Q56 - Environment and Development; Environment and Trade; Sustainability; Environmental Accounts and Accounting; Environmental Equity; Population GrowthReturn

The objective of this paper is to present the results of an analysis of the indicator Greenhouse gas emissions (GGE). The GGE is one of the headline indicators tracked under the EU's main socioeconomic strategy until the year 2020 - the EUROPE 2020 strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. In the area of sustainable growth, the Resource-efficient Europe initiative was established. For 2020, the EU has made a unilateral commitment to reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions from its 28 member states by 20% compared to 1990 levels. The GGE indicator shows total man-made emissions of the so-called Kyoto basket of greenhouse gases. It presents annual total emissions in relation to those observed in 1990. The aggregate greenhouse gas emissions are expressed in units of CO2 equivalent.
The development of the GGE indicator in the EU and in the Czech Republic from 2000 to 2014 from the point of view of the ability to achieve the Strategy objectives is analyzed. In terms of the level of the analyzed indicator, the set of the EU countries can be divided into two significantly different groups - the euro area and the non-euro area; or into groups by the year of their joining the EU. Analyses of the dependency between the growth of GGE and the GDP growth for both the set of the 28 EU countries and the Czech Republic are presented as well.

This article focuses mainly on the environmental costs connected with legislative compliance in the Czech Republic, possibilities of their identification and observation in corporations and suggestions for cutting them down. First, we present an overview of theoretical concepts regarding determination of costs connected with environmental protection in companies and possible difficulties with identification of this kind of costs; however, there are various methods depending both on the authors' opinions and purposes of environmental cost identification in companies. Then, the article discusses particular inputs and outputs of companies and tries to identify possible environmental costs on both sides. Generally, both the simplest and cheapest way for the companies is to concentrate on such environmental costs that are connected with legislation in force; therefore, the Czech Republic's current environmental protection law is analyzed for this purpose. After that, the article focuses briefly on suggestions for possible corporate savings and environmental cost reduction, based on the legislation in force in the Czech Republic. Finally, the key element of this article is a case study based on the information obtained from a real company. The case study presents results of both identification and quantification of particular environmental costs connected with legislation in force in a small business in the Czech Republic in 2010.

The existence of world trade regime under the WTO and the environmental regime under the UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol can create several conflicts. The various norms of both regimes can confirm or contradict each other. In the case of a conflict, the Dispute Settlement Mechanism of the WTO is probably to be applied. The regime interplay theory offers suitable tools for analyses of potential areas of conflict and can lead to an adoption of an appropriate regime management that would enhance the regime synergies. This paper tries to outline the differences of the trade rules and climate change regime norms in regard to the overlaps of their norms. It is based on the characteristic of both regimes and on the regime interplay analyses applied on this model case of two international regimes.