The quest for environmental justice in China: citizen participation and the rural–urban network against Panguanying’s waste incinerator

Environmental distribution conflicts (EDCs) related to the construction and operation of waste incinerators have become commonplace in China. This article presents a detailed case study of citizen opposition to an incinerator in the village of Panguanying, Hebei Province. Drawing on in-depth fieldwork, we show how this case was notable, because it transcended the local arena to raise bigger questions about environmental justice, particularly in relation to public participation in siting decisions, after villagers exposed fraudulent public consultation in the environmental impact assessment. An informal network between villagers and urban environmental activists formed, enabling the Panguanying case to exert influence far beyond the village locality. This network was critical in creating wider public debate about uneven power and substandard public participation in siting disputes, a central feature in many Chinese EDCs. By transcending local specificities and exposing broader, systemic inadequacies, this case became instrumental in supporting “strong sustainability”.     

Muting the Voice of the Local in the Age of the Global: How Communication Practices Compromised Public Participation in India's Allain Dunhangan Environmental Impact Assessment

Public participation is widely lauded as a way to make environmental decisions more democratic, to improve their quality, and to enhance their legitimacy. Scholars and citizens around the world repeatedly complain, however, that public participation frequently serves primarily as a pro forma exercise to defend predetermined decisions rather than as a meaningful opportunity for the affected public to influence decision-making. These critiques persist despite considerable research suggesting ways to improve the quality of public participation. This essay explores this problem by analyzing citizen involvement in the environmental impact assessment (EIA) processes for the Allain Duhangan hydropower project in northern India. It describes how meaningful public involvement was compromised—despite repeated objections by citizens and independent consultants—by four communication practices: (1) failing to provide adequate access to information; (2) predetermining EIA outcomes by controlling the definition of issues (“definitional hegemony”); (3) privileging scientific/technical discourse; (4) utilizing “consultative” forms of communication that promote one-way flows of information rather than more interactive forms that encourage the joint construction of information and values. This study further argues that these practices persist because they serve as acts of power that privilege dominant actors and interests in the larger socio-political context. This analysis thus suggests that altering communication practices that compromise the quality of public participation may require attending to the interaction between communication practices, relations of power, and the larger socio-political context in which public participation takes place.     

Climate Change Discourses and Citizen Participation: A Case Study of the Discursive Construction of Citizenship in Two Public Events

Citizen participation is a recurrent and democratically important issue in the ongoing debate about climate change. However, different meanings are ascribed to citizen participation in different contexts, ranging from top-down involvement to bottom-up engagement, thus creating tension between conflicting ideals. Focusing on public engagement and its construal in different situational contexts, we explore how citizens are discursively included or excluded from participation, as various climate change discourses unfold in two forums where local needs and global concerns interact. Furthermore, we address some opportunities and barriers regarding citizen participation in climate change issues.     

中国环境影响评价中公众参与存在的问题与对策

公众参与是环境影响评价中的重要内容,在环境影响评价中发挥着特殊作用。针对目前中国环境影响评价中公众参与的实施状况,提出了公众参与意识不强、参与形式单一、信息公开不充分和公众意见未受到足够重视等一系列问题,并从宏观及具体操作上提出加强环保宣传教育、采取多样化的参与形式、建立完善的环境信息公开制度和认真对待公众反馈意见等相关的有效对策。     

Measuring combined exposure to environmental pressures in urban areas: an air quality and noise pollution assessment approach

This study presents a methodological scheme developed to provide a combined air and noise pollution exposure assessment based on measurements from personal portable monitors. Provided that air and noise pollution are considered in a co-exposure approach, they represent a significant environmental hazard to public health. The methodology is demonstrated for the city of Thessaloniki, Greece. The results of an extensive field campaign are presented and the variations in personal exposure between modes of transport, routes, streets and transport microenvironments are evaluated. Air pollution and noise measurements were performed simultaneously along several commuting routes, during the morning and evening rush hours. Combined exposure to environmental pollutants is highlighted based on the Combined Exposure Factor (CEF) and Combined Dose and Exposure Factor (CDEF). The CDEF takes into account the potential relative uptake of each pollutant by considering the physical activities of each citizen. Rather than viewing environmental pollutants separately for planning and environmental sustainability considerations, the possibility of an easy-to-comprehend co-exposure approach based on these two indices is demonstrated. Furthermore, they provide for the first time a combined exposure assessment to these environmental pollutants for Thessaloniki and in this sense they could be of importance for local public authorities and decision makers. A considerable environmental burden for the citizens of Thessaloniki, especially for VOCs and noise pollution levels is observed. The material herein points out the importance of measuring public health stressors and the necessity of considering urban environmental pollution in a holistic way.     

