Publication: A Review of Regulatory Instruments to Control Environmental Externalities from the Transport Sector
Loading...
Date
2009-03-01
ISSN
Published
2009-03-01
Author(s)
Timilsina, Govinda R.
Editor(s)
Abstract
This study reviews regulatory instruments designed to reduce environmental externalities from the transport sector. The study finds that the main regulatory instruments used in practice are fuel economy standards, vehicle emission standards, and fuel quality standards. Although industrialized countries have introduced all three standards with strong enforcement mechanisms, most developing countries have yet to introduce fuel economy standards. The emission standards introduced by many developing countries to control local air pollutants follow either the European Union or United States standards. Fuel quality standards, particularly for gasoline and diesel, have been introduced in many countries mandating 2 to 10 percent blending of biofuels, 10 to 50 times reduction of sulfur from 1996 levels, and banning lead contents. Although inspection and maintenance programs are in place in both industrialized and developing countries to enforce regulatory standards, these programs have faced several challenges in developing countries due to a lack of resources. The study also highlights several factors affecting the selection of regulatory instruments, such as countries' environmental priorities and institutional capacities.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Timilsina, Govinda R.; Dulal, Hari B.. 2009. A Review of Regulatory Instruments to Control Environmental Externalities from the Transport Sector. Paper is funded by the Knowledge for Change
Program (KCP),Policy Research working paper ; no. WPS 4867. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/4062 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Publication Geopolitics and the World Trading System(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-12-23)Until the beginning of this century, the GATT/WTO system worked. Economic research provided a compelling explanation. It showed that if governments maximize the well-being of their own countries broadly defined, GATT/WTO principles would facilitate mutually beneficial cooperation over their trade policy choices. Now heightened geopolitical rivalry seems to have undermined the WTO. A simple transposition of the previous rationalization suggests that geopolitics and trade cooperation are not compatible. The paper shows that this is only true if rivalry eclipses any consideration of own-country well-being. In all other circumstances, there are gains from trade cooperation even with geopolitics. Furthermore, the WTO’s relevance is in question only if it adheres too rigidly to its existing rules and norms. Through measured adaptation to the geopolitical imperative, the WTO can continue to thrive as a forum for multilateral trade cooperation in the age of geopolitics.Publication The Macroeconomic Implications of Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Options(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-05-29)Estimating the macroeconomic implications of climate change impacts and adaptation options is a topic of intense research. This paper presents a framework in the World Bank's macrostructural model to assess climate-related damages. This approach has been used in many Country Climate and Development Reports, a World Bank diagnostic that identifies priorities to ensure continued development in spite of climate change and climate policy objectives. The methodology captures a set of impact channels through which climate change affects the economy by (1) connecting a set of biophysical models to the macroeconomic model and (2) exploring a set of development and climate scenarios. The paper summarizes the results for five countries, highlighting the sources and magnitudes of their vulnerability --- with estimated gross domestic product losses in 2050 exceeding 10 percent of gross domestic product in some countries and scenarios, although only a small set of impact channels is included. The paper also presents estimates of the macroeconomic gains from sector-level adaptation interventions, considering their upfront costs and avoided climate impacts and finding significant net gross domestic product gains from adaptation opportunities identified in the Country Climate and Development Reports. Finally, the paper discusses the limits of current modeling approaches, and their complementarity with empirical approaches based on historical data series. The integrated modeling approach proposed in this paper can inform policymakers as they make proactive decisions on climate change adaptation and resilience.Publication Global Poverty Revisited Using 2021 PPPs and New Data on Consumption(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-06-05)Recent improvements in survey methodologies have increased measured consumption in many low- and lower-middle-income countries that now collect a more comprehensive measure of household consumption. Faced with such methodological changes, countries have frequently revised upward their national poverty lines to make them appropriate for the new measures of consumption. This in turn affects the World Bank’s global poverty lines when they are periodically revised. The international poverty line, which is based on the typical poverty line in low-income countries, increases by around 40 percent to $3.00 when the more recent national poverty lines as well as the 2021 purchasing power parities are incorporated. The net impact of the changes in international prices, the poverty line, and new survey data (including new data for India) is an increase in global extreme poverty by some 125 million people in 2022, and a significant shift of poverty away from