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The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a universal call to action to end poverty and protect the environment. The Government of Guatemala is prioritizing the SDGs it will focus on and defining lines of action to make progress towards achieving them. In this paper, we apply the Integrated Economic-Environmental Modelling platform for Guatemala (IEEM-GUA) to evaluate the economic, environmental and wealth impacts of strategies for achieving the SDGs. We evaluate specific lines of action to achieve the second SDG to achieve food security and promote sustainable agriculture, and; the sixth SDG to achieve water and sanitation coverage for all. We find that significant new investment in these areas would be required to meeting these SDGs and that the overall pace of economic growth is critical. IEEM applied to the SDGs lends transparency and structure to the prioritization and agenda setting process. It sheds light on the need for complementary policies to reconcile lines of action that can inadvertently move progress toward specific SDGs in opposite directions. Finally, an advantage of an integrated framework such as IEEM is its ability to highlight trade-offs, potential win-wins and inter-linkages between SDGs, where one line of action can make progress towards multiple SDGs simultaneously.

Economy-wide models such as computable general equilibrium (CGE) models are powerful tools that provide insights on policy impacts on standard economic indicators. With the recent publication of the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA), the power of this approach is amplified. This article addresses an important gap in economy-wide policy modeling applications and literature by developing a conceptual framework for the integration of the SEEA in the CGE framework, enabling for the first time the analysis of policy impacts on the economy and the environment in a quantitative, comprehensive, and consistent framework. Previous integrated modeling efforts have generally focused on the interaction between the economy and one environmental resource in isolation, requiring significant data reconciliation. Integration of SEEA into a CGE circumvents this resource intense process, enhancing analytical power, obviating the need for strong assumptions in reconciling economic–environmental data, reducing start-up costs, and increasing the timeliness of evidence-based policy advice.

In this paper we evaluate the economic, natural capital and ecosystem services impacts of strategies for conserving Colombias rich natural capital endowment. Specifically, we consider Government program proposals for establishing Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES), implementing more sustainable silvopastoral systems and expanding habitat banking. We develop and apply the Integrated Economic-Environmental Modeling (IEEM) Platform linked with spatial Land Use Land Cover (LULC) and Ecosystem Services Modeling (IEEMESM) to shed light on the multi-dimensional impacts of these programs from the perspective of sustainable economic development and intergenerational wealth. Advancing the state-of-the-art in integrated economic-environmental modeling, our framework for the first time integrates dynamic endogenous feedbacks between natural capital, ecosystem services and the economic system to fully capture how changes in natural capital and ecosystem service flows affect the economy and vice versa. Our approach quantitatively models the economy, natural capital and ecosystem services as one integrated and complex system at a high level of spatial resolution across Colombias 32 Departments. [.]

In this paper we evaluate the economic, natural capital and ecosystem services impact s of strategies for conserving Colombia's rich natural capital endowment. Specifically, we consider Government program proposals for establishing Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES), implementing more sustainable silvopastoral systems and expanding habitat banking. We develop and apply the Integrated Economic - Environmental Modeling (IEEM) Platform linked with spatial Land Use Land Cover (LULC) and Ecosystem Services Modeling ( IEEM+ ESM) to shed light on the multi-dimensional impacts of these programs from the perspective of sustainable economic development and intergenerational wealth. Advancing the state-of-the-art in integrated economic-environmental modeling, our framework for the first time integrates dynamic endogenous feedbacks between natural capital, ecosystem services and the economic system to fully capture how changes in natural capital and ecosystem service flows affect the economy and vice versa. Our approach quantitatively models the economy, natural capital and ecosystem services as one integrated and complex system at a high level of spatial resolution across Colombia's 32 Departments. We demonstrate how valuing biodiversity in public policy and investment analysis can make the difference between an investment that is economically viable and one that is not. Without accounting for the value of biodiversity, the proposed PES and habitat banking programs are not economically viable. Including the value of biodiversity, both PES and habitat banking become strong investment propositions with a net present value of US$4.4 billion and US$4.9 billion, respectively. The economic and environmental benefits of enhancing Colombia's natural capital base and future ecosystem service supply are demonstrated and regionally differentiated, which provides a strong empirical evidence base to inform the spatial targeting of policies to maximize economic, environmental and social outcomes .

AbstractIn this paper, we use a computable general equilibrium model to simulate the effects of drought and a decrease in agricultural productivity caused by climate change in Guatemala. A reduction in agricultural productivity would mean a considerable drop in crop and livestock production, and the resulting higher prices and lower household income would mean a significant reduction in the consumption of agricultural goods and food. The most negative effects of a drought would be concentrated in agriculture, given its intensive use of water. Because agricultural production is essential to ensuring food availability, these results suggest that Guatemala needs a proper water-distribution regulatory framework.