The Sustainable Development of ICTs in China： An Empirical Study of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises

The wide application of new information and communication technologies （ICTs） has been argued to be critical to business success of small and medium-sized enterprises （SMEs）, especially to those in the developing countries. Drawing upon existing literature, this article will examine the determinants of ICTs application in SMEs in China based on data collected from interviews with top managers and/or owners of 70 SMEs. We identify 20 factors affecting ICTs application in SMEs in China and divide them into four broad categories, namely pressures, firm specific factors, technical factors and local milieu. We also pay special attention to the Chinese business environment affecting ICTs application. Our analysis shows that local ICT infrastructure, external pressures from competitors and ICT knowledge of employees are the determinants of Internet application by SMEs, while product characteristics and market target are important factors of e-commerce adoption.     

Urbanization and sustainability: challenges and strategies for sustainable urban development in Bangladesh

Like other developing countries, urbanization in Bangladesh is a growing phenomenon, which is steady in nature but fretfully affects urban sustainability in the wake of lacking in good governance. Despite urban authorities are concerned about this issue, they often fail to address the problems due to the fact of uncontrollable and unpredictable rural to urban migration, and negligence of urban poor’s sustainable living and access to basic services. Virtually the rural poverty problem has been transposed to urban areas, particularly in Dhaka City, Bangladesh. Inadequacy of infrastructural services, basic amenities and environmental goods; environmental degradation; traffic jam and accidents; violence and socioeconomic insecurity are the major challenges which are created through rapid urbanization. This paper provides a general understanding of urbanization in Bangladesh and tries to embrace related sustainability issues and challenges hindrance to sustainable urban development in Dhaka city. In addition, it presents a brief case study of water supply in Dhaka city which introduces an issue of ‘system hijack’. The paper concludes providing some strategies that might be helpful to the policy makers in formulating development policies for sustainable urban services.     

Climate Engagement in a Digital Age: Exploring the Drivers of Participation in Climate Discourse Online in the Context of COP21

Various scholars underscore the importance of public engagement with climate change to successfully respond to the challenges of global warming. However, although online media provide various new opportunities to actively engage in climate discourse so far very little is known about the drivers of this form of engagement. Against this background, this study tested a theoretical model on the effects of media and interpersonal communication on participation in climate discourse online using data from a representative online survey of German citizens (n?=?1392) carried out while COP21. Overall, the results show that receiving information on climate change from social media (social networks, Twitter, blogs), active information seeking online and interpersonal conversations about COP21 strongly encourage participation in climate discourse online. Moreover, results provide relevant insights on the role of interest in climate politics, personal issue relevance and climate scepticism as preconditions of communication effects.     

政府环境规制下的企业治理动机与公众参与外部性研究

本文构建了多主体参与环境治理的动态一般均衡模型,进行了政府环境规制下的企业内生治理动机研究与公众参与外部性的分析,模拟结果显示,企业内生治理动机、社会福利等不同目标下对应的最优环境税率存在明显差异。随着政府环境税率的不断上升,企业环境技术研发投入会先上升后下降,当环境研发投入水平达到最大时,政府所征收的环境税完全激发了企业的内生治理动机。在环境税率提高的初期,研发引致的环境技术进步使得企业的全要素生产率得以提高,经济产出不断增加,社会福利水平得到增进。当环境税率上升到一定数值之后,环境税带来的资源配置扭曲效应高于环境负外部性的改善效应,对于经济而言,环境税成为扭曲性税收,并会降低社会福利水平。因此,应在保证经济增长和社会福利增进的同时有效激励企业内在治理动机,将环境税率设定在适当水平。本文还模拟了政府与公众参与的组合对于社会福利的影响情况,与仅考虑政府环境规制政策的情形相对比,政府征收环境税和社会组织参与的共同作用可以使得社会福利提高,充分表明了公众参与环境治理存在着正外部性。环境社会组织在一定程度上可以降低政府信息不对称等因素,改善环境治理状况。环境组织的参与还能够使得环境税所带来的环境治理改善和生产效率提高的双重红利逐渐释放。因此,在发挥政府规制与市场调节功能的同时,充分发挥环境社会组织和公众在环境治理中的作用,是改善环境质量、提高公众福利的重要方式。     

