CLIMATE CHANGE – SOCIOECONOMIC EFFECTS Edited by Juan Blanco and Houshang Kheradmand Climate Change – Socioeconomic Effects Edited by Juan Blanco and Houshang Kheradmand Published by InTech Janeza Trdine 9, 51000 Rijeka, Croatia Copyright © 2011 InTech All chapters are Open Access articles distributed under the Creative Commons Non Commercial Share Alike Attribution 3.0 license, which permits to copy, distribute, transmit, and adapt the work in any medium, so long as the original work is properly cited. After this work has been published by InTech, authors have the right to republish it, in whole or part, in any publication of which they are the author, and to make other personal use of the work. Any republication, referencing or personal use of the work must explicitly identify the original source. Statements and opinions expressed in the chapters are these of the individual contributors and not necessarily those of the editors or publisher. No responsibility is accepted for the accuracy of information contained in the published articles. The publisher assumes no responsibility for any damage or injury to persons or property arising out of the use of any materials, instructions, methods or ideas contained in the book. Publishing Process Manager Iva Lipovic Technical Editor Teodora Smiljanic Cover Designer Jan Hyrat Image Copyright Vladimir Wrangel, 2010. Used under license from Shutterstock.com First published August, 2011 Printed in Croatia A free online edition of this book is available at www.intechopen.com Additional hard copies can be obtained from orders@intechweb.org Climate Change – Socioeconomic Effects, Edited by Juan Blanco and Houshang Kheradmand p. cm. ISBN 978-953-307-411-5 free online editions of InTech Books and Journals can be found at www.intechopen.com Contents Preface IX Chapter 1 Is Free Trade Good or Bad for the Environment? New Empirical Evidence 1 Nicolas Korves, Inmaculada Martínez-Zarzoso and Anca Monika Voicu Chapter 2 Changing Climate Related Behaviors: A Review of Social-Scientific Interventions 31 Anne Marike Lokhorst and Cees van Woerkum Chapter 3 Understanding and Modelling the Impact of Climate Change on Infectious Diseases – Progress and Future Challenges 43 Paul E. Parham, Céline Christiansen-Jucht, Diane Pople and Edwin Michael Chapter 4 Climate Change and Population Health: Possible Future Scenarios 67 Arthur Saniotis, Alana Hansen and Peng Bi Chapter 5 Climate Variability and Population Health in China: Updated Knowledge, Challenges and Opportunities 81 Ying Zhang, Peng Bi and Baofa Jiang Chapter 6 Climate Change and Sustainable Development of Water: Sub-Saharan Africa 103 Alexandra Lutz Chapter 7 The Climate Change, Water Crisis and Forest Ecosystem Services in Beijing, China 115 Zhang Biao Chapter 8 Evaluations and Perceptions of the Climate Change in the State of Veracruz (Mexico): An Overview 131 Adalberto Tejeda-Martínez, J. Abraham Torres-Alavez, Alfredo Ruiz-Barradas, Saúl Miranda-Alonso and Sonia Salazar-Lizán VI Contents Chapter 9 The Competitiveness of Selected New Members of the EU in the Environmental Products and Services Market 155 Zofia Wysokinska Chapter 10 Impacts of Climate Change on Animal Production and Quality of Animal Food Products 165 László Babinszky, Veronika Halas and Martin W.A. Verstegen Chapter 11 Climate Change Impacts: An Assessment for Water Resources Planning and Management in the Pacific Northwest of the U.S 191 Venkataramana Sridhar and Xin Jin Chapter 12 Human Ecology of Vulnerability, Resilience and Adaptation: Case Studies of Climate Change from High Latitudes and Altitudes 217 Karim-Aly S. Kassam, Michelle Baumflek, Morgan Ruelle and Nicole Wilson Chapter 13 Climate Change in Spain: Phenological Trends in Southern Areas 237 García-Mozo, H., Mestre, A. and Galán, C. Chapter 14 Climate Change Impacts on Czech Agriculture 251 Zdeněk Žalud, Miroslav Trnka, Petr Hlavinka, Martin Dubrovský, Eva Svobodová, Daniela Semerádová, Lenka Bartošová, Jan Balek, Josef Eitzinger and Martin Možný Chapter 15 Variability of the Course of Tomato Growth and Development in Poland as an Effect of Climate Change 279 Robert Kalbarczyk, Beata Raszka and Eliza Kalbarczyk Chapter 16 Economic Impacts of Climate Change on Agriculture: Adaptation and Vulnerability 307 Sung Ju Cho, Jinxiu Ding, Bruce A. McCarl and Chin-Hsien Yu Chapter 17 Sensitivity of Mexico’s Farmers: A Sub National Assessment of Vulnerability to Climate Change 325 Alejandro Ismael Monterroso Rivas, Cecilia Conde Álvarez, Jesús David Gómez Díaz, Carlos Gay Garcia, Lourdes Villers Ruiz and José López Garcia Chapter 18 Global Warming and Livestock in Dry Areas: Expected Impacts, Adaptation and Mitigation 341 Hichem Ben Salem, Mourad Rekik, Narjess Lassoued and Mohamed-Aziz Darghouth Contents VII Chapter 19 Regional Climate Change and Impact Assessment for the Federal State Hesse, Germany, and Implications of the Global 2 °C Climate Target 367 H. Huebener, S. Baumgart, N. Jansky, F. Kreienkamp, A. Spekat and H.Wolf Chapter 20 Intertemporal Evaluation Criteria for ClimateChange Policy: Basic Ethical Issues 385 Wolfgang Buchholz and Michael Schymura Chapter 21 Carbon Bio-Economics and Forests: Getting the BESF Out of Climate Policy 401 Valny Giacomelli