Economics of Energy & Environmental Policy: Vision, Purpose and Goals

The creation of a new journal called ‘Economics of Energy & Environmental Policy’ (EEEP) was based on a vision of the critical energy and environmental challenges facing the world in the period out to 2050. On the one hand, what investment, infrastructures, resource discoveries, technology innovation and market arrangements are necessary to make enough energy accessible and affordable to an expanding world population? On the other hand, the associated growth of greenhouse gas emissions, production and transportation of oil and natural gas, growth in nuclear power could lead to a global economic and industrial equilibrium that is environmentally unfriendly or unsustainable. In this century, energy and environmental issues will interact much more than in the previous one, because of the consequences of the buildup of greenhouse gas emissions for climate change and other environmental impacts on air, water, land use, and human health. Both energy production and use as well as the environment will interact as two exhaustible resources. Of course the energy economy and its associated environmental issues will still show important local characteristics even though global linkages will be strong.