我国公路网规划环境影响评价

我国正处于公路交通飞速发展的历史阶段,公路建设在促进社会经济发展的同时也带来了显著的生态环境问题。由于目前建设项目环境影响评价的局限性日益突出,环评法以及相继出台的部门规章都要求从战略层次科学评估交通规划造成的潜在环境影响,促使交通战略的决策过程充分考虑环境因素。然而,我国交通战略环境评价起步较晚并较多关注于内容框架的研究,因此从宏观层面上对公路网规划的环境评价方法还有待完善和深入研究。以融合国际经验的湖北省骨架公路网规划战略环境评价为例,从规划分析、现状调查、指标体系、影响预测、制度分析和公众参与等方面,详细分析了我国公路网规划环境影响评价的技术路线确定、评价要点识别以及评价方法选取等内容,并从层次性和介入时机等方面讨论了我国交通战略环境评价存在的不足,为完善交通规划战略环境评价提供参考     

Moving towards urban sustainability in Kenya: a framework for integration of environmental,economic, social and governance dimensions

Global urban development is increasingly becoming an aspect of focus as nations fight sustainability challenges. A review of the current literature on urban sustainability suggests that research on development of cities, in both developed and developing countries, is growing fast, with an emphasis on sustainable development. However, very little of this research contains an integrated framework to systematically identify and examine the various dimensions of urban sustainability and to measure and evaluate them appropriately. Cities are more than the sum of their sectors, and are complex and interdependent systems on whose dynamics the quality of life of millions of human beings and a good part of the economy depend. Environmental, economic, social and governance problems can create formidable barriers to urban sustainability. Governance remains a critically important dimension of urban sustainability, especially when discussing urbanization in developing countries, given rapid population movements and imbalances in socio-economic development. Understanding how cities function is fundamental to resolving these imbalances. The aim of this paper is to provide a review and analysis of the concept of urban sustainability and to propose the development of a holistic framework through integration of environmental, economic, social, and governance dimensions of sustainability. Such a review would make it possible to understand the complex dynamics of the four dimensions and to assess the progress and challenges in moving towards urban sustainability, taking the case of Nairobi, Kenya, as an example. The paper argues that, for urban sustainability in developing countries, more emphasis should be placed on the governance dimension, because this is where the biggest challenge exists, with increasing needs for immediate management of rapid urbanization.     

Increasing the sustainability of a resource development: Aboriginal engagement and negotiated agreements

While the role Aboriginal people play in environmental governance programs are often underpinned by the Crown, Aboriginal peoples are ratifying negotiated agreements with mining proponents to ensure their issues and concerns are addressed. This paper examines Aboriginal participation in mine development to show how more inclusive social and environmental development models can support a more sustainable development. Through two complementary processes, negotiated agreements and environmental impact assessment, Aboriginal peoples are maximizing their benefits and minimizing the adverse impacts of a project to create a more sustainable resource development. Case study analysis of the Galore Creek Project in northwestern British Columbia, Canada, illustrates how environmental impact assessment and negotiated agreements can co-exist to positively contribute to a successful mineral development, and hence operationalize sustainability within this context.     

