Reference no: EM133189876

Q1. Discuss the social and economic benefits associated with pursuing environmental improvement(s) policies.

Note: please follow these six points in your and work according to word limit required. Your answer must include

Indicative Answer: Environmental protection policies entail positive impacts of an economic and social nature. It is thus important for countries to develop strategies that seek to prioritise convergence of their environmental policies and legislation. The benefit assessments cover a broad range of parameters such as air, waste, water, nature and biodiversity, as well as climate change. There could be other parameters to explore as well. Generally, studies have shown that reducing air pollutants has the advantage of saving lives and preserving natural resources. Though there is an argument that environmental regulation may deter economic growth in some contexts, while in other contexts the benefits of regulation may be obtained with little or no economic loss (Feiock and Stream., 2001). This statement is important to show understanding of the question, [it is not the focus of the question] hence need pursuing carefully with not much elaboration. The aim is to explore the positive aspects of pursuing environmental policies.

i. In the water sector, positive effects of enhanced environment protection and service provision would be significant. Improved drinking water quality, household sewage connection, and improved hygiene practices

ii. In the waste sector, the achievement of selected targets would lead to an additional people being covered by proper municipal waste collection. Also, methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, could potentially be captured from improved landfills.

iii. Increasing the renewable energy share of the energy mix also offers a major opportunity for reducing greenhouse gas emissions as well as creating employment.

iv. Forests are critically important storage of carbon - storing around 34 billion tons of carbon, equal to 125 billion tons of CO2. Deforestation and the degradation of forests risks releasing emissions as well as losing a range of forest ecosystem services such as water purification and supply, flood control and provision of forest products.

v. Committing to the target of increasing marine protected areas, will be also be important in maintaining and increasing ecosystem services that are a foundation for our economies and societies and helping in the adaptation to climate change, by improving ecosystem resilience.

vi. Agriculture: in Europe, agriculture, provides 20-50% of employment in half of the European Neighbourhood countries. Most of these suffer from extensive land degradation in most of the countries. Improved crop land quality alone, from better land management and agricultural practices, could provide benefits of 13 to 25 billion Euros per year by 2020 if half of yield losses from land degradation are reversed.

vii. There are suggestions that there are important opportunities for a transition to a green economy, that would create more social well-being, including better health, and more jobs and economic progress, while at the same time reducing environmental risks, such as the effects of air pollution, inappropriate waste management, greater water scarcity, the loss of eco-services, and climate change.