Available online: https://pub.norden.org/temanord2024-517/ The Nordic region's climate change goals are challenged by significant energy price hikes from 2021 to 2023. Nordic governments implemented various price compensation measures, but their impact on social-, climate-, and environmental goals remains uncertain. The impact evaluation presented in this report highlights that the Nordic measures were characterised by diverse designs, rapid yet problematic implementation, and limited redistribution to low-income households. Several measures discouraged effective resource allocation and emission reduction. To reduce the risk of conflict between compensation measures and climate change policy it is important that measures are understood as temporary. Measures that utilise flat rate or regressive patterns for transfer of funds, and that decouple funds from current consumption, should have been more effective that most of the measures utilised.
Undesirable landscape changes, especially from large infrastructure projects, may give rise to large welfare losses due to degraded landscape experiences. These losses are largely unaccounted for in Nordic countries’ planning processes. There is a need to develop practical methods of including people’s preferences and the value of landscape impacts in policy assessments and decision-making. The project aims to explore how the ecosystem service approach and values of landscape experiences can be better incorporated in actual cases. The project developed a two-step approach to assess, value and incorporate landscape impacts and tested these in case studies based on EIA documentation. We found that despite the lack of information generated in the EIAs, the step-wise method significantly improved upon evidence and conclusions of how people are impacted due to landscape changes.
The Nordic countries continue to experience growth of urban areas, which provides benefits like economic growth, but also imposes economic costs in terms of reduced ecosystem services. This report focuses on urban nature recreation and highlights economic methods and data that can help capture the associated nonmarket welfare benefits. The study stresses the need to collect user data to better understand visitation patterns, which can be combined with valuation methods to provide evidence of economic benefits associated with e.g., hiking, cycling, skiing, paddling and other recreation activities. Once these benefits are visible, decision-makers will have a better basis to balance economic growth with the environmental costs it imposes on urban ecosystem services.
Abstract: Cultural ecosystem services in the form of experiences derived from landscapes are potentially important, but often overlooked. Given the large and unprecedented landscape changes many of the Nordic countries are undergoing, there is a need to find ways of including people@0394@03C3s preferences and the value of landscape impacts in policy assessments and decision-making processes. The project aim has been to synthesize knowledge about the magnitude and value of landscape experiences, and investigate current practices and examples of how landscape impacts are incorporated (or not) in policy assessments and decision-making contexts in the Nordics. The literature demonstrates potentially high unaccounted welfare loss from landscape change. We find clear weaknesses in current practices, that a second phase will try to address. The project was carried out by Vista Analysis in Oslo and Department of Environmental Science at Aarhus University from 2014@0394@03BC15.
Cultural ecosystem services in the form of experiences derived from landscapes are potentially important, but often overlooked. Given the large and unprecedented landscape changes many of the Nordic countries are undergoing, there is a need to find ways of including people’s preferences and the value of landscape impacts in policy assessments and decision-making processes. The project aim has been to synthesize knowledge about the magnitude and value of landscape experiences, and investigate current practices and examples of how landscape impacts are incorporated (or not) in policy assessments and decision-making contexts in the Nordics. The literature demonstrates potentially high unaccounted welfare loss from landscape change. We find clear weaknesses in current practices, that a second phase will try to address. The project was carried out by Vista Analysis in Oslo and Department of Environmental Science at Aarhus University from 2014–15.
The Nordic Council of Ministers publishes regular overview reports on the use of economic instruments in Nordic environmental policy. In this report, Part I presents an overview of the use of economic instruments with the main focus on changes during the years 2006 - 2009. Part II gives a brief overview of mixes of policy instruments (also other than economic instruments) and presents two case studies. There are generally few changes in the use of economic instruments since 2006, except for the introduction of the emissions trading system, EU ETS, and changes in vehicle registration tax systems to become more based on specific fuel use or CO2 emissions. In general, the tax systems could be made more effective and efficient by treating different sectors and fuels more equally.
The emergence of the ecosystem services concept suggests that economic valuation studies are already fulfilling a role in raising awareness by demonstrating the loss of nature's goods and services using monetary indicators. In order to have future relevance in capturing value and giving support to policy-makers, valuation methods must specifically address resource accounting, priority setting, and instrument design. This report provides an overview of economic valuation methods of ecosystem services from watersheds in the Nordic countries. The study was commissioned by the Nordic Council of Ministers and conducted by The Norwegian Institute for Nature Research, The Norwegian Institute of Water Research and Sweco Norge during the period May - November 2011. The study indicates that economic valuation methods can be applied to watershed management in multiple ways. However, policy makers should be wary of "one size fits all" valuation estimates that appear ready to use across different watershed types and stakeholder interests.
