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148 R. Bleischwitz et al. US. The Conference had called for deep emission cuts with a view to reducing global emissions and for mitigation goals from all major countries/country groups, as well as China, whose rapidly growing economy has made it a world economy leader while its partly inward-looking political elite has hardly developed broader concepts of joint international responsibility and joint international leadership. Climate change in a conventional sense has topped the international policy agenda since the Kyoto Protocol was signed by most OECD countries; the USA did not come on board, fearing, among other reasons, that its economic growth could be impaired. There is a broad sustainability debate in the world economy in which actors from both OECD countries and newly industrialized countries actively participate (Bleischwitz et al. 2009). While economic growth remains an important policy goal in all countries, the Transatlantic Financial Market Crisis has undermined the stability of the Western market economies and the shortsightedness observed in financial markets raises new issues for the broader sustainability debate. Can we achieve environmental sustainability under conditions in which financial market participants have few incentives to think long term and in which new uncertainties undermine the stability of OECD countries (Welfens 2010)? Climate change has turned out to become such an important issue that negotiating a new agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol is being faced with many—probably too many—expectations. As has been witnessed at the recent Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, which aimed to hammer out a post-2012 global agreement on climate change, the Europeans had hoped for a legally binding agreement with targets and timetables for the reduction of greenhouse gases, whereas other countries, notably the USA and China, have stressed the importance of international trade, growth and recovery after the turmoil of the financial crisis, and development rights. The Asia-Pacific Economic Conference Summit in Singapore in November 2009 had, to a large extent, paved the way for what is now called the “Copenhagen Accord” on climate change—a relatively toothless document without any new binding emission targets as seen by many Europeans, and a very small step forward towards solving important issues such as financing, deforestation and adaptation as seen from another angle, perhaps in an entirely new international architecture as proposed by Olmstead and Stavins (2009). As argued in Zhang (2009), international climate negotiations for an immediate post- 2012 global climate regime should not attempt unrealistic goals. Without all of the factors, discussed in Zhang (2009), being met for a legally binding global agreement, the Copenhagen Accord is probably the best that could be achieved. The situation could be worse because the negotiations could have completely collapsed. Looking back, it seems justified to characterize these international negotiations as “systems overload”— an attempt to address too many issues within a system that is constrained by diplomacy, passions and interests (this is the view of Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff in his “Copenhagen lessons” in the FT of December 2009). This special issue of International Economics and Economic Policy seeks to analyze the underlying issue of green growth from a slightly different angle, called “resource policy”. Our understanding of the latter is a policy that seeks to enhance the sustainability of using resources along their full life cycle from extraction to transformation into materials and production, transportation, consumption onto recycling and disposal. There are some obvious advantages in doing so, and a few other aspects that may deserve an explanation. Starting with the synergies between climate change and the use of
The international economics of resources and resource policy 149 natural resources, it is clear that a key abatement strategy, such as energy efficiency, is not just mirrored by attempts to use materials more efficiently. Using materials more efficiently also potentially allows for grasping more opportunities to save energy along the whole value chain, to save material purchasing costs and to enhance competitiveness (Aldersgate Group 2010; Bringezu and Bleischwitz 2009). In a broader context, fossil fuels are but one natural resource that is used in societies worldwide. All potential substitutes such as biofuels and renewable energies depend upon natural resources such as land, steel and platinum. Providing these natural resources in a most sustainable manner will thus become a key strategy for climate change mitigation as well as for green growth. How industry and economies take up these challenges will become a major issue for economic research. International commodity markets provide important signals on using natural resources to economic actors. After a relatively long period of surging commodity prices, the financial crisis marked a break in 2008. However, after a sharp decline in early 2009 the commodity prices have again started to rise and are now back at a level that is higher than in the nineties of the last century. Analyzing the dynamics of these markets, be it for oil, raw materials or for secondary materials, as well as potential leakage effects that result from low regulatory environmental standards, will deserve more attention from international economics in the coming years. Moreover, given the weak state of forecasting in that area—yet, there is no international agency with a mandate to develop a comprehensive set of scenarios on future materials markets—and acknowledging a lack of awareness for material efficiency as pointed out by Rennings and Rammer (2009), a well-spring of new research can be expected on current drivers for resource use and how actors and economies will use natural resources, energy and materials in the future. Material Flow Analysis (MFA) was created a few years ago as an attempt to analyze the use of natural resources in societies. It is associated with concepts such as ‘industrial ecology’ and ‘socio-industrial metabolisms’ 1 —and may not yet have fully explored the economic dimension of material flows. Integrating the stages of production, consumption and recycling, it goes beyond traditional resource economics and offers a comprehensive perspective for resource policy. Since Eurostat and OECD have provided handbooks on the measurement of material flows, and do in fact promote the collection of data and applying concepts, there are many opportunities for international economics and economic policy to integrate MFA in their models and empirical analysis. Recalling the issue of green growth and innovation, this special issue seeks to explore a new category of innovation that can be characterized as “material flow innovation” (see the paper written by Bleischwitz in this issue). While the established categories of process, product and system innovation (as well as organizational and advertising innovation, see e.g. the OECD Oslo Manual on Innovation) have their merits, the claim can be made that given the pervasive use of resources across all stages of production and consumption, a new category will have to be established to capture the various new innovation activities ahead. 1 See e.g. the web pages of the International Society for Industrial Ecology: www.is4ie.org and www. materialflows.net on data.
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240 R. Bleischwitz The vast majorit
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244 R. Bleischwitz Ericsson M (2009
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246 R. Walz 1 Introduction Competen
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248 R. Walz Based on the pollution
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250 R. Walz procedures. However, ev
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252 R. Walz In addition to exports,
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254 R. Walz 4 Technological capabil
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256 R. Walz 4.2 Analysis of patents
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260 R. Walz Fig. 10 Specialization
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262 R. Walz Table 1 Overview of ind
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344 C. Lutz 1 Introduction This cha
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346 C. Lutz The scenario analysis a
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348 C. Lutz is designed to reduce g
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350 C. Lutz 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 C
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352 C. Lutz Table 2 EU27 productivi
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354 C. Lutz material-intensive to l
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356 C. Lutz Giljum S, Behrens A, Hi
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358 T. Machiba While industries are
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360 T. Machiba Field Target Technol
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