Environmental Management (EnEg 5193)

PART I

Environmental Policy and Regulations

 Outline
 Environmental pollution prevention and control
 Environmental and natural resources
 Sustainable development
 Environmental regulation
 International environmental agreements
 Environmental policy of Ethiopia
 Pollution control proclamation of Ethiopia
 Environmental Regulations
 Environmental Regulations: are the general rules and specific
actions enforced by administrative agencies so as to control
pollution and manage natural resources with the purpose of
protecting the environment and internalizing externalities,
including direct and indirect interventions.
• mandatory requirements that can apply to individuals, businesses, state or
local governments, non-profit institutions, or others.
 Externality: is a cost or benefit caused by a producer that is not
financially incurred or received by that producer
• can be both positive (e.g., avoids the use of lawn treatments that runoff to
rivers) or negative (e.g., a business that causes pollution)
 Environmental Regulations

1. Command and Control

2. Pollution charge and subsidies

Market-Oriented
3. Tradable permits (cap and trade programs)
 Command and Control
 Defined as “the direct regulation of an industry or activity by
legislation that states what is permitted and what is illegal”
 The ‘command’ is the presentation of quality standards/targets by
the government authority that must be complied with
 The ‘Control’ part signifies the negative sanctions that may result
from non-compliance e.g., prosecution
 A standard is a mandated level of performance that is enforced by
laws and regulations
 A standard simply makes excessive level of pollution illegal
 Different types of standards
 Ambient, emission, and technology standards
 Command and Control
 Ambient standard
 Regulates the amount of pollutant that is present in the
surrounding (ambient) environment
 e.g., ppm of DO in water, SO2 in air shed, ground level Ozone

(ppm)
 Measures are often an average ( 1hr, 24 hr, per year etc)

 Note: The level itself can not be directly enforced to secure

that the ambient standard is met, it is the source of pollution
that must be found and regulated
 Command and Control
 Emission Standards
 Emission standards are the legal requirements governing pollutants
released into the environment.
 Emission standards set quantitative limits on the permissible
amount of specific pollutants that may be released from specific
sources over specific timeframes
 expressed in terms of quantity of material per some unit of time;
for example, grams per minute or tons per week.
 They are generally designed to achieve environmental quality
standards and to protect human health.
 Regulates the level of emission that is legally allowed (i.e.
pollution is allowed but, the level of pollution is regulated)
 Command and Control
Variety of Emission Standards
o Emission rate (e.g., pounds per hour).
o Emission concentration (e.g., ppm of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) in
wastewater).
o Total quantity of residuals (rate of discharge times concentration times
duration).
o Residuals produced per unit of output (e.g., SO2 emissions per kilowatt-hour of
electricity produced).
o Residuals content per unit of input (e.g., SO2 emissions per ton of coal burned
in power generation).
o Percentage removal of pollutant (e.g., 60 percent removal of waste material
before discharge).
 Command and Control
 Technology Standard
 Requires polluters to use certain technologies, practices, or techniques
 Often, government mandates that the best available control technologies
(BACT) must be used. However, BACT is not often clearly defined
 Example: Catalytic convertors in vehicles
 Generally, Command-and-control regulation sets specific limits for pollution
emissions and/or specific pollution-control technologies that must be used
Questions:
 Link between emissions and ambient quality?
 Is meeting emission standard a prerequisite to meeting ambient standard or
vice versa?
 Enforcing Technology Standards
 Initial compliance means a polluter installs the appropriate
equipment.
 Inspectors visit the site, check to see that the equipment is
installed, and make sure it will operate in accordance with the
conditions of the standard.
 The administering agency can then give the firm the necessary
operating permit.
 Does not ensure that the equipment will continue to be operated in the
future in accordance with the terms of the permit.
Command and control instruments
 Command and Control
Attractive properties
 Certainty of outcome
 Ability to get desired results very quickly

