Remittances and energy poverty: Fresh evidence from developing countries

A growing body of literature highlights the importance of access to energy for economic growth and its crucial role in achieving other sustainable development goals. Given that this branch of the literature is relatively new, the determinants of energy poverty have not yet been fully explored. This study takes a fresh look and contributes to the growing literature by providing one of the first studies of the effect of remittances on energy poverty in developing countries. We employed the Fully Modified Ordinary Least Square and the Dynamic Ordinary Least Square. The results survive a battery of robustness checks, providing robust evidence supporting the claim that remittances reduce energy poverty in developing countries. Further analyses from the three-stage least squares estimator enable us to identify income inequality, economic growth, and education as some transmission channels through which remittances may reduce energy poverty. This study provides important implications in terms of policy recommendations.     

Sustainable energy policy,socio-economic development,and ecological footprint: The economic significance of natural resources,population growth,and industrial development

The principles of sustainable development consist of economic, societal, and environmental considerations. Economic systems and social structures shape social impacts on health, which are embedded in the broader environment and affect the distribution of energy resources worldwide. Under the consideration of natural resources, population growth, and industrial development, this paper explores the impact of sustainable energy policy and socio-economic development on the ecological footprint in China from 1990 to 2019. Results explain that natural net financial accounts, natural resources, and economic growth are positively associated with the ecological footprint. Environmental sustainability is a long-term result of socio-economic development.     

Effects of income inequality and governance on energy poverty alleviation: Implications for sustainable development policy

This paper examines the effects of income inequality and governance on access to electricity using a panel of 43 SSA countries from 1990 to 2017. The results from the two-step GMM estimator revealed that while income inequality substantially reduced access to electricity, governance has been ineffective in improving it. The findings showed that governance interacts with income inequality and economic growth to reduce access to electricity. Comparative analysis suggested that these findings vary among the SSA sub-regions. We argue that energy poverty alleviation requires firm political will and an effective governance system to close the income inequality gap.     

长治市水资源现状及其可持续利用对策

随着经济的快速增长和城市的迅速膨胀,水体污染日趋严重,水环境进一步恶化,只有通过兴修水利工程,改变传统的农业灌溉方式,进行污水处理和建立中水使用系统,成立水务局,进行水系统的联合调度,加强对水资源的统一管理和优化配置,建立节水型社会,才能实现经济社会的可持续发展。     

Gauging energy poverty in developing countries with a composite metric of electricity access

Energy poverty is a significant development issue that is not univocally interpreted. In many parts of the world, people do not have access to modern and reliable energy, which can be a big problem, particularly for vulnerable and developing countries. When vulnerable people do not have access to energy, they will often not be able to get the power they need to improve their lives. In addition, they may not be able to get proper food, education, health, sanitation, or basic needs for daily living. We use interval-based composite indicators and triplex representations of intervals to measure and assess access to electricity in 54 developing countries as a concept approximating relevant aspects of energy poverty. The proposed composite metric is innovative because it accurately quantifies how much electricity is available to people and how resilient and vulnerable people in developing countries are when they lose access to energy. After comparing the different representations, we found that one group of developing countries is more vulnerable to national and international events than the other. However, other countries are more resilient to electricity access problems. Conflicts and wars can impact the index used to measure energy poverty. However, as measured by the index, these factors contribute to poor performance.     

Environmental management: integrating ecological evaluation, remediation, restoration, natural resource damage assessment and long-term stewardship on contaminated lands

