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Modelling Sustainable Development: Transitions to a Sustainable Future

2010; Oxford University Press; Volume: 37; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/erae/jbq004

1464-3618

Erik Mathijs,

Climate Change Policy and Economics

This book is based on the results of the TranSust (The Transition to Sustainable Economic Structures) project, a research project funded under the EU's Fifth Framework Programme aimed at creating a community of researchers ‘contributing to a new generation of modelling tools that are more adequate for dealing with sustainability issues’ (www.transust.org). Its 16 chapters offer an applied approach to the concept of sustainable development. The core is formed by the modelling tools used by the researchers: MARKAL, DEMETER, IMACLIM-S, E3ME, FEEM-RICE and PACE. It appeared in the Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM) Series on Economics, the Environment and Sustainable Development. The book aims at redressing the balance between the abstract interpretations and definitions of sustainable development, on the one hand, and offering policy-makers feasible and effective guidelines, on the other. The first part of the book defines sustainability. It starts with a well-written chapter by Richard Töl who discusses how economic models can be used to give advice to policy-makers on sustainable development. The chapter sets the stage for the rest of the book and contains some interesting observations. First, Töl argues that economists have to release some of their simplistic assumptions in order to obtain a realistic representation of the environment. Second, he observes that most models are tailored towards a single environmental issue and that more holistic models are required. His conclusions make the reader wonders how the TranSust consortium has tackled these issues. The second chapter of the first part is written by Barbara Buchner of the International Energy Agency, which gives the broader EU policy context. The third chapter, by Ray Kopp, offers a very short American view of sustainability and is rather obsolete in the book.