IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/erg/wpaper/592.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Sustainable Development and Environmental Challenges in The MENA Region: Accounting for The Environment In The 21st Century

Author

Listed:
  • Susan L. Sakmar

    (University of San Francisco School of Law)

  • Mathis Wackernagel
  • Alessandro Galli
  • David Moore

Abstract

The MENA Region faces a range of challenges to its long-term security and prosperity in the 21st century. Although many of the Region’s economic challenges have been widely analyzed, environmental challenges are rarely taken into consideration in the process of formulating economic policies in the MENA Region. This paper begins to address the major gaps in knowledge about the economics of the environment in the MENA Region and will analyze the most current literature and trends regarding sustainable resource management for the 21st century. This paper proposes a framework for the discussion of the economic ramification of various environmental issues facing the MENA Region. It also presents various environmental accounting systems and indicators that may be useful for the MENA Region to implement in order to manage these issues more effectively. Of particular relevance is the establishment of environmental accounts as set forth under the System of Environmental Economic Accounting (SEEA), which is expected to become an international statistical standard for integrated economic and environmental accounting using concepts, definitions and classifications of the System of National Accounts (SNA). The paper then proposes the Ecological Footprint as an additional tool for resource and ecosystem service accounting. The Ecological Footprint is a resource accounting tool that measures how much productive area it takes to produce what a population consumes and absorb its waste, using prevailing technology. It compares this to the available biocapacity of the world or each country. The paper concludes by recognizing that given the complexity of the concept of sustainable development and measuring what counts for the well-being of both present and future generations, it is evident that robust accounting tools and indicators are needed for the 21st century. While many of these tools already exist and can be found in the SEEA and Ecological Footprint, more analysis is needed on the areas of overlap and potential integration of these two systems.