Crossing technology and sustainability in cities’ development

This paper deals with sustainability in cities and the role technology plays in furthering sustainable results. Recently, many interventions have been implemented in cities to propose paths and models promoting the sustainability of cities from an overall perspective. Technologies are favouring the achievement of aims recalling the three spheres of sustainability as proposed by Arcadis (2017), namely “planet”, “profit”, and “people”. The ties between technology and the three spheres are investigated through a content analysis of reports issued by the 10 cities with the most significant advances in terms of becoming sustainable cities, as indicated in the Arcadis Report 2016. The results highlight technology as an element crossing sustainability, as processes and models in cities management and service provisions to citizens are significantly changing. New tools are innovating the processes addressing environmental issues, thus leading to cost efficiency and better economic conditions. Parallel to this, new models for city management and the provision of public services are addressing the need for a better quality of life for citizens and cities’ other stakeholders. Technology itself is thought of as sustainable because it should lead to efficiency and being efficient itself. A qualitative cluster analysis and a focus on excerpts from reports are proposed to highlight the ties between technologies and the elements representing key issues in managing and leading a city towards more sustainable conditions.     

The implications of new information and communication technologies for sustainability

This paper discusses the relationship of new information and communication technologies (ICTs) and sustainable development. It deconstructs popular myths about a sustainable information society. One myth is that telework has reduced the need to travel and hence environmental pollution. The reality is that teleworkers make up only a small share of the total workforce, telework can generate new social relationships and hence the need for more travelling, work-related travel produces only a small amount of the total carbon dioxide emissions, and that the total distance travelled per employee is constantly rising. Another myth is that information economy is weightless and dematerialized which reduces environmental impacts. The energy and resource intensities of the ICT sector are indeed lower than the one of the total economy. The ICT sector also emits less CO₂ than the total economy. But the ICT sector constitutes only a small portion of the total value added and fossil fuel combustion is still the dominant activity of modern industrial economies. Some stakeholders argue that virtual products allow resource, energy, and transport savings. But burning digital music on compact discs and DVDs, printing digital articles and books, etc. results in rebound effects that cause new material and energy impacts, computers have a low life span of 2–3 years, reusable and upgradeable computers and computer equipment are hardly used and might not be as profitable as non-reusable ones, computers are consuming much energy. Alternatives such as energy consumption labels on ICTs and green ICTs that consume less energy contradict dominant economic interests. A sustainable information society is a society that makes use of ICTs and knowledge for fostering a good life for all human beings of current and future generations by strengthening biological diversity, technological usability, economic wealth for all, political participation of all, and cultural wisdom. Achieving a sustainable information society costs, it demands a conscious reduction of profits by not investing in the future of capital, but the future of humans, society, and nature.     

Citizens’ perception of the resilience of Australian cities

How well does the general public understand the concept of urban resilience? We address this question via an online survey of 500+ citizens living in three large Australian cities (Sydney, Melbourne and Perth). The majority of respondents claim not to know what urban resilience means. Of the remaining respondents, understanding ranges from poor to sophisticated. To circumvent this stated lack of understanding, we cast the concept of urban resilience into a more familiar framework consisting of risk and ability to cope with threats. This allows us to assess perceptions about what may challenge the resilience of Australian cities. Two concerns clearly emerge: (1) violence and social unrest and (2) environmental threats. Analysing a number of constructs from the social psychology literature reveals that these two concerns hold different cognitive signatures, whose understanding may facilitate discussion and communication within a public engagement process.     

Assessing the sustainability of major cities in China

Rapid urbanization in the developing world calls for attention to address the issue of urban sustainability, especially in emerging countries such as China, where social equity and environmental conditions have been marginalized by the rapid economic development. In this paper, we addressed the above issue with an attempt to answer the following questions: (1) How did the sustainability of Chinese cities evolve over time? (2) What are the driving forces for the evolution? By constructing a composite index that incorporates three major aspects of sustainability, economy, environment, and social equity, we characterized the recent evolution of Chinese cities and assessed the disparity among regions in terms of the sustainability measures. Further, we analyzed the driving forces for the change of sustainability indices through a driving force-pressure-state-effect model. We substantiate our numerical analysis of Chinese cities with a detailed case study of Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang Autonomous Region, which has experienced significant change over the past 3 decades in every aspect of sustainability. We highlight some fundamental socioeconomic driving forces that have caused spatial restructuring, reflected by land-use change, and consequently impacted the urban environment of Urumqi. A brief case analysis of Guangzhou is also provided.     