Ecological evaluation is essential for remediation, restoration, and Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA), and forms the basis for many management practices. These include determining status and trends of biological, physical, or chemical/radiological conditions, conducting environmental impact assessments, performing remedial actions should remediation fail, managing ecosystems and wildlife, and assessing the efficacy of remediation, restoration, and long-term stewardship. The objective of this paper is to explore the meanings of these assessments, examine the relationships among them, and suggest methods of integration that will move environmental management forward. While remediation, restoration, and NRDA, among others, are often conducted separately, it is important to integrate them for contaminated land where the risks to ecoreceptors (including humans) can be high, and the potential damage to functioning ecosystems great. Ecological evaluations can range from inventories of local plants and animals, determinations of reproductive success of particular species, levels of contaminants in organisms, kinds and levels of effects, and environmental impact assessments, to very formal ecological risk assessments for a chemical or other stressor. Such evaluations can range from the individual species to populations, communities, ecosystems or the landscape scale. Ecological evaluations serve as the basis for making decisions about the levels and kinds of remediation, the levels and kinds of restoration possible, and the degree and kinds of natural resource injuries that have occurred because of contamination. Many different disciplines are involved in ecological evaluation, including biologists, conservationists, foresters, restoration ecologists, ecological engineers, economists, hydrologist, and geologists. Since ecological evaluation forms the basis for so many different types of environmental management, it seems reasonable to integrate management options to achieve economies of time, energy, and costs. Integration and iteration among these disciplines is possible only with continued interactions among practitioners, regulators, policy-makers, Native American Tribes, and the general public.     

北方缺水地区水资源可持续利用管理途径研究

对北方地区的水资源现状与配置状况进行了分析,指出了目前北方地区水资源利用存在的问题,提出水资源的合理开发利用需要一套行之有效的管理途径,并从政府政策管理方面研究了该管理途径,以合理有效地利用水资源。     

价值、动力与路径:精准扶贫场域中的大学生参与

乡村振兴战略的落地需要建构一整套科学完善的治理机制，大学生的积极参与可以为精准脱贫的实现提供活力。借助并运用参与式治理理论，基于文献和经验的质性研究方法，在分析理论价值和现实价值的基础上，尝试探讨大学生参与精准扶贫的内生性动力和外发性动力，为精准扶贫中大学生参与"何以可能"提供学理辩护。以泰州学院船舶与机电工程学院和南京农业大学公共管理学院大学生暑期社会实践为案例，研究发现：任务思维严重，能动性不足；实践的功利性倾向，缺乏对帮扶内容的认识；参与帮扶的短暂性和不稳定性；人员选拔程序的非规范性及大学生志愿者责任和能力的缺失等是大学生参与精准扶贫面临的主要问题。为此，应完善帮扶机制，建构三位一体合作模式；提升培训的质量，完善培训内容与形式；充分发挥大学生党员干部的主力军作用；强化机制设计，拓展实践能力质量；识别服务资源，了解帮扶对象需求和搭建实践平台，丰富创新创业内容。     

Environmental benefits of energy poverty alleviation,renewable resources,and urbanization in North Africa

Addressing energy poverty via expanding renewable energy sources and advancing sustainable development strategy is a crucial goal for developing nations. Therefore, the study aims to investigate relationships between carbon dioxide emission, renewable and nonrenewable energy resources, economic growth, urbanization, and energy poverty in the North African region, namely: Tunisia, Sudan, Morocco, Libya, and Egypt from 1993 to 2021, by employing Panel PMG ARDL and Granger causality approaches. According to empirical results, addressing energy poverty (access to electricity), economic growth, and using renewable and nonrenewable energy sources worsen the environment. Two-way causal relationships are founded between environmental deterioration and other variables: economic growth, energy resources, and urbanization. Based on the findings, policymakers should step up their efforts to promote green urbanization and alleviate energy poverty through renewable energy sources.     

The role of business models and transitional pressures in attaining sustainable urban water management

Many scholarly articles have argued that there is a need for a transition towards sustainable urban water management (SUWM). As businesses, water service providers (WSPs) must modify their business models to align with this goal. Explicit consideration of business models is, however, often missing from the literature relating to SUWM. More specifically, the economic level is often not given due consideration. To help address this gap, this paper reviews the potential role business models can play in attaining SUWM. Elements of a sustainability-based business model are presented, along with a case study of transitional pressures in Melbourne, Australia. The case study highlights factors that have a significant impact on the business models of WSPs, and it is concluded that customer willingness to pay and politicization of decisions must be addressed if transitions to sustainability-based business models are to be maintained over the long term.     

