AARES WA Seminar: Ian Bateman presents: Bringing the environment into economic analysis of land use policy
Date
24 February 2025Time
11:00am - 12:00pm Perth time (AWST)
Venue
In person: BMARLEE: [ G11] Boolong Room at UWA, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley 6009 Online: click button below
Speakers
Ian J. Bateman OBE, US-NAS, FBA, FEAERE, FRSA, FRSB, is Professor of Environmental Economics and Co-Director of the Land, Environment, Economics and Policy Institute (LEEP) at the University of Exeter Business School, UK. He is the Principal Investigator and Director of the South West Partnership for Environment and Economic Prosperity (SWEEP), bringing together businesses and policymakers in the region. Ian is also the Principal Investigator of the NetZeroPlus Programme helping policymakers and businesses make decisions which store greenhouse gases and deliver other environmental and economic benefits. Ian was for six years the only economist on the Defra Science Advisory Council and was Head of Economics for the UK National Ecosystem Assessment (UK-NEA) and led the economics component of the second phase of the UK-NEA. Throughout its entire tenure Ian was a Member of the H.M. Treasury and UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) Natural Capital Committee reporting to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and advising the Secretary of State for the Environment. He was also a Board Member of the UK Joint Nature Conservation Committee. Ian currently advises the First Minister of Scotland, is a member of the HM Treasury Green Book working groups and a member of the Environment Agency Environment Agency Long-Term Investment Scenarios Development Group (LTIS-DG). Ian has been Principle or Co-Investigator of over 75 major research grants worth in excess of £70 million. Ian is also the Chief Editor of the leading journal Environmental and Resource Economics. His main research interests revolve around the issue of ensuring sustainable wellbeing through the integration of natural and social science knowledge. He has particular skills in the fields of quantitative analysis as well as the valuation of non-market benefits and costs. He has written over 170 peer-reviewed journal papers and a large number of book chapters and books which have been cited over 35,000 times with an h-index of 96 and i10-index of 260. Ian also holds professorships in Australia and New Zealand, and is a recipient of the Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit award. In 2013 Ian was awarded an OBE for services to environmental science and policy.
Become a memberOnline meeting linkDescription
You are invited to join us for a special hybrid seminar with Professor Ian Bateman, an environmental economist recognised for his work in the integration of natural, physical, economic and social sciences into decision-making and policy formation.
Presentation Title
Bringing the environment into economic analysis of land use policy: Developing AI-enabled decision support tools for interconnected climate, biodiversity and food objectives
Authors
Bateman, I.J., Binner, A., Fezzi, C., Harwood, A., Lee, C.F., Matthews, R., Mancini, M., Morison, J.I.L., Owen, N., Williamson, D. and Day, B.H.
Presenter
Ian Bateman
Abstract
Land use change is crucial to addressing the existential threats of climate change and biodiversity loss while enhancing food security. However, the interconnected and spatially varying nature of the impacts of land use change means that these challenges must be addressed simultaneously. Despite this, governments around the world commonly focus on single issues, incentivizing land use change via relatively simple, area-based subsidies, uptake of which is determined by the economic circumstances of landowners rather than the integrated environmental outcomes that will be delivered.
By linking multiple natural and physical science models to economic analyses of the policy, market and environmental drivers of land use, we develop decision support tools designed for use by non-specialist policymakers to allow analysis of the food, farm income, greenhouse gas, water, biodiversity and recreation consequences of varying policy decisions.
Results show that current approaches to land use policy are often highly inefficient, delivering poor outcomes for the natural environment and low value for money to taxpayers.
This event is FREE for AARES members.
For any enquiries, please contact Alaya Spencer-Cotton
