eco saldo - an attempted approach to measuring the intangible heritage
DESCRIPTION
After 40 years of environmental negotiations and the recent inconclusive results of Rio+20, there is an expanding consensus that the current negotiation model composed of a series of subsequent summits and conferences of the parties under the United Nations umbrella has been exhausted. This deadlock lead to a perception that real change is a “political impossibility” and inevitably installed a sense of fatalism. It is starting to be clear that the main obstacle that we are facing is not technological but consists of the construction of a new juridical-economic structure that is able to provide an answer to the global and structural dimension of the current crisis. Within this context, the Common Heritage of Mankind continues to be the only structure that can offer an international juridical framework capable of regulating goods that take us to a dimension of the human condition found outside the material realm, but which does involve the whole of humanity. The proposal to configure the climate system as common to the whole of humanity could serve as a basis to resolve a series of complex operational problems. These include the lack of intergenerational reach of Law that deals with new global phenomena or the global dispersion of positive and negative externalities of countries that affect the common system. The proposed classification would enable accounting and governance of externalities between countries, taking into consideration the actions of past generation and the rights of future ones. The first step consists of finding out how to describe this juridical object, which finds itself both outside and inside of all states, and how to measure and consequently attribute it to someone. This immaterial and intangible nature is that what really unites us all and turns us all global neighbors. The creation of a new Intangible Natural Heritage relative to the climate and ocean systems of which the owner should be all of humanity serves as the structural support that we propose to construct a new economy. http://www.earth-condominium.org/en/conference/earth-condominium-conference/TRANSCRIPT
EcoSaldo uma possibilidade real
de gestão global do património intangível
Nuno Gaspar de OliveiraInês Cosme Teixeira
CIGEST | Ambiente & SustentabilidadeISG | Business & Economics School
Oliveira & Cosme, 16.01.2013; Earth Condominium Conference, Gaia, PT
Oliveira & Cosme, 16.01.2013; Earth Condominium Conference, Gaia, PT
Oliveira & Cosme, 16.01.2013; Earth Condominium Conference, Gaia, PT
Oliveira & Cosme, 16.01.2013; Earth Condominium Conference, Gaia, PT
"In nature's economy the currency is not money, it is life." — Vandana Shiva (Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace)
Oliveira & Cosme, 16.01.2013; Earth Condominium Conference, Gaia, PT
Fonte: Global Risks 2013, World Economic Forum
Oliveira & Cosme, 16.01.2013; Earth Condominium Conference, Gaia, PT
Fonte: Global Risks 2013, World Economic Forum
Oliveira & Cosme, 16.01.2013; Earth Condominium Conference, Gaia, PT
Examples of worldwide mispricing and market failures that need institutional corrections include:
• Energy — too cheap due to climate change, extinctions, and negative effects on future generations.
• Having children — too cheap since growing population will raise real prices of land, food, and energy, and contribute to climate change and other global environmental problems.
• Endangered species — too cheap because ecosystem interrelationships are poorly understood, and indirect effects could be enormous.
• Economic growth — overvalued because growth negatively affects aggregate utility and public goods (“the commons” such as air, water, soil, species diversity, ecosystem health, and climate) once we begin to reach the limits to growth.
The Visible Hand: Manipulating Market Prices by Influencing Laws and Regulations by Max Kummerow
Oliveira & Cosme, 16.01.2013; Earth Condominium Conference, Gaia, PT
Oliveira & Cosme, 16.01.2013; Earth Condominium Conference, Gaia, PT
Oliveira & Cosme, 16.01.2013; Earth Condominium Conference, Gaia, PT
Oliveira & Cosme, 16.01.2013; Earth Condominium Conference, Gaia, PT
“Progress is measured by the speed at which we destroy the conditions that sustain life.”― George Monbiot
Oliveira & Cosme, 16.01.2013; Earth Condominium Conference, Gaia, PT
Oliveira & Cosme, 16.01.2013; Earth Condominium Conference, Gaia, PT
Oliveira & Cosme, 16.01.2013; Earth Condominium Conference, Gaia, PT
Oliveira & Cosme, 16.01.2013; Earth Condominium Conference, Gaia, PT
Oliveira & Cosme, 16.01.2013; Earth Condominium Conference, Gaia, PT
Oliveira & Cosme, 16.01.2013; Earth Condominium Conference, Gaia, PT
“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.”― E.F. Schumacher
Oliveira & Cosme, 16.01.2013; Earth Condominium Conference, Gaia, PT
1| Why measuring?
