Environmental economics articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Subsidies for coastal management and tax advantages for high-income property owners dampen the negative effects of climate risks on coastal property values. Without subsidies or tax advantages market prices better reflect climate risks, but coastal gentrification could accelerate.

    • Dylan E. McNamara
    • , Martin D. Smith
    •  & Craig E. Landry

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Building renovation is an urgent requirement to reduce the environmental impact associated with the building stock. In this paper, authors identify strategies for robust renovation considering uncertainties on the future and provide recommendations for the residential buildings in Switzerland.

    • Alina Galimshina
    • , Maliki Moustapha
    •  & Guillaume Habert

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Domestic attempts to advance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in a country can have synergistic and/or trade-off effects on the advancement of SDGs in other countries. Here the authors demonstrate that while high-income countries make up only 14% of the global population, they drive over 60% of worldwide SDG interactions.

    • Huijuan Xiao
    • , Sheng Bao
    •  & Jianguo Liu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Forest restoration in LMICs can contribute to global C mitigation targets. Here, the authors assess the economic feasibility of forest restoration methods in Panama, i.e. natural regeneration, native species plantings, and enrichment planting, showing that not all methods are economically viable.

    • Katherine Sinacore
    • , Edwin H. García
    •  & Jefferson S. Hall

  • Article
    | Open Access

    This study finds that flood insurance policy design affects economic development in floodplains and, consequently, flood risk in Europe. Therefore, the authors advocate for flood insurance design to be integrated in climate change adaptation policy.

    • Max Tesselaar
    • , W. J. Wouter Botzen
    •  & Jeroen C. J. H. Aerts

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Englander and Costello note that African coastal waters are among the world’s most biologically rich, but African countries earn much less than their peers from selling access to foreign fishers. They find forming a “fish cartel" would increase African fish biomass by 16% and profits by 23%.

    • Gabriel Englander
    •  & Christopher Costello

  • Article
    | Open Access

    By combining fisheries, nutrient, and carbon cycling data, this synthesis suggests that marine kelp forests, a dominant but often undescribed habitat, provide services with a potential value of $111,000/ha/year and a global yearly value of $500 billion.

    • Aaron M. Eger
    • , Ezequiel M. Marzinelli
    •  & Adriana Vergés

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Availability of modern seed varieties in developing countries has had positive effects on households’ well-being. Here, the authors show that without support to maintain soil fertility, access to modern seed varieties increases primary forest clearance in DR Congo.

    • Tanguy Bernard
    • , Sylvie Lambert
    •  & Margaux Vinez

  • Article
    | Open Access

    This paper shows that desertification combating practices decline incomes of farmers and herders, and China needs to adapt its ecological programmes to address the impacts of climate change and create positive synergies to combat desertification.

    • Xunming Wang
    • , Quansheng Ge
    •  & Fahu Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Melting of the Antarctic Ice Sheet is projected to impose severe costs on Small Island Developing States, and increase the worldwide social cost of carbon emissions, but costs could be reduced dramatically by efficient, proactive coastal planning.

    • Simon Dietz
    •  & Felix Koninx

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How land-tenure regimes affect deforestation remains ambiguous. This study shows how deforestation in Brazil is land-tenure dependent, and how strategies to effectively reduce deforestation can range from strengthening poorly defined rights to strengthening conservation-focused regimes.

    • Andrea Pacheco
    •  & Carsten Meyer

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    Flooding is a pervasive natural hazard, with new research demonstrating that more than one in five people around the world live in areas directly exposed to 1-in-100 year flood risk. Exposure to such flood risk is particularly concentrated amongst lower income households worldwide.

    • Thomas K. J. McDermott

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Pandemic control policy requires balancing economic and disease outcomes. This study develops a joint modeling approach that allows both aspects to be considered simultaneously and shows that targeted isolation is superior economically and can achieve similar disease outcomes to voluntary isolation or blanket lockdowns.

    • Thomas Ash
    • , Antonio M. Bento
    •  & Ana I. Bento

  • Article
    | Open Access

    This study indicates that approximately 5.8 TW of wind and solar photovoltaic capacity would be required to achieve carbon neutrality in China’s power system by 2050. The electricity supply costs would increase by 19.9% or 9.6 CNY¢/kWh.

    • Zhenyu Zhuo
    • , Ershun Du
    •  & Chongqing Kang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) will come into force in January 2022. Here the authors quantify ex ante economic and environmental effects following RCEP tariff reductions.

    • Kailan Tian
    • , Yu Zhang
    •  & Shouyang Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Deforestation and drainage have made Indonesian peatlands susceptible to burning. Here the authors find that Indonesia’s 2015 fires resulted in economic losses totaling US$28 billion, while the area burned and emissions released could have been significantly reduced had restoration been completed.

    • L. Kiely
    • , D. V. Spracklen
    •  & H. A. Adrianto

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Ammonia emissions from agricultural sources can cause severe health impacts. Here, the authors show that about 25% of global agricultural ammonia emissions in 2012 were related to international exported goods and caused 61 thousand PM2.5 related premature deaths, which points out large ammonia mitigation potential in international trade.

    • Rong Ma
    • , Ke Li
    •  & Jing Meng

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) influences the weather around the world and, therefore, has strong impacts on society. Here, the authors show that ENSO is associated with child nutrition in many countries, with warmer El Niño conditions leading to more child undernutrition in large parts of the developing world.

    • Jesse K. Anttila-Hughes
    • , Amir S. Jina
    •  & Gordon C. McCord

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Heatwaves are becoming increasingly frequent and more intense, causing severe economic impacts through reduced labour productivity. Here, the authors show that economic damages in Europe exceed 1% of the GDP in vulnerable areas, which might increase by a factor of almost five in the medium term without climate action.