Legitimate adaptive flood risk governance beyond the dikes: the cases of Hamburg,Helsinki and Rotterdam

It has recently been recommended that a shift from traditional flood prevention to more adaptive strategies is made, focusing on the reduction in and recovery from flood impacts as a means to improve resilience to climate impacts. This shift has had implications for the public–private divide in adaptive flood risk governance. In an urban context, it means that private actors such as developers and residents come into play, necessitating governance arrangements which cross the public–private divide. The division of responsibilities for water safety between the public and private sectors affects the way legitimacy is gained for these arrangements and raises new legitimacy issues. The paper offers an analysis of public and private responsibilities in adaptive flood risk governance arrangements, as well as of the legitimacy of the arrangements in the light of the public–private divide. A comparative case study is presented for three urban regeneration projects in un-embanked areas in Hamburg, Germany, Helsinki, Finland, and Rotterdam, the Netherlands, where adaptive strategies have been applied. The results show that network arrangements with joint public–private responsibilities use direct forms of participation and deliberation, but that these do not necessarily lead to more legitimate arrangements in the eyes of stakeholders as is often suggested in the literature. Both network and more public hierarchical arrangements can be perceived as quite legitimate under certain conditions.     

农村环境治理中的政府责任再论析:元治理视域

当前,我国农村环境问题日益突出。如何实现农村环境的有效治理,学者从不同角度进行了探讨。无论学者如何强调PPP模式的意义、如何强调社会公众以及社会组织的作用,研究最后基本都会指向政府责任。本论文的创新之处就在于重新强调农村环境治理中的政府责任,特别是将其置于元治理视域下进行论析。元治理即治理的治理,元治理并不排斥治理主体的多元化,但更加重视和强调政府在社会治理中的重要性。根据元治理理论,政府在农村环境治理中的责任可以界定为:农村环境治理成本的承担者和多元治理体系的构建者,PPP模式的设计和监督者,社会组织参与治理的支持者和农民参与治理的引导者。当前,农村环境治理中政府责任担当存在的主要问题包括,政府农村环境治理投入不足和治理体系不完善、PPP模式中政府监督责任弱化、对社会组织参与治理的支持不足以及对农民参与治理的引导不够。元治理视域下农村环境治理中政府责任的实现,不仅需要政府承担起最主要治理主体责任,而且需要政府积极引领其他主体参与到农村环境治理中来,形成治理合力。具体而言,应以财政投入增加和多元治理体系构建实现政府最主要主体责任,同时,政府应以监督责任强化为重点保障PPP模式实施,以发展能力提升积极支持社会组织参与,以环境意识和制度信任水平提高等引导农民参与。     

Theoretical and exploratory research on sustainability mental model of the public in China: based on a typical survey in Guangdong province

This article aims to investigate the public’s sustainability mental model (SMM), which can reveal the sustainability dilemma from the public respective, other than enterprise or government. In this article, SMM is defined as one’s cognitive structure, thinking mode, and behavior tendency when someone deals with sustainability issues. After theoretical analysis, the authors developed reliable and valid measures systematically and conducted a typical survey with 581 participants from college students’ families in Guangdong province in China. Based on those samples, the author used the exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis to construct a measurement model of SMM, which includes three dimensions, i.e. sustainable cognition, sustainable thinking, and sustainable behavior intention. According to SMM survey and clustering analysis, the results indicate that SMM of those participants is inactive. Even though those samples do not represent the whole country comprehensively, but this survey was sampled typically and they came from around China. So, the authors consider the SMM scores can reflect Chinese people to some extent, leading to the assumption that SMM of Chinese people is not active presently.     

Resource and Environmental Issues in Transitional China： A Perspective from the Interaction Among Market, Government and Society

Along with the rapid growth of economy in the postreform period after 1979,China has faced severe problems of resource overusing and environmental degradation which would threaten the sustainable development of economy and society.This article explores an effective mechanism of managing resource and environment in China.It examines some major resource and environmental issues,and constructs a framework of institution innovation to cover three sectors(government,market and society).In addition,the article analyzes their experience and evaluation in resource management and environmental conservation during the transitional period.We argue that the combination of market regulation,government intervention and public participation is an effective way of allocating resource and protecting environment.Some suggestions are put forward to balance the relationship between them,including coordinating role of government and market,building platform for market operation and creating an atmosphere of public participation.