Waste management,quality of life and natural resources utilization matter for renewable electricity generation: The main and moderate role of environmental policy

Since the last three decades, the world has been facing three consecutive challenges global warming, fuel import dependency, and rising electricity demand, and policymakers have tried their best to meet the standards of the green energy system. However, green electricity generation (REG) for daily use has received an exceptional focus from policy analysts in the development agenda. Similarly, electricity generation from waste management has shocked the world, and most economies are following the same pattern. Therefore, the current study tries to introduce the leading factors of REG: waste management, quality of life, environmental policy (EP), natural resources utilization, and population growth. The current study employs a series of estimation techniques to investigate the desired study's objectives in 15 waste-recycled economies from 2000 to 2020. Investigated outcomes show the significant contribution to REG by population, waste management, and environmental policy. In contrast, the quality of life and natural resource utilization (NRU) do not significantly contribute to renewable electricity generation. Furthermore, the moderate role of EP on waste management, quality of life, and NRU significantly promotes renewable electricity development. On behalf of outcomes, the environmental policy is being suggested as the best policy for electricity generation.     

Capital efficiency, its measurements and its role in regulatory reviews of utility industries: Lessons from developed and developing countries

Designing regulatory regimes that incentivise the delivery of agreed capex at as low a cost as possible has proven relatively straight-forward when it is possible to establish credible forecasts of the necessary capex and its associated cost. Greater problems arise when there is uncertainty about what capex is needed, when it may be needed and how much it will cost. Yet it is still possible to establish incentive based systems for regulating capex with some or all the characteristics that create uncertainty. This paper explores some of the issues related to incentive based regulation of capex and how flexible approaches can be developed to handle the uncertainty inherent in certain types of capex. Examples of incentive based systems are also provided.     

Investigation of air management and energy performance in a data center in Finland: Case study

This is the first research paper on data center from Finland. The objectives of this study are to evaluate air management and energy performance of cooling system and investigate the possibilities of energy saving and reuse in the data center. Field measurements, particularly for long term's IT and facility powers, were conducted. Different performance metrics for the cooling system and power consumption were examined and analysed. Key problem areas and energy saving opportunities were identified. The electrical end use breakdown was estimated. Results show that IT equipment intake conditions were within the recommended or allowable ranges from ASHRAE. The Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) value for a typical year was about 1.33. Noticeable recirculation of hot air was not observed, but extreme bypass air was found. The air change rate was set much bigger than the recommended ASHRAE's value. There was no heat recovery system. The air management and heat recovery issues therefore need to be addressed. Fan speeds (Computer Room Air-Conditioning Unit) should be reduced and the ventilation rate should be minimized. Further, a simulated heat recovery system was presented demonstrating that the data center could potentially provide yearly space and hot water heating for 30,916 m² non-domestic building.     

The moderating role of governance environment on the relationship between risk allocation and private investment in PPP markets: Evidence from developing countries

PPPs have become a popular way to supply infrastructure around the world. However, compared with developed countries, most developing countries have failed to attract private investment over the past years. Risk allocation and governance environment (e.g., the extent of public participation, the level of political stability, the quality of public services, the ability of regulations, abiding the law, and the extent of corruption) may be important factors. To test the hypotheses, using about 4560 PPP projects in 138 developing countries from 2002 to 2015, this paper applies the Tobit regression model to investigate the interaction effect of governance environment and risk assumed by private partners on private investment. Results indicate that private partners assume that less risk can attract more private investment, and that a higher level of governance (control of corruption, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, and rule of law) reduces the negative influence of risk assumed by private partners on private investments.     

By diversion rate alone: The inconsistency and inequity of waste management evaluation in a single-indicator system

Local waste management is commonly evaluated according to performance indicators that have been shown to be weakly or even negatively correlated. If the metrics of waste management are not treated as a multi-indicator system, evaluations will reflect indicator selection rather than the actual sustainability of waste management. We discuss the drawbacks of single-indicator evaluations through the case of Italy, where recent national and regional legislation on waste taxation is largely based on municipal diversion rate. We show that the main assumption for making diversion rate the discriminant between good and bad environmental performances is untenable. Furthermore, we provide evidence that the use of a single parameter has a sizeable regressive effect in the distribution of the tax burden between municipalities.     

