Environmental and Resource Economics

This report is a diagnostic tool to evaluate the environmental priorities for the Central African Republic (CAR). With the cost of environmental degradation equivalent to about 8 percent of GDP, and total wealth in decline mainly because of environmental risks to health, the country needs to control environmental degration and make better use of its rich endowment of natural resources, both biological and mineral.

Evaluation of indirect land use changes due to biofuels has been very controversial over the past few years, as doubt has arisen about the potential benefits of growing crops for use as a substitute for fossil fuels. In this paper, we present an overview of a CGE modelling approach, based on the MIRAGE-BioF model. Our framework brings new innovative features that strengthen the relevance of the methodology. In particular, a more detailed and consistent database has been developed to represent the sectors and substitution mechanism at play.

There is rising skepticism about the potential positive environmental impacts of first generation biofuels. Growing biofuel crops could induce diversion of other crops dedicated to food and feed needs. The relocation of production could increase deforestation and bring significant new volumes of carbon into the atmosphere. In this paper, we develop a methodology for assessing the indirect land use change effects related to biofuel policies in a computable general equilibrium framework.

Deforestation contributes about 18% of all carbon emissions and leads to species extinction. In the context of climate change negotiations, international community agreed to compensate efforts made by countries toward forest protection. Forest covers approximately 80 % of the Congo basin with more than half classified as dense forest. It is estimated that Congo Basin rainforest has been rather preserved during the last decades with a low deforestation rate.

This presentation discusses using MIRAGE-Biof to examine the land use effects of biofuel mandates.