Green Asia

Economic development in Asia is associated with expanding urbanism, overconsumption, and a steep growth in living standards. At the same time, rapid urbanisation, changing class consciousness, and a new rural–urban divide in the region have led to fundamental shifts in the way ecological concerns are articulated politically and culturally. Moreover, these changes are often viewed through a Western moralistic lens, which at the same time applauds Asia’s economic growth as the welcome reviver of a floundering world economy and simultaneously condemns this growth as encouraging hyperconsumerism and a rupture with more natural ways of living. This book presents an analysis of a range of practices and activities from across Asia that demonstrate that people in Asia are alert to ecological concerns, that they are taking action to implement new styles of green living, and that Asia offers interesting alternatives to narrow Anglo-American models of sustainable living. Subjects explored include eco-tourism in the Philippines, green co-operatives in Korea, the importance of "tradition" within Asian discourses of sustainability, and much more.

This report paints a clear picture of the path taken by the countries in the region over the past 40 years in their resource use. Today, the region dominates global resource use, comprising more than 50 per cent and consumption is rapidly rising as economies grow, infrastructure is built and the middle class expands. But even accounting for economic growth, resource efficiency in the region lags far behind the rest of the world, and varies dramatically between countries. As an illustration, developing countries in the region use an average of 5kg of resources for every dollar they produce, ten times that used by industrialized countries. This report seeks to identify where to achieve resource efficiency in a high-tech age.

Economic development in Asia is associated with expanding urbanism, overconsumption, and a steep growth in living standards. At the same time, rapid urbanisation, changing class consciousness, and a new rural–urban divide in the region have led to fundamental shifts in the way ecological concerns are articulated politically and culturally. Moreover, these changes are often viewed through a Western moralistic lens, which at the same time applauds Asia’s economic growth as the welcome reviver of a floundering world economy and simultaneously condemns this growth as encouraging hyperconsumerism and a rupture with more natural ways of living. This book presents an analysis of a range of practices and activities from across Asia that demonstrate that people in Asia are alert to ecological concerns, that they are taking action to implement new styles of green living, and that Asia offers interesting alternatives to narrow Anglo-American models of sustainable living. Subjects explored include eco-tourism in the Philippines, green co-operatives in Korea, the importance of "tradition" within Asian discourses of sustainability, and much more.

This book focuses on multi-level actions that have attracted considerable interest and discussion within academia, decision makers and the public as a tool to assess anthropogenic effects of low-carbon energy development. The book begins with an overview of the state of the art policies in emerging economies, which provides a starting point for understanding the concept of low-carbon green growth. A unified framework for structuring, categorizing, and integrating various regional-level actions is established on the basis of a thorough investigation into the theoretical and methodological aspects of non-conventional energy policies that have been widely adopted. Furthermore, the book brings clarity to the relationship between clean energy policies and stakeholder participation, and the significance of coordinated actions at the regional level. The findings provide novel insights and policy tools to help decision-makers in identifying ways to mobilize private investment in low-carbon energy systems.

The Statistical Yearbook for Asia and the Pacific 2015 presents data for the 58 ESCAP member countries, as well as world, regional, sub-regional and economic aggregates for comparison. For the first time the Yearbook is aligned with the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It offers current trends and emerging topics in the Asia-Pacific region, grouped around the themes of people, the environment, the economy and connectivity. It provides the international and regional community with key indicators, objective analyses of the current trends and emerging issues, along with data and charts. In order to maximize the comparability, the data is sourced exclusively from international agencies that adhere to the official global statistical standards.

This book is for all graduate students who are specializing in any environmental issue and who wish to grasp the fundamentals of physics that are required in various fields of science and engineering. The book provides the structural concept of the system state equation and its dynamics, which can be applicable to numerical solutions in several important areas such as heat and mass transfer and fluid dynamics. As a first step, there is a description of how to solve a linear system by conducting an analysis of temperature distribution in an infinite soil as a practical example. This exercise helps readers to fully understand what time and space discretizations are, and how actual numerical solutions should work. Because the concept of the system state equation relies on a vector–matrix form, the book shows how that particular form is applicable to other practical procedures: linear multi regression analysis, the least square method, and others. The book also gives the solution to non-linear dynamical systems and their applications. Although this book may appear to take an unusual approach, the author believes it will be inspiring and greatly helpful for the beginner who seeks a solid understanding of the basis of mathematics and physics for any environmental problems.

The Routledge Handbook of Banking and Finance in Asia brings together leading scholars, policymakers, and practitioners to provide a comprehensive and cutting-edge guide to Asia’s financial institutions, markets, and systems. Part I provides a country-by-country overview of banking and finance in East, Southeast, and South Asia, including examples from China, Japan, Hong Kong, India, and Singapore. Part II contains thematic chapters, covering topics such as commercial banking, development banking, infrastructure finance, stock markets, insurance, and sovereign wealth funds. It also includes examinations of banking regulation and supervision, and analyses of macroprudential regulation, capital flow management measures, and monetary policy. Finally, it provides new insights into topical issues such as SME, green, and Islamic finance. This handbook is an essential resource for scholars and students of Asian economics and finance and for professionals working in financial markets in Asia.

This book contains a medium-term (five-year) economic outlook for Southeast Asia, China and India.