ENVIRONMENTAL AND THERMODYNAMIC INDICATORS IN SUPPORT OF FAIR AND SUSTAINABLE POLICY MAKING Investigating equitable trade among Latvia, Denmark and Italy

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ENVIRONMENTAL AND THERMODYNAMIC INDICATORS IN
SUPPORT OF FAIR AND SUSTAINABLE POLICY
MAKINGInvestigating equitable trade among
Latvia, Denmark and Italy
2nd International Conference onINTEGRATIVE
APPROACHES TOWARDS SUSTAINABILITYRiga, Latvia,
May 11 - 14, 2005
Sergio Ulgiati, University of Siena, Italy Catia
Cialani, University of Foggia, Italy
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In this lecture we will

• Explore the role of environmental support in the
  economic performance of a Nation
• Explore the potentiality of the emergy approach
  in assessing such a performance
• Use the emergy approach for an assessment of
  trade among Latvia, Denmark and Italy
• Investigate options for implementing trade
  balance and equity among Nations

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Lets start from Mineral Mining and Trading
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The Point of View of the Economy Metals and
Minerals Price Index, 1960-2001
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Mineral Dependence and Poverty RatesSelected
Countries, 1990s
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Where does wealth come from?
Resources
Money
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The Terms of Trade
Imports The purchase of goods, services and
energy from abroad that leads to an outflow of
currency from a country
Exports The sale of goods, services and energy
to buyers from other countries leading to an
inflow of currency to the country
The Terms of Trade looks at the relationship
between the money received for exports and the
money paid for imports
Average Price of
Exports Terms of Trade
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Average Price of Imports
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The Italian Terms of Trade
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Environmental support

• Everything in the biosphere is the product of a
  continuous self-organization activity, in which
  resources are degraded, cycled, and transformed
  via processes driven by solar energy, deep heat
  and gravitational potential.

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The energy chain
At each transformation step some energy is
degraded and some is passed to the next step in
the chain.
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Techno-humans
The 20th century energy food chain
(Courtesy of Mark T. Brown, 2004)
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Environmental Accounting methods
MATERIAL INTENSITY is the overall material input
which humans move, divert or extract to make a
product or provide a service
(Wuppertal)
ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT is the amount of appropriate
productivity, expressed in hectares that is
needed to sustain a given process or population

(Wackernagel and Reese)
EMERGY is a measure of the global environmental
support to a system, expressed in unit of solar
equivalent energy (seJ) (H. T. Odum)
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Emergy Definition
EMERGY - The available energy (of one form,
usually solar) required directly and indirectly
to make something (seJ)
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Emergy Intensity
The amount of emergy required to produce a given
amount of mass or energy of a product (seJ/J
seJ/g seJ/)
Emergy Intensity Emergy support Output
(Joules or grams)
Output Joules or grams
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Emergy Based Indicators.
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Signatures
Signature of driving emergies for 1 hectare of
Florida mangrove ecosystem (Brown and Bardi, 2001)
Signature of driving emergies for 1 hectare of
corn in Florida (Brandt-Williams, 2002)
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Openness, environmental loading, density,...
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Emergy and Money
3.48 E24 seJ/yr (Italy, 2002)
1.44 E12 /yr
3.48 E24 seJ/yr ----------------------- 1.44
E12 /yr
2.42 E24 seJ/
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Wealth comes from resources, not from money
Environmental - Economic Interface System
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Structure of an emergy table
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Energy Systems Diagram of Italy
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Emergy Evaluation of Italy 2002
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Emergy Use within the country
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Break-down of Imports
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Emergy signature of Italy, 2002
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Emergy Evaluation of Latvia, 2002
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Imports-Exports of Latvia, 2002
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Emergy Signature of Latvia, 2002

• Large dependence on
• local renewable inputs
• comparable amounts of imported fossil fuels and
  commodities other than fuels.

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Emergy Signature of Denmark, 2002

• Large dependence on
• fossil fuels (local and imported)
• imports of goods and commodities other than
  fuels.

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Emergy-based terms of trade
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Oil trade to Italy
Emergy Benefit to Purchaser...
Price 55/barrel
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(6.9 E09 J/bbl)(9.07 E4 seJ/J) ( 55/bbl)(2.42
E12 seJ/)
4.70
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Emergy Evaluation of Trade among countries, 2002
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Trade of selected products
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Conclusions
1 ) Emergy should be used to help assessing and
implementing fair trade
2) Prices of commodities are unlikely to reflect
equity of trade. 3) Trade equity requires
Very difficult
Prices of primary resources exported to be much
higher than the present ones
Raw materials to be processed into final products
at home and final product exported at higher price
Possible
Increased international cooperation for
Updated and reliable databases on resource
exchange Equitable Trade Know how transfer,etc
Desirable
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Equity of International Resource Exchange
Trade and projects that unbalance local
economiesand increase emergy inequity between
countries, do not maximize the world economy,
because they leave major sectors of the world's
population in poverty, essentially outside the
world economy. This pattern wastes resources into
luxury and excess of the developed countries,
diverting resources that used to go directly to
population support (without payments)
This pattern is not sustainable, does not
maximize world wealth and emergy, does not
reinforce world production, and will not last.
These patterns will become discredited as world
opinion changes, as revolutions occur, and
worldwide resource depletion soon cuts off the
largesse of the overdeveloped countries." (H.T.
Odum, 1994)
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Thanks you for your attention