Sobrinho Chapter 22 Forecasting the Future of Renewables 425 Seppo Valkealahti Chapter 23 Hitting the Headlines and Falling Down Again: Newspaper Coverage of Climate Change in Finland 441 Jari Lyytimäki Preface Climate is a fundamental part of the world as we know it. The landscape and everything on it are determined by climate acting over long periods of time (Pittock 2005). Therefore, any change on climate will have effects sooner or later on the world around us. These changes have happened before in the past, and they will likely happen again in the future. Climate variations can be both natural or anthropogenic (Simard and Austin 2010). In either case, the change in the current climate will have impacts on Earth’s biogeophysical system. As all human activities are built on this system, our society will be impacted as well. As a consequence, climate change is increasingly becoming one of the most important issues, creating discussions in economy, science, politics, etc. There is no doubt among scientists that climate change is real and it has the potential to change our environment (Oreskes and Conway 2010), but uncertainty exists about the magnitude and speed at which it will unfold (Moss et al. 2010). The most discussed effect of global warming is the increase of temperatures, although this increase will not be homogeneous through seasons, with winters expected to warm up significantly more than summers. In addition, changes in precipitation are also expected, which could lead to an increase or decrease of rainfall, snowfall and other water-related events. Finally, a change in the frequency and intensity of storm events could be possible, although this is probably the most uncertain of the global warming effects. These uncertainties highlight the need for more research on how global events have effects at regional and local scales, but they also indicate the need for our societies at large to assume a risk-free approach to avoid the worse effects of climate change in our socio-economical and ecological systems (IPCC 2007). Humans have been dealing with risk-related activities for a long time. For example, when buying a car or home insurance, the discussion is not about whether the adverse effects will happen or not, but on how to reduce its effects and recover from if they happen. In many countries, having car insurance is compulsory to drive a car even when, compared to the total number of cars, only a small percentage of drivers suffer car accidents. In addition, the most risky maneuvers (i.e. excessive speed, not stopping on red light) are banned to reduce the risks of accidents. Similarly, developing policies and practices that reduce and minimize the risks and effects of climate change is needed, even if the worse situations will never happen. If not, we will be in the equivalent situation of driving without insurance and without respecting road signals. X Preface All policies and practices for economic, industrial and natural resource management need to be founded on sound scientific foundations. The second section of this book offers an interdisciplinary view of the socioeconomic effects issues related to climate change, and provides a glimpse of state-of-the-art researches carried out around the world to inform scientists, policymakers and other stakeholders. The recent rapid increase in human population, industrial activities and resources consumption especially over the past century has raised concerns that humans are beginning to discover a new Socio-Economic and Ecological world with challenging benefits and issues and a real need for “not damaging more the planet”. The scientific consensus is that the current population expansion and accompanying increase in usage of resources is linked to threats to the ecosystem. According to projections, the world population will continue to grow until at least 2050, with the population expected to reach more than 10 billion in 2050. The scientific simulations including the climate change based on experiences is one of the best approaches to assess the risk and plan to manage related issues (Preston 2005, AGO 2006). Examining the potential socio-economic aspect of climate change and developing a sustainable management policy and strategy to manage the future issues is a holistic and multi-disciplinary approach including all critical issues such as food, water, energy, environment, health, revenue, life- quality, traditions at local, national, regional and global levels. The idea of sustainable development grew from numerous environmental movements in earlier decades. Summits such as the Earth Summit in Rio (Brazil, 1992) were major international meetings to bring sustainable development to the mainstream. However, records proving humanity’s ability to move toward a sustainable society appear to have been quite poor so far. The concept of sustainability means many different things to different people, and a large part of humanity around the world still live without access to basic necessities (UN 1992). This book shows some of the socio-economic impacts of climate change according to different estimates of the current or estimated global warming. A series of scientific and experimental research projects explore the impacts of climate change and browse the techniques to evaluate the related impacts: Inmaculada Martínez-Zarzoso, Nicolas Korves and Anca Monika Voicu, have tried to evaluate Free Trade “Socio-Economic and environment impacts” and helped to imagine the power of Trade and its consequences. Cees van Woerkum and Anne Marike Lokhorst describe the broad range of human behaviors and their impacts on the natural environment. Paul E. Parham, Céline Christiansen-Jucht, Diane Pople and Edwin Michael review current knowledge on the impacts of global change and provide valuable models for a better understanding of future disease challenges. [...]