South Asia and toward Sub-Saharan Africa. The changes at higher poverty lines, which are more relevant to middle-income countries, are mixed.Publication Global Socio-economic Resilience to Natural Disasters(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-05-22)Most disaster risk assessments use damages to physical assets as their central metric, often neglecting distributional impacts and the coping and recovery capacity of affected people. To address this shortcoming, the concepts of well-being losses and socio-economic resilience—the ability to experience asset losses without a decline in well-being—have been proposed. This paper uses microsimulations to produce a global estimate of well-being losses from, and socio-economic resilience to, natural disasters, covering 132 countries. On average, each $1 in disaster-related asset losses results in well-being losses equivalent to a $2 uniform national drop in consumption, with significant variation within and across countries. The poorest income quintile within each country incurs only 9% of national asset losses but accounts for 33% of well-being losses. Compared to high-income countries, low-income countries experience 67% greater well-being losses per dollar of asset losses and require 56% more time to recover. Socio-economic resilience is uncorrelated with exposure or vulnerability to natural hazards. However, a 10 percent increase in GDP per capita is associated with a 0.9 percentage point gain in resilience, but this benefit arises indirectly—such as through higher rate of formal employment, better financial inclusion, and broader social protection coverage—rather than from higher income itself. This paper assess ten policy options and finds that socio-economic and financial interventions (such as insurance and social protection) can effectively complement asset-focused measures (e.g., construction standards) and that interventions targeting low-income populations usually have higher returns in terms of avoided well-being losses per dollar invested.Publication From Patriarchy to Policy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-05-29)Legal institutions play an important role in shaping gender equality in economic domains, from inheritance to labor markets. But where do gender equal laws come from? Using cross-country data on social norms and legal equality, this paper investigates the socio-cultural roots of gender inequity in the legal system and its implications for female labor force participation. To identify the impact of social norms, the analysis uses an empirical strategy that exploits pre-modern differences in ancestral patriarchal culture as an instrument for present-day gender norms. The findings show that ancestral patriarchal culture is a strong predictor of contemporary norms, and conservative social norms are associated with more gender inequality in the de jure legal framework, the de facto implementation of laws, and the labor market. The paper presents evidence for a political selection mechanism linking norms to laws: countries with more conservative norms elect political leaders who are more hostile to gender equality, who then pass less progressive legislation. The results highlight the cultural roots and political drivers of legalized gender inequality.
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Guangzhou Green Trucks Pilot Project : Background Analysis Report(Clean Air Initiative for Asian Cities Center and the World Bank, Washington, DC, 2010-05)This document was devloped as it initiated a pilot project - dubbed Guangzhou Green Trucks Pilot Project in support of Guangzhou's efforts to improve air quality in preparation for the 2010 Asian Games. The goal of this project was to develop a proof of concept for a truck program in Guangdong Province, and possibly China, that aims to: Enhance the fuel economy of the truck fleet, Reduce black carbon and other air pollutants from trucks and consequently obtain GHG emission savings.The project was implemented by the Clean Air Initiative for Asian Cities Center (CAI-Asia Center), in cooperation with Cascade Sierra Solutions, US EPA and World Bank, and with support from Guangzhou Environmental Protection Bureau (GEPB), Guangzhou Transport Committee (GTC), and Guangzhou Project Management Office (PMO) for the World Bank.The pilot project aims to contribute to addressing three problems related to trucks in Guangzhou and the wider Guangdong province simultaneously: (a) fuel costs and security; (b) air pollution and associated health impacts, and (c) greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. The scope of the pilot was limited to Guangdong Province, focusing on diesel trucks accessing or passing through the city of Guangzhou and surrounding cities, like Shenzhen. Aside from GHG emissions, the scope includes black carbon and other air pollutants from trucks because of their potential interacting effects and contribution to climate change, and because air pollution is an important local concern. The pilot project consisted of the following components, each with its own output: Background analysis, Survey of Guangzhou truck sector, Driver training course for fuel efficiency of trucks and a Technology pilot.Publication Transport Activity Measurement Toolkit for On-Road Vehicles : Practitioners' Guide(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-06)Although urbanization is frequently cited as a major cause of greenhouse gas and local air pollution emissions growth, it could be better understood as one of the crucial links between climate and development. Urbanization is a major driver of development, and once in cities, people tend to increase their mobility dramatically, driving an increase in greenhouse gas and other emissions from transport. The demand for transport is not