Page 104 - Azerbaijan State University of Economics

THE JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC SCIENCES: THEORY AND PRACTICE, V.70, # 2, 2013, pp. 99-112

to reduce energy demand;

to develop renewable energy;
to increase the efficiency of existing energy resources;

to transfer to cleaner technologies to developing countries;

to make researches in the areas of new, cleaner, renewable energy sources.
Energy security is a growing concern for rich and emerging nations alike. The past drive

for fossil fuel energy has led to wars, overthrow of democratically elected leaders, and puppet

governments and dictatorships.
Transport contributes to economic growth and meeting social needs for access and

mobility. Although, it also contributes to environmental degradation, depletion of non-renewable

resources, and damage to and loss of human health. The goal of sustainable mobility could be
achieved by reducing the need to use the transport, improving the use of transaport infrastructure

and measures, choosing alternate measures of transport such as railways, bycicles, developing
public transport, using environmentally friendly transports.

Sustainable transport has many advantages, however, it is extremely difficult to adapt
transport sector to sustainable society. One of the reasons is that transportation is interrelated

with variety of other activities, that cannot be managed separately. One should also take into

consideration, that more than a half of petroleum consumed in the world is due to transport
sector.

There are no doubts that renewable resources will be discovered and used more eficiently,
but most probably this will not be enough to create sustainable transport sytem in the world.

Past growth in agricultural productions in welfare countries has been achieved with less
labour force and less land, but using more water, chemicals and machinery. This has led to the

increased pollution and natural resources use, destruction of wildlife habitat. Given that

agriculture occupies a third of the world’s surface and feeds most of inhabitants, we must steer it
with new vigor onto sustainable territories. The economic challenge is a complex one then. It

requires proper accounting of resource use, as well as addressing purposes of consumption. What
is normally counted economically as an “externality” needs to be internalized instead. For

example, tobacco consumption clearly shows how land is used for a product that is costly to the

environment, to people’s personal health and to society’s resources to provide health care.

103