For the first time in history, the majority of the world population now lives in cities. Global urbanization will continue at high speed; the world's urban population is projected to increase by more than 3 billion people between 2010 and 2050. Some of this increase will be the result of high urban fertility rates and reclassification of rural land into urban areas, but a significant portion of future urbanization will be caused by rural-to-urban migration. This migration is expected to be particularly prevalent in countries and regions most affected by the changing climate. While urban populations generally enjoy a higher quality of life, many cities in the developing world have large slums with populations that are largely excluded from access to resources, jobs, and public services. In the environmental security literature, great rural resource scarcity, causing rural to urban migration, is seen as an important source of violent conflict. This study investigates how population growth affects patterns of public unrest in urban centers within the context of crucial intervening factors like democracy, poverty, economic shocks. It utilizes a newly collected event dataset of urban social disturbance covering 55 major cities in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa since 1960. The empirical analysis provides little support for the notion that high and increasing urban population pressure leads to a higher risk or frequency of social disorder. Instead, we find that urban disorder is primarily associated with a lack of consistent political institutions, economic shocks, and ongoing civil conflict.

/pdf/an-urbanization-bomb-population-growth-and-social-disorder-2xrlku5c4u.pdf

An urbanization bomb? Population growth and social disorder in cities

Until recently, most writings on the relationship between climate change and security were highly speculative. The IPCC assessment reports to date offer little if any guidance on this issue and occasionally pay excessive attention to questionable sources. The articles published in this special issue form the largest collection of peer-reviewed writings on the topic to date. The number of such studies remains small compared to those that make up the natural science base of the climate issue, and there is some confusion whether it is the effect of ‘climate’ or ‘weather’ that is being tested. The results of the studies vary, and firm conclusions cannot always be drawn. Nevertheless, research in this area has made considerable progress. More attention is being paid to the specific causal mechanisms linking climate change to conflict, such as changes in rainfall and temperature, natural disasters, and economic growth. Systematic climate data are used in most of the articles and climate projections in some. Sev...

/pdf/whither-the-weather-climate-change-and-conflict-3x320itzbn.pdf

Whither the weather? Climate change and conflict

Global warming is expected to make the climate warmer, wetter, and wilder. It is predicted that such climate change will increase the severity and frequency of climate-related disasters like flash ...

/pdf/climate-related-natural-disasters-economic-growth-and-armed-3ep0buiqqi.pdf

Climate-related natural disasters, economic growth, and armed civil conflict

Despite many claims by high-ranking policy-makers and some scientists that climate change breeds violent conflict, the existing empirical literature has so far not been able to identify a systematic, causal relationship of this kind. This may either reflect de facto absence of such a relationship, or it may be the consequence of theoretical and methodological limitations of existing work. In this article we revisit the climate-conflict hypothesis along two lines. First, we concentrate on indirect effects of climatic conditions on conflict, whereas most of the existing literature focuses on direct effects. Specifically, we examine the causal pathway linking climatic conditions to economic growth and to armed conflict, and argue that the growth-conflict part of this pathway is contingent on the political system. Second, we employ a measure of climatic variability that has advantages over those used in the existing literature because it can presumably take into account the adaptation of production to persistent climatic changes. For the empirical analysis we use a global data set for 1982-2004 and design the testing strategy tightly in line with our theory. Our empirical analysis does not produce evidence for the claim that climate variability affects economic growth. However, we find some, albeit weak support for the hypothesis that non-democratic countries are more likely to experience civil conflict when economic conditions deteriorate.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID1910470_code352754.pdf?abstractid=1900358&mirid=5

Climate Variability, Economic Growth, and Civil Conflict

Despite many claims by high-ranking policymakers and some scientists that climate change breeds violent conflict, the existing empirical literature has so far not been able to identify a systematic, causal relationship of this kind. This may either reflect de facto absence of such a relationship, or it may be the consequence of theoretical and methodological limitations of existing work. In this article we revisit the climate–conflict hypothesis along two lines. First, we concentrate on indirect effects of climatic conditions on conflict, whereas most of the existing literature focuses on direct effects. Specifically, we examine the causal pathway linking climatic conditions to economic growth and to armed conflict, and argue that the growth–conflict part of this pathway is contingent on the political system. Second, we employ a measure of climatic variability that has advantages over those used in the existing literature because it can presumably take into account the adaptation of production to persiste...