... scientists and environmentalists; it also has direct implications on various ecosystems and technologies The other two books of this series Climate change – Geophysical foundations and ecological effects and Climate Change – Research and technology for climate change adaptation and mitigation” explore these topics in detail We can thus only encourage the reader to also consult them The Editors want... specific effects are included, one-way FE only includes country fixed effects) 12 A positive trade coefficient for all countries could thereby give support to the “race-to-the-bottom” hypothesis and a negative coefficient to the Porter hypothesis However, clear implications would only be possible if one analyzes the environmental policy in the respective countries 18 Climate Change – Socioeconomic Effects. .. The authors find the results of this literature group inconclusive, and moreover, because the predicted effects are solely based on survey responses, there is no way to isolate and quantify them 6 8 Climate Change – Socioeconomic Effects consisting of a larger country sample, Tobey cannot reject the hypothesis that environmental stringency has no effect on net exports However, the validity of his conclusions... increased demand for energy How can these affect climate change? According to the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo, Norway, “The transport sector is responsible for a large share of gas and particle emissions 6 Climate Change – Socioeconomic Effects that affect the climate These emissions also threaten human health, crops, and the material infrastructure Higher standards... Lopez & Islam (2008), Cole (2003), Stoessel (2001), 4 Climate Change – Socioeconomic Effects Trade is also credited with raising national incomes The literature reports a great deal of evidence that higher incomes affect environmental quality in positive ways (Grossman & Krueger, 1993; Copeland and Taylor, 2004) This suggests that, when assessing the effects of growth and trade on the environment, we... Pittock, A.B (2005) Climate change Turning up the heat Earthscan, London ISBN 0643069343 Preston B.L 2005 Stochastic Simulation for Climate Change Risk Assessment and Management MODSIM 2005 International Congress on Modelling and Simulation Modelling and Simulation Society of Australia and New Zealand, December 2005, pp 524-530 ISBN: 0-9758400-2-9 Simard, S.W., Austin, M.E (2010) Climate change and variability... countries might weaken their environmental policy in order to shelter their industry from 2 Climate Change – Socioeconomic Effects international competition or to attract foreign firms due to low costs of environmental protection as a similar incentive as low labor costs In contrast, advocates of free trade point out the potential “gains from trade,” in particular, the increases in income generated by trade... measured by GDP per km² Cole and Elliott (2003) use national emission data, but are able to estimate technique effects as well as a combined scale-technique effect due to the use of both per capita emissions and pollution intensities as dependent variables 14 Climate Change – Socioeconomic Effects 3.3 Target variable Numerous studies test for the PHH by using a measure of environmental stringency as... and Timmins, 2008) all estimate a significant 16 Climate Change – Socioeconomic Effects pollution haven effect using panel data These results indicate that it is important to control for unobserved heterogeneity Empirical investigations that control for endogeneity of environmental policy tend to find more robust evidence on moderate pollution haven effects For example, Ederington and Minier (2003)... stochastic error term δt are the time specific fixed effects that control for time varying omitted variables and stochastic shocks which are common to all countries but which change over time (e.g technological progress) μi are the country specific fixed effects that account for effects specific to each country which do not change over time (e.g climate and resource endowments) The notation “ln” denotes . CLIMATE CHANGE – SOCIOECONOMIC EFFECTS Edited by Juan Blanco and Houshang Kheradmand Climate Change – Socioeconomic Effects Edited by Juan. The other two books of this series Climate change – Geophysical foundations and ecological effects and Climate Change – Research and technology for climate change adaptation and mitigation”. is responsible for a large share of gas and particle emissions Climate Change – Socioeconomic Effects 6 that affect the climate. These emissions also threaten human health, crops, and the