    • David García-León
    • , Ana Casanueva
    •  & Lars Nybo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Ambitious global targets exist for mangrove restoration. A meta-analysis reveals how mangrove restoration provides higher ecosystem benefits over unvegetated tidal flats, while generally lower than natural mangroves. Restoration outcomes, however, depend on restoration age, species and method.

    • Jie Su
    • , Daniel A. Friess
    •  & Alexandros Gasparatos

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Climate change is expected to have impacts on human mortality, e.g. through increases in heat waves. Here, the author proposes a new metric to account for excess deaths from additional CO2 emissions, which allows to assess the mortality impacts of marginal emissions and leads to a substantial increase in the social costs of carbon.

    • R. Daniel Bressler

  • Article
    | Open Access

    European Union’s vulnerability to climate change stretches far beyond its borders. Here the authors find that more than 44% of the EU agricultural imports will become highly vulnerable to drought in future because of climate change.

    • Ertug Ercin
    • , Ted I. E. Veldkamp
    •  & Johannes Hunink

  • Perspective
    | Open Access

    The ocean supports many livelihoods, but this is currently not sustainable with pressures on the climate and ecosystems. Here, in this perspective, the authors outline the barriers and solutions for financing a sustainable ocean economy.

    • U. Rashid Sumaila
    • , Melissa Walsh
    •  & Junjie Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Benefit-cost analyses of climate policies have generated conflicting assessments; as social welfare is affected by regional heterogeneity. Here the authors show that economically optimal pathways are consistent with climate stabilization but are characterized by persistent economic inequalities due to climate damages.

    • Paolo Gazzotti
    • , Johannes Emmerling
    •  & Massimo Tavoni

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Established climate mitigation modelling relies on controversial negative emissions and unprecedented technological change, but neglects to consider degrowth scenarios. Here the authors show that degrowth scenarios minimize many key risks for feasibility and sustainability and thus need to be thoroughly assessed.

    • Lorenz T. Keyßer
    •  & Manfred Lenzen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Agricultural sectors receive US$600 billion per year in government support, providing incentives for GHG emission-intensive production. Here, the authors show that removing this support will not reduce global GHG emissions by much; rather it will need to be radically redirected to contribute to climate change mitigation.

    • David Laborde
    • , Abdullah Mamun
    •  & Rob Vos

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Determining attractive response strategies for international climate policy is a complex task. Here, the authors develop a meta-model that disentangles the main uncertainties using full literature ranges and use it to directly compare the insights of the cost-minimising and cost-benefit modelling communities.

    • Kaj-Ivar van der Wijst
    • , Andries F. Hof
    •  & Detlef P. van Vuuren

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Recent technological, social, and educational changes are profoundly impacting our work, but what makes labour markets resilient to those labour shocks? Here, the authors show that labour markets resemble ecological systems whose resilience depends critically on the network of skill similarities between different jobs.

    • Esteban Moro
    • , Morgan R. Frank
    •  & Iyad Rahwan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The impacts of water scarcity depend on physical basin characteristics and global economic dynamics. Here, the authors show scenario assumptions can yield either highly positive or negative economic impacts due to water scarcity, and the drivers of these impacts are basin-specific and cannot be determined a priori.

    • Flannery Dolan
    • , Jonathan Lamontagne
    •  & Jae Edmonds

  • Article
    | Open Access

    BIPP with biochar sequestration is a ready-to-implement negative emission technology in China. Here, the authors show that its national deployment could contribute to a 61% reduction of carbon emissions per GDP in 2030 compared to 2005, and contribute 13–31% of the global biomass-based negative emission goal by 2050.

    • Qing Yang
    • , Hewen Zhou
    •  & Michael B. McElroy

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Temperature changes as a result of climate change are expected to impact electric capacity and investment. Here, the authors show that in the United States under socioeconomic pathway 2 and RCP 8.5 mean temperature rises will drive increased electricity demand (0.5-8%) by 2100, along increases in capital investments by 3-22%.

    • Zarrar Khan
    • , Gokul Iyer
    •  & Marshall Wise

  • Article
    | Open Access

    As countries experience economic growth, diversification of economic activities may occur. Here, the authors develop a probabilistic model to examine the diversification of economic activities and how countries may move from small ecosystem products to advanced product clusters over time.

    • Neave O’Clery
    • , Muhammed Ali Yıldırım
    •  & Ricardo Hausmann

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Agricultural greenhouse gas emissions not only amplify the global climate crisis, but cause damage currently unaccounted for by food prices. Here the authors show the calculation of prices with internalized climate costs for food categories and production systems, revealing strong market distortions.

    • Maximilian Pieper
    • , Amelie Michalke
    •  & Tobias Gaugler

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Forests are critical for stabilizing our climate, but costs of mitigation remain uncertain. Here the authors show the global forest sector could reduce emissions by 6.0 GtCO2 yr−1 in 2055, or roughly 10% of the mitigation needed to limit warming to 1.5 °C by mid-century, at a cost of 393 billion USD yr−1, or $281/tCO2.

    • K. G. Austin
    • , J. S. Baker
    •  & A. Bean

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Due to legislative shortfalls, species of global conservation concern can still be captured in commercial fisheries. Here the authors show that 91 threatened species are reported in catch/landing databases, 13 of which are traded internationally despite their conservation concern.

    • Leslie A. Roberson
    • , Reg A. Watson
    •  & Carissa J. Klein

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