Unattractive properties
 Offers no incentive to improve the quality of the environment beyond the
standard set by a particular law
• Once the command-and-control regulation has been satisfied, polluters
have zero incentive to do better
 Is inflexible. It usually requires the same standard for all polluters, and
often the same pollution-control technology as well
 They often have politically-motivated loopholes
 Critical Thinking Questions
1. Would environmentalists favor command-and-control policies as a way to
reduce pollution? Why or why not?
2. Consider two ways of protecting elephants from poachers in African countries.
In one approach, the government sets up enormous national parks that have
sufficient habitat for elephants to thrive and forbids all local people to enter the
parks or to injure either the elephants or their habitat in any way. In a second
approach, the government sets up national parks and designates 10 villages
around the edges of the park as official tourist centers that become places where
tourists can stay and bases for guided tours inside the national park. Consider the
different incentives of local villagers—who often are very poor—in each of
these plans. Which plan seems more likely to help the elephant population?
 Emission taxes & Subsidies
 Emission tax (pollution charge)
 is a tax imposed on the quantity of pollution that a firm emits
 A payment for each unit of pollutant discharged into the
environment or for each unit of environmental damage
 The goal is to set tax so that the polluter incorporates the social cost
 Incentive-based strategies like the polluter pays principle
motivate polluters to be more cautious of their emission levels
 Emission taxes & Subsidies
 Main advantage of emission tax:
 It gives a profit-maximizing firm an incentive to figure out ways to
reduce its emissions—as long as the marginal cost of reducing the
emissions is less than the tax.
 Emission fee encourage innovation!!
 The firm will question whether to continue to generate waste and
pay tax or to spend some money to reduce waste
 Emission taxes & Subsidies
 Subsidy (negative tax)
 The opportunity cost of polluting would be to lose subsidy
 Abatement equipment subsidy: Pays a firm for adopting a specific
abatement technology
 Per unit subsidy: Pays a firm for each unit of pollution reduced
below some predetermined level
 Problems with subsidy
 Distributional effects
 Firms may enter market to make profit out of subsidy
 Ethics? Should we have to pay to avoid pollution?
 Often politically motivated and inefficient
 Tradable Permits
 Transferrable emission permit
• Underlying principle: any increase in emission must be offset by an
equivalent decrease elsewhere
 How it works:
1. Government begin by setting the desired level of emission
 Thus, government has control over the final amount of pollution

2. Firms are issued permits to emit pollutants

 Only the desired number of permit is issued

 Thus, the quantity is assured

3. Allow firms to buy and sell permits

 Permit trading allows a given level of pollution control to be achieved
for the least possible cost
 How Marketable Permits Work
Firm Alpha Firm Beta Firm Firm Delta
Gamma
Current emissions— 200 tons 400 tons 600 tons 0 tons
permits distributed free for
this amount
How much pollution will 100 tons 200 tons 300 tons 0 tons
these permits allow in one
year?
Actual emissions one year 150 tons 200 tons 200 tons 50 tons
in the future
Buyer or seller of Buys permits Doesn’t buy Sells permits Buys permits
marketable permit? for 50 tons or sell for 100 tons for 50 tons
permits
 Self-Check Questions
1. An emissions tax on a quantity of emissions from a firm is not
a command-and-control approach to reducing pollution. Why?
2. What is a pollution charge and what incentive does it provide
for a firm to take external costs into account?
3. What is a marketable permit and what incentive does it provide
for a firm to take external costs into account?
4. Is zero pollution possible under a marketable permits system?
Why or why not?
 Incentives to Go Flexibility about Political Process
Beyond Where and How Creates Loopholes
Pollution Will Be and Exceptions
Reduced

Pollution If you keep reducing Reducing pollution by If charge applies to all

Charges pollution you reduce any method is fine emissions of pollution,
your charge then no loopholes

