Sustainable Income from Exhaustible Resources

The conventional national accounts based on the System of National Accounts (SNA) cover only those economic activities that involve market transactions, thereby not capturing the full economic value of most environmental goods and services that do not have markets or market prices. Thus, the consequences of environment-economy interaction, which have a significant bearing on the sustainability of economic processes, are not reflected in the National Accounts. United Nations System of Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting (SEEA 2003) guidelines provide the format for the construction of Natural Resource Accounts and their integration with core National Accounts such that the implications for sustainability of different patterns of production and consumption can be examined. The objective in this book is to ascertain the ecological sustainability of the fossil fuel sector in India. Based on SEEA 2003 guidelines for energy resources, asset accounts are constructed in physical and monetary terms for coal, oil and natural gas reserves. Adjusted (Green) GDP for the sector is estimated after accounting for the extent of depletion of these exhaustible resources.