“Not only do we measure what we value, we also come to value what we measure”D. H. Meadows (1998)
To measure costs and benefits
Standardize to compare
Getting to a global compromise
Variability of measures
Different regions and cultures
Different ecosystem services
Trade-offs, confidence and predictability
Improving collective
management
Crucial for the management of common goods
Crossing of local, regional and global
realities
Oliveira & Cosme, 16.01.2013; Earth Condominium Conference, Gaia, PT
Ecosystem services valuation
It’s a hard task and it has many limitations Ethical issues connected to the intrinsic value of natural resources and
biodiversity It’s not possible to give a monetary value to every ecosystem service
1| Why measuring?
Even if the calculation is not accurate… the value is never zero!
It’s crucial to keep looking for ways to capture the natural capital, whether it is in a monetary manner or not
Oliveira & Cosme, 16.01.2013; Earth Condominium Conference, Gaia, PT
2| EcoSaldo – a metric for what is common
• The differential between positive and negative contributes that each nation gives or takes of the global natural systems
• A value to each unit of available biocapacity
What does EcoSaldo can be?
Provision costs - agreed compensation value that will allow the preservation/restoration of that same unit
Oliveira & Cosme, 16.01.2013; Earth Condominium Conference, Gaia, PT
2| EcoSaldo – a metric for what is common
Compensation value provision cost
Non-use valueMaintenance costNecessary investment for recovering and/or
maintaining biodiversity
Final goalMaintenance or improvement to the provision of ecosystem services
Oliveira & Cosme, 16.01.2013; Earth Condominium Conference, Gaia, PT
2| EcoSaldo – a metric for what is common
Global hectare (gha)Number of hectares with biological productivity equal to the global average
Ecological Footprint
Biocapacity
Which metric?
Oliveira & Cosme, 16.01.2013; Earth Condominium Conference, Gaia, PT
2| EcoSaldo – a metric for what is common
Ecological Footprint (EF)Quantity of biological productive soil that is necessary to produce resources and to absorb the waste produced, having in consideration the available technology and the current resource management
• Necessary area to produce resources for the consumers (cropland, grazing land, forest, fishing grounds)
• Built area• Carbon sequestration area (forests)
Oliveira & Cosme, 16.01.2013; Earth Condominium Conference, Gaia, PT
2| EcoSaldo – a metric for what is common
Has implications in the consumption and
available biocapacity
Efficiency with which the natural resources are converted into
goods and services
Different populations have different consumptions
EF= Population x consumption per person x intensity of the footprint
(gha)
Oliveira & Cosme, 16.01.2013; Earth Condominium Conference, Gaia, PT
2| EcoSaldo - uma métrica para o que é comum
Biocapacity (BC)
Aggregation of production yield of various ecosystems in a certain area (ex. arable land, forests)
It depends on factors such as type of ecosystem, management and health, agricultural practices
and meteorological factors
Available area to crops, grazing land, fishing grounds
and forests
BC = area x bioprodutivity (gha)
Oliveira & Cosme, 16.01.2013; Earth Condominium Conference, Gaia, PT
2| EcoSaldo – a metric for what is common
Ecological footprint and biocapacity tendencies per capita, between 1961 and 2008(source: adapted from WWF, 2012)
EcoSaldo = BC - EF
(gha)
Oliveira & Cosme, 16.01.2013; Earth Condominium Conference, Gaia, PT
2| EcoSaldo – a metric for what is common
Figura 2. Mapa de comparação entre pegada ecológica e biocapacidade (fonte: chartsbin.com/view/571)
Oliveira & Cosme, 16.01.2013; Earth Condominium Conference, Gaia, PT
EcoSaldo
Oliveira & Cosme, 16.01.2013; Earth Condominium Conference, Gaia, PT
2| EcoSaldo – a metric for what is common
World-map of EcoSaldo (source: earth-condominium.org)
Oliveira & Cosme, 16.01.2013; Earth Condominium Conference, Gaia, PT
UAE Ecological Footprint Animation- English.mp4
Oliveira & Cosme, 16.01.2013; Earth Condominium Conference, Gaia, PT
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."- Arthur Schopenhauer
Oliveira & Cosme, 16.01.2013; Earth Condominium Conference, Gaia, PT
Nuno Gaspar de Oliveira (coord.), Inês Cosme Teixeira | Investigadores CIGEST | Ambiente e Sustentabilidade ISG – Business & Economics School | [email protected] | Telefone: 21 751 37 00 ext. 127
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