Marketable If you reduce your Reductions of If all polluters are

Permits pollution, you can pollution will happen required to have
sell your extra at firms where it is permits, then there are
pollution cheapest to do so, by no loopholes
the least expensive
methods
 Key criteria concerning the choice of
environmental policy instruments
 Environmental effectiveness: in achieving environmental objectives
 Economic efficiency: Achieve goals at minimum cost to society
 Incentive: to reduce pollution and to foster technical innovation
 Flexibility: in choice of abatement techniques and adaptation
strategies
 Simple mode of operation: complexity can result in poor
compliance, fraud and higher costs
 Cost of implementation : cost of monitoring, licensing, enforcement
etc.
 Integration in sectoral policy: transport, energy, agriculture etc.
 Key criteria concerning the choice of
environmental policy instruments
 Political acceptability
 Economic impact: e.g., on price, employment, competitiveness,
economic growth etc.
 Trade and international competitiveness
 Conformity with international agreements
 International Environmental Agreements
 The two most significant documents produced through international conventions
are
 the 1972 Stockholm Declaration on the Human and Environment and

 the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development

Principle 1, The Stockholm Declaration

 “Man has the fundamental right to freedom, equality and adequate conditions of
life, in an environment of a quality that permits a life of dignity and well-being,
and he bears a solemn responsibility to protect and improve the environment for
present and future generations.”
Principle 1, Rio Declaration
 “Human beings are at the center of concern for sustainable development. They
are entitled to a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature”
 International Environmental Agreements
Hazardous Materials
 The Basel Convention (1989)
 Ratified in 2000
 Control of Trans-boundary Movements of Hazardous Waste and their
Disposal “Environmentally Sound Management” (ESM), of waste to
protect human health and the environment
 The Rotterdam Convention (1998)
 Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and
Pesticides in International Trade
 Ratified in 2003
 International Environmental Agreements
 The Stockholm Convention (2001)
 Ratified in 2003

 to restrict and eventually prohibit the production, use,

emissions and import and export of highly toxic substances
known as persistent organic pollutants (POPs)
 Cartagena Protocol (1992, 2000)
 Protocol on Biosafety to the Convention on Biological
Diversity
 International Environmental Agreements
Atmospheric Emissions
 The Vienna Convention (1985), and Montreal Protocol(1987)
 Ratified on October 11, 1994
 Reduction of consumption of chemicals harming the ozone layer to
certain specified level
 United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change
(1992 in Rio Earth Summit)
 Entered into force on 21st March 1994
 It aims to achieve stabilisation of greenhouse gas concentrations in
the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic
interference with the climate system
 International Environmental Agreements
 Kyoto Protocol(1992)
 entered into force on 16 February 2005
 To reduce overall emissions of greenhouse gases by at least 5 per
cent below 1990 levels by the commitment period of 2008 to 2012
 Paris agreement (2015)
 It is also known as Paris Climate Accord or Paris Climate Agreement
 Was adopted on 12 December 2015 by 195 nations
 Aimed at keeping the rise in global temperature to well below 2oC
degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and limiting the
temperature increase to 1.5 oC
 International Environmental Agreements
Nature Conservation
 The 1971 Convention on Wetlands of International Importance (Especially
as Waterfowl Habitat) sought to stop the encroachment of development on
wetlands.
 The Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and
Natural Heritage was held in Paris in 1972.
 The 1973 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species
(CITES)
 In 1979, the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild
Animal
 the African Convention on the Conservation of Nature and Natural
Resources (1968)
 International Environmental Agreements
Other important conventions
 The Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer
Space, and Under Water in 1963
 In 1972, the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development,
Production, and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin
Weapons, and on Their Destruction
 The Convention on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident in 1986
 The Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (1979),
which was followed by specific protocols to the 1979 convention in 1984,
1985, and 1988,
 Environmental Policy of Ethiopia
The overall policy goal
 is to improve and enhance the health and quality of life of all
Ethiopians and
 to promote sustainable social and economic development
through the sound management and use of natural, human-made
and cultural resources and the environment as a whole so as to
meet the needs of the present generation without compromising
the ability of future generations to meet their own needs
 Environmental Policy of Ethiopia
The Key Guiding Principles are:
 Every person has the right to live in a healthy environment
 The development, use and management of renewable resources shall
be based on sustainability
 The use of non-renewable resources shall be minimized and where
possible their availability extended (e.g. through recycling);
 Appropriate and affordable technologies which use renewable and
non-renewable resources efficiently shall be adapted, developed and
disseminated
 Prevent the pollution in the most cost-effective way so that the cost
of effective preventive intervention would not exceed the benefits
 Environmental Policy of Ethiopia
 When a compromise between short-term economic growth and
long-term environmental protection is necessary,
• then development activities shall minimize degrading and
polluting impacts on ecological and life support systems.
 When working out a compromise, it is better to
• err the side of caution to the extent possible as rehabilitating a
degraded environment is very expensive, and bringing back a
species that has gone extinct is impossible;
 Environmental Policy of Ethiopia
 Full environmental and social costs (or benefits foregone or lost)
that may result through damage to resources or the environment as
a result of degradation or pollution
• shall be incorporated into public and private sector planning and
accounting, and decisions shall be based on minimizing and covering these
costs;
 Social equity shall be assured particularly in resource use
 Regular and accurate assessment and monitoring of environmental
conditions shall be undertaken and the information widely
disseminated within the population
 Environmental Policy of Ethiopia
 Natural resource and environmental management activities shall
be integrated laterally across all sectors and vertically among all
levels of organization
 Control of Hazardous Materials and Pollution
From Industrial Waste
 To adhere to the precautionary principle (Principle 15 of Rio Declaration)
 To adopt the "polluter pays" principle (Principle 15 of Rio Declaration)
 To establish clear linkages between the control of pollution and other
policy areas
 To establish a system for monitoring for compliance with land, air and
water pollution control standards and regulations, the handling and
storage of hazardous and dangerous materials, mining operations, public
and industrial hygiene, waste disposal, and water quality;
 To maintain an up-to-date register of toxic, hazardous and radioactive
substances, and to make the information available on request
 To promote waste minimization processes, including the efficient
recycling of materials wherever possible
 Atmospheric Pollution and Climate Change
 Promote a climate monitoring programme as the country is highly sensitive
to climatic variability
 Firm and visible commitment to the principles of containing climate
change
 Minimize atmospheric inputs of greenhouse
 Invest on hydro-, geothermal and solar energy,
 Actively participate in protecting the ozone layer as the highlands of
Ethiopia already have a thin protective atmosphere and are liable to suffer
agricultural losses and adverse health effects from exposure to ultraviolet
rays
 Pollution Control Proclamation
FEDERAL NEGARIT GAZETA