limited only to urban environments. As each economy becomes richer, its demand for passenger and freight mobility increases. This increase in car usage coupled with a tendency to have a lower number of passengers per car, has been sufficient to offset the improvements gained in vehicle fuel efficiency. The increasing transport demand, if not accompanied by adequate growth in infrastructure and facilities, leads to rising congestion, time loss, and air quality deterioration that can stifle economic growth and quality of life. Finding the delicate balance of policy options to achieve long-term improvements in on-road transport and reduce the impact of its externalities is critical and needs to be tailored to each locale. This requires measurements both to design the interventions and evaluate their impacts. This transport activity measurement toolkit (TAMT) has been developed specifically to simplify this measurement process by providing standardized software, data collection forms, and a consistent standardized methodology.Publication Sub-Saharan Africa Refinery Project : Volume I-A. Health Study Final Report(Washington, DC, 2009-09)The Sub-Saharan Africa Refinery Study evaluates the effects of improved fuel specifications on refiningoperations and air quality in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The improved fuel specifications would reduce the levels of certain pollutants in fuels, in turn reducing human exposure to these pollutants in ambient air. The health study estimates the health impacts and associated monetary benefits associated with the proposed improvements in fuel quality. The estimated monetary benefits will be compared to the costs to the refining industry associated with a change in fuel specifications, by region, as presented in Volume II,the Refinery StudyPublication Reducing Black Carbon Emissions from Diesel Vehicles : Impacts, Control Strategies, and Cost-Benefit Analysis(Washington, DC, 2014-04-02)A 2013 scientific assessment of black carbon emissions and impacts found that black carbon is second to carbon dioxide in terms of its climate forcing. High concentrations of black carbon in the atmosphere can change precipitation patterns and reduce the amount of radiation that reaches the Earth's surface, which affects local agriculture. Acute and chronic exposures to particulate matter are associated with a range of diseases, including chronic bronchitis and asthma, as well as premature deaths from cardiopulmonary disease, lung cancer, and acute lower respiratory infections. The transportation sector accounted for approximately 19 percent of global black carbon emissions in the year 2000. This report aims to inform efforts to control black carbon emissions from diesel-based transportation in developing countries. It presents a summary of emissions control approaches from developed countries, while recognizing that developing countries face a number of on-the-ground implementation challenges. This study applies a new cost-benefit analysis methodology to four simulated diesel black carbon emissions control projects - diesel retrofit in Istanbul, green freight (plus retrofit) in Sao Paulo, fuel and vehicle standards in Jakarta, and compressed natural gas (CNG) buses in Cebu taking into account the additional climate benefits of black carbon reductions. While this report focuses on quantifying just the health and climate benefits of transport interventions, it also serves to highlight the challenges that can be faced when undertaking more comprehensive evaluation of transport projects. A cost-benefit framework for economic analysis of diesel black carbon emissions control transport projects is also presented that factors in both climate and health benefits. Historically, technical interventions to control diesel black carbon emissions in developed countries have successfully relied on fuel quality improvements and vehicle emissions standards.Publication Brazil Low Carbon Case Study : Transport(Washington, DC, 2011)This report summarizes the results for the transportation sector from a larger study, the low carbon study for Brazil, developed by the World Bank as part of its initiative to support the integrated efforts of Brazil to reduce global and national greenhouse gases emissions, while promoting long-term development. The study covers four key areas with potential low carbon options: 1) Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF), including deforestation, 2) transport systems, 3) production and use of energy, particularly electricity, oil, gas and bio fuels, and 4) municipal waste, solids and liquids. This study aims to underpin Brazil's efforts to explore methods for reducing total emissions of Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) arising from all areas of human activity. More specifically, this study seeks to highlight low-carbon alternatives for Brazil´s transport sector. These alternatives could contribute positively to the world's climate, as well as benefit Brazil's socio-economic development. The technical inputs for evaluating potential carbon emissions reduction will be submitted to the Brazilian government to assist it in the design and deployment of joint planning strategies in key sectors, including transport. To ensure that the study targets the most important areas, it adopts an overarching approach. This means that it made full use of available specialist knowledge (thereby avoiding replication of effort) by undertaking a comprehensive survey of the literature and engaging in a wide-ranging consultation process with recognized Brazilian experts and government technical staff.