy Tools for Reducing GHG Emissions. In: Greenhouse gases. InTech, Rijeka, pp. 241-254. . ISBN 9789535101925 DOI 10.5772/33256

[img] PDF - Requires a PDF viewer such as GSview, Xpdf or Adobe Acrobat Reader
816kB

Official URL: https://doi.org/10.5772/33256


Abstract

Due to the perceived and expected environmental impacts of climate change there is an urgent need to reduce Greenhouse Gasses (GHG) at each and every point of emission (see World Research Institute, 2010). The ongoing efforts of governments to establish and implement policies include investigating changes in consumer behaviour and attitudes towards sustainability. The often very high costs of measures makes economic analysis necessary in order to find out which technologically feasible abatement options are capable of realizing the largest emission reductions at least social cost (Csutora and Zilahy 1998, Ürge-Vorsatz and Füle 1999, Creyts et al. 2007, Stern 2008). According to recent studies there is even space for “win-win” solutions as a number of options exist which can result in huge GHG reductions at a “negative cost”, meaning that those solutions are both beneficial from environmental and economic points of view. However, organisations often ask for external governmental support in order to implement those measures (Zilahy 2004) and individuals also regularly seem slow and inconsistent in transforming their positive environmental attitudes into environmentally aware consumption habits and reducing their levels of consumption (Rubik et al., 2009, Thøgersen and Crompton, 2009, Nemcsicsné Zsóka, 2005). This chapter puts forward a model which allows a more effective choice of consumeroriented environmental policy tools for GHG emission reduction and mitigation. As a first step, the marginal social cost curve is constructed for GHG mitigation options. Then, based on the marginal social cost curve and the marginal private cost curve, different – green, yellow, and red – zones of action are identified. GHG mitigation options chosen from those zones are then evaluated with the help of a profiling method which addresses barriers to implementation. Profiling may help in designing an implementation strategy for the selected options in order to overcome those barriers and make consumer policy more effective and acceptable to society. Opportunities for consumer policy are evaluated using several policy tools based on the literature and practical examples.

Item Type:Book Section
Uncontrolled Keywords:Consumer-Oriented Environmental Policy ; Environmental Policy ; GHG Emissions ; Greenhouse Gases Emissions ; GHG reductions ; Greenhouse Gases Emissions ;
Divisions:Faculty of Business Administration > Institute for Environmental Science > Department of Environmental Economics and Technology
Subjects:Ecology
Environmental economics
DOI:10.5772/33256
ID Code:10652
Deposited By: MTMT SWORD
Deposited On:09 Dec 2024 12:38
Last Modified:09 Dec 2024 12:38

Repository Staff Only: item control page

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

View more statistics