OF THE FEDERAL DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF ETHIOPIA

9thYear No. 12
Proclamation No. 300/2002

Environmental Pollution Control

 Pollution Control Proclamation
PART TWO: Control of Pollution
 No person shall pollute or cause any other person to pollute the
environment by violating the relevant environmental standard

 The Authority or the relevant Regional environmental agency

may take an administrative or legal measure against a person
who, in violation of law, release any pollutant to the
environment
 Pollution Control Proclamation
PART TWO: Control of Pollution
 Any person engaged in any field of activity which is likely to cause pollution,
or any other environmental hazard shall, when the Authority or the relevant
regional environmental agency so decides, install a sound technology that
avoids or reduces, to the required minimum, the generation of waste and,
when feasible, apply methods for the recycling of waste.
• Which technology?
 Any person who causes any pollution shall be required to clean up or pay the
cost of cleaning up the polluted environment in such a manner and within
such a period as shall be determined by the Authority or by the relevant
regional environmental agency
 Pollution Control Proclamation
 When any activity poses a risk to human health or to the
environment, the Authority or the relevant regional
environmental agency shall take any necessary measure up to
the closure or relocation of any enterprise in order to prevent
harm.
 Pollution Control Proclamation
Environmental Inspectors
1) Environmental inspectors (hereinafter referred to as
"inspectors") shall be assigned by the Authority or by the
relevant regional environmental agency

2) Inspectors shall exercise due diligence and impartiality in the

discharge of their powers and duties under this Proclamation
Industrial Pollution Prevention and Control
Regulation
3) The draft industrial pollution regulation, which is expected to be
issued recently provides general obligations to be observed by
industries

4) It also provides the authority and competent environmental

agencies with the issuance condition and suspension or pursuant
grants to these regulations