Cultural ecosystem services in the form of experiences derived from landscapes are potentially important, but often overlooked. Given the large and unprecedented landscape changes many of the Nordic countries are undergoing, there is a need to find ways of including people’s preferences and the value of landscape impacts in policy assessments and decision-making processes. The project aim has been to synthesize knowledge about the magnitude and value of landscape experiences, and investigate current practices and examples of how landscape impacts are incorporated (or not) in policy assessments and decision-making contexts in the Nordics. The literature demonstrates potentially high unaccounted welfare loss from landscape change. We find clear weaknesses in current practices, that a second phase will try to address. The project was carried out by Vista Analysis in Oslo and Department of Environmental Science at Aarhus University from 2014–15.
Undesirable landscape changes, especially from large infrastructure projects, may give rise to large welfare losses due to degraded landscape experiences. These losses are largely unaccounted for in Nordic countries’ planning processes. There is a need to develop practical methods of including people’s preferences and the value of landscape impacts in policy assessments and decision-making. The project aims to explore how the ecosystem service approach and values of landscape experiences can be better incorporated in actual cases. The project developed a two-step approach to assess, value and incorporate landscape impacts and tested these in case studies based on EIA documentation. We found that despite the lack of information generated in the EIAs, the step-wise method significantly improved upon evidence and conclusions of how people are impacted due to landscape changes.
The Nordic Council of Ministers publishes regular overview reports on the use of economic instruments in Nordic environmental policy. In this report, Part I presents an overview of the use of economic instruments with the main focus on changes during the years 2006 - 2009. Part II gives a brief overview of mixes of policy instruments (also other than economic instruments) and presents two case studies. There are generally few changes in the use of economic instruments since 2006, except for the introduction of the emissions trading system, EU ETS, and changes in vehicle registration tax systems to become more based on specific fuel use or CO2 emissions. In general, the tax systems could be made more effective and efficient by treating different sectors and fuels more equally.
Available online: https://pub.norden.org/temanord2024-517/ The Nordic region's climate change goals are challenged by significant energy price hikes from 2021 to 2023. Nordic governments implemented various price compensation measures, but their impact on social-, climate-, and environmental goals remains uncertain. The impact evaluation presented in this report highlights that the Nordic measures were characterised by diverse designs, rapid yet problematic implementation, and limited redistribution to low-income households. Several measures discouraged effective resource allocation and emission reduction. To reduce the risk of conflict between compensation measures and climate change policy it is important that measures are understood as temporary. Measures that utilise flat rate or regressive patterns for transfer of funds, and that decouple funds from current consumption, should have been more effective that most of the measures utilised.
The Nordic Council of Ministers publishes regular overview reports on the use of economic instruments in Nordic environmental policy. In this report, Part I presents an overview of the use of economic instruments with the main focus on changes during the years 2006 - 2009. Part II gives a brief overview of mixes of policy instruments (also other than economic instruments) and presents two case studies. There are generally few changes in the use of economic instruments since 2006, except for the introduction of the emissions trading system, EU ETS, and changes in vehicle registration tax systems to become more based on specific fuel use or CO2 emissions. In general, the tax systems could be made more effective and efficient by treating different sectors and fuels more equally.
Cultural ecosystem services in the form of experiences derived from landscapes are potentially important, but often overlooked. Given the large and unprecedented landscape changes many of the Nordic countries are undergoing, there is a need to find ways of including people's preferences and the value of landscape impacts in policy assessments and decision-making processes. The project aim has been to synthesize knowledge about the magnitude and value of landscape experiences, and investigate current practices and examples of how landscape impacts are incorporated (or not) in policy assessments and decision-making contexts in the Nordics. The literature demonstrates potentially high unaccounted welfare loss from landscape change. We find clear weaknesses in current practices, that a second phase will try to address. The project was carried out by Vista Analysis in Oslo and Department of Environmental Science at Aarhus University from 2014-15.
The Nordic countries continue to experience growth of urban areas, which provides benefits like economic growth, but also imposes economic costs in terms of reduced ecosystem services. This report focuses on urban nature recreation and highlights economic methods and data that can help capture the associated nonmarket welfare benefits. The study stresses the need to collect user data to better understand visitation patterns, which can be combined with valuation methods to provide evidence of economic benefits associated with e.g., hiking, cycling, skiing, paddling and other recreation activities. Once these benefits are visible, decision-makers will have a better basis to balance economic growth with the environmental costs it imposes on urban ecosystem services.
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