Suggested Citation

  • Susan L. Sakmar & Mathis Wackernagel & Alessandro Galli & David Moore, 2011. "Sustainable Development and Environmental Challenges in The MENA Region: Accounting for The Environment In The 21st Century," Working Papers 592, Economic Research Forum, revised 06 Jan 2011.
    • Handle: RePEc:erg:wpaper:592
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://erf.org.eg/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/592.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://bit.ly/2molTvx
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. World Commission on Environment and Development,, 1987. "Our Common Future," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780192820808.
    2. J. Steven Landefeld & James R. Hines, 1985. "National Accounting For Non‐Renewable Natural Resources In The Mining Industries," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 31(1), pages 1-20, March.
    3. Glenn-marie Lange, 2004. "Wealth, Natural Capital, and Sustainable Development: Contrasting Examples from Botswana and Namibia," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 29(3), pages 257-283, November.
    4. Kitzes, Justin & Galli, Alessandro & Bagliani, Marco & Barrett, John & Dige, Gorm & Ede, Sharon & Erb, Karlheinz & Giljum, Stefan & Haberl, Helmut & Hails, Chris & Jolia-Ferrier, Laurent & Jungwirth, , 2009. "A research agenda for improving national Ecological Footprint accounts," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(7), pages 1991-2007, May.
    5. Walter Isard, 1969. "Some Notes On The Linkage Of The Ecologic And Economic Systems," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(1), pages 85-96, January.
    6. R. M. Solow, 1974. "Intergenerational Equity and Exhaustible Resources," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 41(5), pages 29-45.
    7. repec:bla:scandj:v:88:y:1986:i:1:p:141-49 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Pearce, David W. & Atkinson, Giles D., 1993. "Capital theory and the measurement of sustainable development: an indicator of "weak" sustainability," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 103-108, October.
    9. Herman E. Daly, 1968. "On Economics as a Life Science," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 76(3), pages 392-392.
    10. Sachs, Jeffrey D. & Warner, Andrew M., 2001. "The curse of natural resources," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(4-6), pages 827-838, May.
    11. Leontief, Wassily, 1970. "Environmental Repercussions and the Economic Structure: An Input-Output Approach," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 52(3), pages 262-271, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Shahbaz, Muhammad & Balsalobre-Lorente, Daniel & Sinha, Avik, 2019. "Foreign Direct Investment–CO2 Emissions Nexus in Middle East and North African countries: Importance of Biomass Energy Consumption," MPRA Paper 91729, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 19 Jan 2019.
    2. Fay?al Chiad & Smail Moumeni & Amine Aoussi, 2022. "The joint effect of financial development and human capital on the ecological footprint: The Algerian case," ECONOMICS AND POLICY OF ENERGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2022(1), pages 69-93.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Perrings, Charles, 2014. "Environment and development economics 20 years on," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 19(3), pages 333-366, June.
    2. Stern, David I., 1997. "Limits to substitution and irreversibility in production and consumption: A neoclassical interpretation of ecological economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 197-215, June.
    3. Jeroen C.J.M. van den Bergh, 2000. "Ecological Economics: Themes, Approaches, and Differences with Environmental Economics," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 00-080/3, Tinbergen Institute.
    4. Barbier,Edward B., 2007. "Natural Resources and Economic Development," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521706513.
    5. Hubacek, Klaus & van den Bergh, Jeroen C.J.M., 2006. "Changing concepts of 'land' in economic theory: From single to multi-disciplinary approaches," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 5-27, January.
    6. Toman, Michael & Pezzey, John C., 2002. "The Economics of Sustainability: A Review of Journal Articles," RFF Working Paper Series dp-02-03, Resources for the Future.
    7. Toman, Michael & Lile, Ronald D. & King, Dennis M., 1998. "Assessing Sustainability: Some Conceptual and Empirical Challenges," Discussion Papers 10756, Resources for the Future.
    8. Koji Tokimatsu & Louis Dupuy & Nick Hanley, 2019. "Using Genuine Savings for Climate Policy Evaluation with an Integrated Assessment Model," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 72(1), pages 281-307, January.
    9. Eugenio Figueroa B. & Enrique Calfucura T., 2002. "Depreciación del Capital Natural, Ingreso y Crecimiento Sostenible: Lecciones de la Experiencia Chilena," Working Papers Central Bank of Chile 138, Central Bank of Chile.
    10. Nick Hanley & Louis Dupuy & Eoin McLaughlin, 2015. "Genuine Savings And Sustainability," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 779-806, September.
    11. Damien Bazin & Emna Omri & Nouri Chtourou, 2015. "Solar Thermal Energy for Sustainable Development in Tunisia," Post-Print halshs-01070616, HAL.
    12. Morilla, Carmen Rodriguez & Diaz-Salazar, Gaspar Llanes & Cardenete, M. Alejandro, 2007. "Economic and environmental efficiency using a social accounting matrix," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(4), pages 774-786, February.
    13. Bazhanov, A., 2011. "The Dependence of the Potential Sustainability of a Resource Economy on the Initial State: a Comparison of Models Using the Example of Russian Oil Extraction," Journal of the New Economic Association, New Economic Association, issue 12, pages 77-100.
    14. Weitzman, Martin L. & Lofgren, Karl-Gustaf, 1997. "On the Welfare Significance of Green Accounting as Taught by Parable," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 139-153, February.
    15. Luke McGrath & Stephen Hynes & John McHale, 2020. "Linking Sustainable Development Assessment in Ireland and the European Union with Economic Theory," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 51(2), pages 327-355.
    16. John C. V. Pezzey, 2004. "Sustainability Policy and Environmental Policy," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 106(2), pages 339-359, June.
    17. Eoin McLaughlin & Cristián Ducoing & Les Oxley, 2024. "Tracing Sustainability in the Long Run: Genuine Savings Estimates 1850–2018," NBER Chapters, in: Measuring and Accounting for Environmental Public Goods: A National Accounts Perspective, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Glenn-marie Lange, 2004. "Wealth, Natural Capital, and Sustainable Development: Contrasting Examples from Botswana and Namibia," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 29(3), pages 257-283, November.
    19. Koji Tokimatsu & Rintaro Yamguchi & Masayuki Sato & Rieko Yasuoka & Masahiro Nishio & Kazuhiro Ueta, 2014. "Assessing future sustainability by forecast of Genuine Savings paths," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 16(4), pages 359-379, October.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:erg:wpaper:592. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sherine Ghoneim (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/erfaceg.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.