Environmental-Accounting-环境会计-外文翻译.doc
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1、Environmental AccountingWhere We Are Now, Where We Are Headingby Joy E. HechtInterest is growing in modifying national income accounting systems to promote understanding of the links between economy and environment.The field of environmental accounting has made great strides in the past two decades,
2、 moving from a rather arcane endeavor to one tested in dozens of countries and well established in a few. But the idea that nations might integrate the economic role of the environment into their income accounts is neither a quick sell nor a quick process; it has been under discussion since the 1960
3、s. Despite the difficulties and controversies described in this article, however, interest is growing in modifying national income accounting systems to promote understanding of the links between economy and environment.Why Change?Governments around the world develop economic data systems known as n
4、ational income accounts to calculate macroeconomic indicators such as gross domestic product. Building a nations economic use of the environment into such accounts is a response to several perceived flaws in the System of National Accounts (SNA), as defined by the United Nations and used internation
5、ally. One flaw in the SNA often cited is that the cost of environmental protection cannot be identified. Consequently, money spent, say, to put pollution control devices on smokestacks increases GDP, even though the expenditure is not economically productive, some argue. These critics call for diffe
6、rentiating “defensive” expenditures from others within the accounts. Also misleading is the fact that some environmental goods are not marketed though they provide economic value. Fuelwood gathered in forests, meat and fish gathered for consumption, and medicinal plants are examples. So are drinking
7、 and irrigation water, whose sale prices reflect the cost of distribution and treatment infrastructure, but not the water itself. While some countries do include such goods in their national income accounts, no standard practices exist for doing so. When nonmarketed goods are included in the account
8、s, they still cannot be distinguished from those that are marketed. Valuing environmental services such as the watershed protection that forests afford and the crop fertilization that insects provide is difficult. Though some experts call for their inclusion in environmentally adjusted accounts, typ
9、ically neither the economic value nor the degradation of these services is included. On the other hand, however, the alternate goods and services needed to replace themwater treatment plants, for exampledo contribute to GDP, which can be rather misleading. Still another problem is that national inco
10、me accounts treat the depreciation of manufactured capital and natural capital differently. Physical capitala building or a machine, for instanceis depreciated in accordance with conventional business accounting principles, while all consumption of natural capital is accounted for as income. Thus th
11、e accounts of a country that harvests its forests unsustainably will show high income for a few years, but will not reflect the destruction of the productive forest asset. While opinions vary on how to depreciate natural capital, they converge on the need to do so.Which Indicators Are Useful?Some pr
12、oponents advocate simple “flag” indicators to alert policymakers to the broad role of the environment in the economy, for example, comparing conventionalGDP with environmentally adjusted GDP, or conventional savings with so-called “genuine” savings that account for environmental factors. Both of the
13、se indicators can provide valuable warnings of the impacts of environmental degradation on an economy. However, such flags are less useful in determining the source of environmental harm or identifying a policy response. For this reason, many economists place primary importance not on the bottom lin
14、e, but on the underlying data used to build environmental accounts. These data can help answer such questions as how natural catastrophes like the fires that raged in Indonesia in the summer of 1998 may affect economic growth, or how environmental protection policies such as green taxes may affect t
15、he economy.Who Is Doing This?Environmental accounting is underway in several dozen countries, where bureaucrats, statisticians, and other proponents both foreign and domestic have initiated activities over the past few decades. Several countries have made continuous investments in building routine d
16、ata systems, which are integrated into existing statistical systems and economic planning activities. Others have made more limited efforts to calculate a few indicators, or analyze a single sector. Some of the earliest research on environmental accounting was done at RFF by Henry Peskin, working on
17、 the design of accounts for the United States. One of the first countries to build environmental accounts is Norway, which began collecting data on energy sources, fisheries, forests, and minerals in the 1970s to address resource scarcity. Over time, the Norwegians have expanded their accounts to in
18、clude data on air pollutant emissions. Their accounts feed into a model of the national economy, which policymakers use to assess the energy implications of alternate growth strategies. Inclusion of these data also allows them to anticipate the impacts of different growth patterns on compliance with
19、 international conventions on pollutant emissions. More recently, a number of resource-dependent countries have become interested in measuring depreciation of their natural assets and adjusting their GDPs environmentally. One impetus for their interest was the 1989 study “Wasting Assets: Natural Res
20、ources in the National Income Accounts,” in which Robert Repetto and his colleagues at the World Resources Institute estimated the depreciation of Indonesias forests, petroleum reserves, and soil assets. Once adjusted to account for that depreciation, Indonesias GDP and growth rates both sank signif
21、icantly below conventional figures. While “Wasting Assets” called many to action, it also operated as a brake, leading many economists and statisticians to warn against a focus on green GDP, because it tells decisionmakers nothing about the causes or solutions for environmental problems. Since that
22、time, several developing countries have made long-term commitments to broad-based environmental accounting. Namibia began work on resource accounts in 1994, addressing such questions as whether the government has been able to capture rents from the minerals and fisheries sectors, how to allocate sca
23、rce water supplies, and how rangeland degradation affects the value of livestock. The Philippines began work on environmental accounts in 1990. The approach used there is to build all economic inputs and outputs into the accounts, including nonmarketed goods and services of the environment. Thus Fil
24、ipinos estimate monetary values for such items as gathered fuelwood and the waste disposal services provided by air, water, and land; they then add in direct consumption of such services as recreation and aesthetic appreciation of the natural world. While their methodology is controversial, these ac
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- Environmental Accounting 环境 会计 外文 翻译
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