Page 5 - HKUST IEMS Spring 2018 Newsletter
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BALANCING DEVELOPMENT AND THE ENVIRONMENT
From the 1980s to 2015, China’s national expressway network pollution levels. Finally, large infrastructure projects or policies
expanded from being non-exsitent to more than 111,000 which transfer technology can be used to develop poorer regions
kilometres, becoming the world’s largest expressway system by faster, thus limiting the environmental impact of development.
length. Now, more than half of Chinese counties are connected to Otherwise, increases in productivity can degrade environmental
the system, transforming both less- and more-developed counties. quality, at least in the initial stages of economic development.
This transformation is not uniform throughout the country, even
though the expressway network was originally conceived of and Meanwhile, Susmita Dasgupta
implemented as a unified, economic policy that would benefit all. (World Bank) presented research
on the development and
In his academic seminar, application of location specific
Guojun He (HKUST) argues that biodiversity indicators to identify
blanket policies risk unintended areas with critical biodiversity
consequences, and it is important in the moist tropical forests of
to ask not only how such Bolivia, Cameroon and Myanmar.
policies affected the country— Whilst development and
at both the county and national improvement of infrastructure,
levels— but also to understand especially roads, is essential
the channels through which it for rural development, it also leads to leads to destruction of
did so. How does an economy forests and habitats of biodiversity. This is further exacerbated by
rebalance economic production insufficient information on location specific biodiversity which lends
and environmental preservation when its ability to generate income itself to development for economic gain in the face of inadequate
using environmental resources changes? Theoretically, we predict information on environmental impact. Dasgupta was able to
that an increase in the ability can have heterogeneous impacts on the develop a methodology by which policymakers would be able to
economy’s environmental quality and income. Empirically, we find that assess potential economic gains as well as potential biodiversity
the dramatic expansion of China’s national expressway system, which loss for infrastructure development or infrastructure improvement.
arguably enhanced the income-generating abilities of Chinese counties,
indeed affects their economic and environmental performances Dasgupta's findings emphasize that the extent of forest clearing is
differentially: expressway access increases pollution and GDP in initially highly responsive to the distance to the nearest urban market. This
poor counties, reduces pollution and GDP in initially rich counties, responsiveness is lower for primary road links, because their higher
and reduces pollution while increasing GDP in counties with middling average vehicle speeds and lower maintenance costs reduce the effect
income levels. of distance to market. Using the estimated forest clearing response
elasticities and a composite biodiversity indicator, this research computes
an index of expected biodiversity loss from upgrading secondary roads
to primary road status. The results identify areas in Bolivia, Cameroon
and Myanmar where high expected biodiversity losses may warrant
additional protection as road upgrading continues. In addition, they
provide ecological risk ratings for individual road corridors that can
inform environmentally-sensitive infrastructure investment programs.
As road upgrading will inevitably accompany rural development
programs in many countries, the methodology developed
by Susmita Dasgupta has the potential for more widespread
application in all moist tropical forest countries.
In response, policy-makers should tailor their solutions depending Academic Seminar, “Balancing Development
on the development level of specific regions. Productivity- and the Environment in a Changing World:
enhancing policies can cause different effects in different regions, Expressways, GDP, and Pollution in China”
as they choose different development strategies. The desired by Guojun He (HKUST) on 2017.11.25
emission-income combination may depend on a region’s initial More information available at
income or environmental quality. In this context, a single, unified http://iems.ust.hk/guodao
economic or environmental policy can cause welfare losses.
Secondly, not only can redistributive policies tackle income Academic Seminar, “Minimizing Ecological
inequality issues in China, but they can also address increasingly Damage from Road Improvement in
political environmental issues by incentivizing regions to reduce Tropical Forests” co-organized with HKUST
Institute for Public Policy (IPP) by Susmita
Dasgupta (World Bank) on 2017.11.23
Video available at http://iems.ust.hk/forests
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