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Design Thinking for Social Innovation(2010-07)Designers have traditionally focused on enchancing the look and functionality of products.Publication Measuring Financial Inclusion : The Global Findex Database(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-04)This paper provides the first analysis of the Global Financial Inclusion (Global Findex) Database, a new set of indicators that measure how adults in 148 economies save, borrow, make payments, and manage risk. The data show that 50 percent of adults worldwide have an account at a formal financial institution, though account penetration varies widely across regions, income groups and individual characteristics. In addition, 22 percent of adults report having saved at a formal financial institution in the past 12 months, and 9 percent report having taken out a new loan from a bank, credit union or microfinance institution in the past year. Although half of adults around the world remain unbanked, at least 35 percent of them report barriers to account use that might be addressed by public policy. Among the most commonly reported barriers are high cost, physical distance, and lack of proper documentation, though there are significant differences across regions and individual characteristics.Publication Governance Matters VIII : Aggregate and Individual Governance Indicators 1996–2008(2009-06-01)This paper reports on the 2009 update of the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) research project, covering 212 countries and territories and measuring six dimensions of governance between 1996 and 2008: Voice and Accountability, Political Stability and Absence of Violence/Terrorism, Government Effectiveness, Regulatory Quality, Rule of Law, and Control of Corruption. These aggregate indicators are based on hundreds of specific and disaggregated individual variables measuring various dimensions of governance, taken from 35 data sources provided by 33 different organizations. The data reflect the views on governance of public sector, private sector and NGO experts, as well as thousands of citizen and firm survey respondents worldwide. The authors also explicitly report the margins of error accompanying each country estimate. These reflect the inherent difficulties in measuring governance using any kind of data. They find that even after taking margins of error into account, the WGI permit meaningful cross-country comparisons as well as monitoring progress over time. The aggregate indicators, together with the disaggregated underlying indicators, are available at www.govindicators.org.Publication Governance Matters IV : Governance Indicators for 1996-2004(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2005-06)The authors present the latest update of their aggregate governance indicators, together with new analysis of several issues related to the use of these measures. The governance indicators measure the following six dimensions of governance: (1) voice and accountability; (2) political instability and violence; (3) government effectiveness; (4) regulatory quality; (5) rule of law, and (6) control of corruption. They cover 209 countries and territories for 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, and 2004. They are based on several hundred individual variables measuring perceptions of governance, drawn from 37 separate data sources constructed by 31 organizations. The authors present estimates of the six dimensions of governance for each period, as well as margins of error capturing the range of likely values for each country. These margins of error are not unique to perceptions-based measures of governance, but are an important feature of all efforts to measure governance, including objective indicators. In fact, the authors give examples of how individual objective measures provide an incomplete picture of even the quite particular dimensions of governance that they are intended to measure. The authors also analyze in detail changes over time in their estimates of governance; provide a framework for assessing the statistical significance of changes in governance; and suggest a simple rule of thumb for identifying statistically significant changes in country governance over time. The ability to identify significant changes in governance over time is much higher for aggregate indicators than for any individual indicator. While the authors find that the quality of governance in a number of countries has changed significantly (in both directions), they also provide evidence suggesting that there are no trends, for better or worse, in global averages of governance. Finally, they interpret the strong observed correlation between income and governance, and argue against recent efforts to apply a discount to governance performance in low-income countries.Publication Government Matters III : Governance Indicators for 1996-2002(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2003-08)The authors present estimates of six dimensions of governance covering 199 countries and territories for four time periods: 1996, 1998, 2000, and 2002. These indicators are based on several hundred individual variables measuring perceptions of governance, drawn from 25 separate data sources constructed by 18 different organizations. The authors assign these individual measures of governance to categories capturing key dimensions of governance and use an unobserved components model to construct six aggregate governance indicators in each of the four periods. They present the point estimates of the dimensions of governance as well as the margins of errors for each country for the four periods. The governance indicators reported here are an update and expansion of previous research work on indicators initiated in 1998 (Kaufmann, Kraay, and Zoido-Lobat 1999a,b and 2002). The authors also address various methodological issues, including the interpretation and use of the data given the estimated margins of errors.