At 2:30 pm on June 14th, Sébastien Marchand, the Associate Professor of University Clermont Auvergne held a lecture entitled “Environmental and resource economics” at Room 102. Teachers from the Institute of Economics and Finance and some students attended the seminar.
Professor Sébastien Marchand started the topic with the quotation “to maintain human progress within the guidelines of human needs and natural laws” and proposed three observations, humanity does need the natural environment, revelation of human-related ravages on the natural environment, and our objective is to better use limited-resources that humanity has. The three previous observations have two main implications for ERE, we have to reveal human origins in environmental trouble and to modify economic system/human society in order to deal with the environment. Next, there are two examples of revelation and regulation, biodiversity losses and air pollution. Then professor asked “What are economy-environment interdependencies?” There are four functions, Material base resource, waste sink, amenities services flow and life-support services, based on that we have two solutions, scientific solution : concepts of efficiency and optimality and political solution : sustainable development framework. To conclude, ERE has to propose solutions to resolve this problem by revealing theses link and regulating human decisions.
The lecture lasted for two hours. It gave us a deeper understanding of Environmental and resource economics. After the lecture, teachers were still very interested, asking questions and discussing with Professor Sébastien Marchand.