Emissions variation in urban areas resulting from the introduction of natural gas vehicles: Application to Barcelona and Madrid Greater Areas (Spain)

On-road traffic is the major contributor to pollutant emissions in urban areas. Nowadays different emission abatement strategies are being tested in order to improve urban air quality (e.g. the European Commission currently promotes the use of natural gas as an alternative fuel). Several feasible scenarios regarding the introduction of natural gas vehicles (NGV) are studied in the two main cities of Spain (Barcelona and Madrid) by using the HERMES emission model. The most suitable emission factors to NGV are selected among those available in the literature. The account of emissions in the base case scenario estimated for a typical summertime polluted day of the year 2004 reflects that in Barcelona 86% of primary pollutants come from on-road traffic compared to 93% in Madrid, because of the heavier industrial activity in the former. The introduction of NGV in urban zones would have a positive effect on emissions, whose extent largely depends on the substituted fleets and the conurbation characteristics. Maximum reductions in NO_x emissions in Madrid are attributed to the substitution of 10% of the oldest diesel and petrol cars, while in Barcelona the change of 50% of the oldest commercial light vehicles becomes more effective. PM_2.5 and SO₂ emissions can be significatively reduced with the introduction of NGV instead of the oldest commercial light vehicles. The substitution of conventional fuels by natural gas must reach around 4% to achieve significative reductions in traffic emissions (larger than 5%). This work focuses on air quality issues, therefore GHG emissions are not included, nevertheless this kind of associated impact has to be considered by the decision makers. Assessing the efficacy of environmental improvement strategies entails a realistic design of emission scenarios and their evaluation. The detailed emission account provides a fundamental basis for the air quality modelling and its comparison among scenarios.     

The history of urban growth management in South Africa: tracking the origin and current status of urban edge policies in three metropolitan municipalities

ABSTRACT

For many cities in the Global South, colonialism played a dominant role in shaping their urban form. The historical objective of planning in colonial mother-cities was dealing with poor health and living conditions, therefore a planning approach similar to that followed in post-war Britain would appear beneficial in post-colonial cities, characterized by environmental and physical infrastructure unable to cope with massive population growth. Urban growth management is a discourse born in an attempt to control the growing industrial city in the early twentieth century, and in recent years applied through instruments such as urban edges or growth boundaries to limit urban sprawl and encourage higher density urban development. In South Africa, the principles of compaction and urban growth management formed part of the post-apartheid planning agenda towards transforming the inefficient and fragmented landscape inherited from separate spatial development. Consequently, urban edges and urban growth boundaries formed key components of municipal spatial planning frameworks since the early 2000s. The purpose of this paper is to explore the origin and status of urban edges in three metropolitan municipalities in South Africa to aid in understanding of these spatial instruments in the south.     

Heterogeneous analysis of energy consumption,financial development,and pollution in Africa: The relevance of regulatory quality

The need to examine the effects of energy and financial development on pollution reduction via the channel of regulation necessitates this study. The study analyses data from 18 African nations between 1996 and 2017 using the Pooled Mean Group (PMG) approach. We employ panel data from energy use, regulatory quality, financial development, investment, trade, urbanisation, and CO2 emissions. Empirical findings show that energy use negatively but insignificantly impacts pollution over the short run while positively and significantly in the long run. For financial development, the impact is positive in the short run and negative in the long run. Most strikingly, regulatory quality exerts a negative and significant impact on pollution in both the short and long terms, while its interactive effects with energy use and financial development may significantly reduce short-run and long-run pollution. The study is original by examining the mediating role of regulatory quality in the effects of energy and financial development on pollution, with findings confirming regulatory quality as a crucial channel for enhancing the capacity of both sectors in improving Africa's environmental pollution.     

A critical review of Korea's long-term contract for renewable energy auctions: The relationship between the import price of liquefied natural gas and system marginal price

The aim of Korea's Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) and newly adopted auction system with a long-term fixed-price renewable contract was to support renewable energy providers in hedging electricity and Renewable Energy Certificate (REC) price risks. This study found a long-run positive relationship between the import price of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) and System Marginal Price (SMP) in Korea, demonstrating that the fluctuations in global fuel prices are likely to increase uncertainties in renewable investments. The fixed-price contract, which cannot be revised once determined, encourages renewable energy providers' speculative decision-making, and the uncertainty caused by the contract system may discourage investment decision-making.