/pdf/climate-variability-economic-growth-and-civil-conflict-jcct710l2w.pdf

Climate variability, economic growth, and civil conflict

https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/100236/1/667034412.pdf

The Cost of Natural Gas Shortages in Ireland

In this paper we analyse the 2008 electricity price in the Irish All- Island Market. We test whether this price is 'efficient' by comparing it to the electricity price in Great Britain. This analysis suggests that around €16 per MWh of the difference in wholesale prices between Ireland and Britain is due to differences in generating technology. The new wholesale electricity market for the island of Ireland appears to be working well - it is producing a wholesale price that approximates the long run marginal cost that would apply in a large liquid competitive market. In the British market the wholesale price appears to be below the long run marginal cost of producing electricity. Retail margins in Great Britain are high, especially for households. Only some of this margin compensates vertically integrated utilities for the low wholesale price. In the Republic of Ireland the retail margin was probably also higher than it should have been.

/pdf/goldilocks-and-the-three-electricity-prices-are-irish-prices-2e0dxvv3iv.pdf

Goldilocks and the Three Electricity Prices: Are Irish Prices Just Right?

This paper evaluates the likely effect of REFIT, the Irish scheme to support renewable electricity generation, on the wholesale price of electricity. The cost of REFIT is passed on to Irish consumers. Here we calculate that, when there are 4,071MW of on-shore wind in the Republic of Ireland, the cost of the REFIT scheme is between 5 per cent and 10 per cent of the gross wholesale price of electricity. Off-shore wind has higher levels of support than on-shore wind, as do technologies that are still in development such as wave and tidal. When off-shore wind, wave and tidal are added to the system, the cost of REFIT increases significantly. We argue that wave and tidal should be sustained with a different scheme that provides capital grants, and that off-shore wind that is channelled to exports should not be supported by Irish consumers.

https://www.esr.ie/vol42_3/05_%20Devitt%20PP%20Paper.pdf

The Effect of REFIT on Irish Wholesale Electricity Prices

This paper evaluates the likely effect of REFIT, the Irish scheme to support renewable electricity generation, on the wholesale price of electricity. The cost of REFIT is passed on to Irish consumers. Here we calculate that when there are 4071MW of on-shore wind in the Republic of Ireland the cost of the REFIT scheme is between 5 per cent and 10 per cent of the gross wholesale price of electricity. Off-shore wind has higher levels of support than on-shore wind, as do technologies that are still in development such as wave and tidal. When off-shore wind, wave and tidal are added to the system, the cost of REFIT increases significantly. We argue that wave and tidal should be sustained with a different scheme that provides capital grants, and that off-shore wind that is channelled to exports should not be supported by Irish consumers.

https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/50072/1/654681430.pdf

The Effect of REFIT on Irish Electricity Prices

Like most countries Ireland faces the double target of decreasing emissions and keeping energy costs low to maintain competitiveness of the economy The two goals are not always compatible This study measures the effect of increasing wind in electricity generation on the total electricity costs for the Island of Ireland for the year 2020 under a variety of scenarios on fuel and carbon costs, generating plant portfolio mixes and electricity demand growth We find that with high levels of interconnection 6000MW of installed wind capacity are likely to reduce overall costs, especially if the price of natural gas stays high The sensitivity of the results to the level of interconnection suggests that it is important for interconnection to be operated and governed as efficiently as possible We also find that the deregulated all-island system will face major challenges moving into the future since returns to traditional fossil-fuelled plants might not be sufficient to create new (needed) investment when wind penetration is high

https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/50019/1/619958324.pdf

The likely economic impact of increasing investment in wind on the Island of Ireland

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