Global environmental assessments: Impact mechanisms

Many impacts of Global Environmental Assessment (GEA) processes on policy processes, and the mechanisms underlying these impacts, remain underappreciated. In this research, we focus on the 5th Global Environment Outlook and the Working Group III contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Based on the perception of GEA process participants, we describe the mechanisms through which assessments create or alter interpersonal interactions which can affect the dissemination of ideas. In particular, we find that GEAs can contribute to framing international coordinative discourses in intergovernmental negotiations. This can be achieved by widening, improving and/or maintaining the active participation of policy actors in the discussions of global environmental risks and by creating the scientific foundations for intergovernmental negotiations. GEAs can also contribute to national coordinative discourses by facilitating reflexive learning amongst participants, empowering them to diffuse and translate global information, and by providing methodological guidance. They can contribute to national communicative discourses by reviving interest and awareness of the urgency to address environmental problems. In this way they provide powerful arguments for governmental societal actors to challenge or strengthen existing national coordinative discourses. Finally, GEAs can improve scientific discourses worldwide by enhancing the capacity of individual researchers to produce and communicate relevant research insights. This is achieved by participating in a learning exercise with an extended community of peers and policy actors. This article is part of a special issue on solution-oriented global environmental assessments.     

Evaluating the impacts of global environmental assessments

There are currently no widely accepted procedures for comparing the performance of global environmental assessments (GEAs) and this may be a barrier to improving their methodology. To encourage greater self-reflection within the GEA community, it is proposed to introduce consistent evaluation approaches. Two elements from current evaluation practice are reviewed here that could be particularly useful for evaluating GEAs. The first are logic models which provide a transparent visual mapping of how activities in a GEA are intended to have impacts on policies. The second are performance metrics. It is proposed that GEAs adopt two kinds of metrics: (i) A common generic set for use in all GEAs to provide a basis for comparing the performance of GEAs, and (ii) a specific set of measureable metrics for each particular GEA derived from/linked to the generic set. Although many issues arise in applying these and other elements from evaluation theory and practice to GEAs, the potential benefits are greater comparability of GEA performance and new knowledge about how to improve them. This Short Communication is part of a Special Issue on solution-oriented GEAs.     

The epistemic authority of solution-oriented global environmental assessments

The effectiveness and influence of solutions oriented global environmental assessments (SOAs) rests on their legitimacy. Based on the GEA literature this piece reviews the legitimacy of GEAs and discusses its implications, and challenges and for the legitimacy of SOAs. This article is part of a special issue on solution-oriented GEAs.     

40 years of global environmental assessments: A retrospective analysis

This paper provides a retrospective analysis of global environmental assessment (GEA) processes and their changing character, focus and political context over the past 40 years. We examine how and why elements of organizational design, objectives, and the evolving political landscape have interacted and changed, with a view of informing the design and conduct of future processes. We find that the historical genesis of GEAs is closely connected to the emergence of environmental multilateralism. However, the prevailing conditions and assumptions which originally gave rise to the GEA concept have changed significantly over time, giving rise to an increasing demand for a focus on response options and policies. We also find that the epistemic and process complexity of GEAs has increased substantially, without a corresponding expansion in the magnitude and composition of GEA management teams. We suggest that developing analytical capacities for policy assessment as well as ensuring sufficient resources and tools to manage increasingly complex GEAs is essential to ensure their future relevance and success. This article is part of a special issue on solution-oriented GEAs.     

Collaborative governance and adaptive management: Lessons from California's CALFED Water Program

Both for its technological and institutional innovations and for its history of conflicts, California's water system has been one of the most observed in the world. This article and this Special Issue on the CALFED Bay-Delta Program continue in this tradition. CALFED is likely the most ambitious experiment in collaborative environmental policy and adaptive management the world has seen to date. This Issue moves beyond the celebratory tone of other analyses of collaborative, adaptive management and looks closer into how collaborative networks work to produce innovation, and more importantly to reflect also on their inherent contradictions, limitations and “dark sides”. While collaborative governance enhances mutual understandings and can be a source of innovation, it appears ill-suited to resolve alone the distributive dilemmas at the core of many water – and other environmental – conflicts. A lacuna in existing research concerns the institutional design of effective boundaries and linkages between democratic politics, legitimate authority, and adaptive governance, i.e. the mix of institutions that can provide sufficient responsibility, accountability and democratic legitimacy, without choking off the self-organizing interaction, shared learning, and communication that is at the heart of collaboration. A painful realization in the Delta is that environmental conservation and further growth may be fundamentally at odds; efficient win–win solutions, institutional or technological, seem insufficient to satisfy the competing demands posed upon the system. Radical decisions and changes might be necessary, but they seem unlikely under current institutional arrangements and political conditions.     

Ecological modernisation: new perspectives

“Ecological modernisation” – understood as systematic eco-innovation and its diffusion – has by far the largest potential to achieve environmental improvements. In general, the market logic of modernisation and competition for innovation combined with the market potential of global environmental needs serve as important driving forces behind “ecological modernisation”. In recent times, however, additional factors like rising energy prices or fears from climate change have favoured the rise of this innovation-based approach to environmental policy. The article deals with two special driving forces: first, there is growing evidence for the importance of “smart” environmental regulation. Secondly, the increasingly complex actor constellation of global environmental governance leads to mounting business risks for polluters and thereby exerts pressure for eco-innovation.Despite these favourable framework conditions, the strategy of “ecological modernisation” nonetheless faces a number of inherent limitations. These include the unavailability of marketable technological solutions for relevant environmental problems like the loss of species, the rebound effect neutralising the incremental environmental improvements through economic growth (the dilemma of the “N-curve”) as well as resistance by “modernisation losers”. Against this background, structural solutions seem indispensable. Here, eco-innovations should be supported by transition management or ecological structural policy.     

The authority of science in sustainability governance: A structured comparison of six science institutions engaged with the Sustainable Development Goals

Over the past decades, numerous science institutions have evolved around issues of global sustainability, aiming to inform and shape societal transformations towards sustainability. While these science-based initiatives seem to take on an ever growing active role in governance for sustainable development, the question arises how they can claim any political authority in the first place. We present here a structured comparison of six international science-based initiatives, all engaged in governance processes related to the recently established Sustainable Development Goals. We focus on the material and rhetorical strategies employed by these science institutions to acquire authority by fostering perceptions of salience, credibility and legitimacy among governance actors. We distinguish three modes of scientific authority: an assessment-oriented mode that combines a strategy of salience through integration, with credibility by formal mechanisms of review, and legitimacy through representation; an advice-oriented mode, which appeals to salience through the promise of independent and timely science advice, to credibility through the credentials of the scientists involved, and to legitimacy through formal recognition by governance actors; and a solution-oriented mode, with science institutions claiming relevance based on the promise to contribute to solutions for global sustainability, while credibility is sought by invoking support of the scientific community, and legitimacy through a strategy of participation. Based on this analysis, we provide a framework for reflection on the claims and strategies of science-based initiatives, and their role and responsibility in governance for sustainable development.This article is part of a special issue on solution-oriented GEAs.     

地理信息系统及其在上海环境管理中的应用

地理信息系统(GIS)在众多领域中已成为一个独立发展的新的前沿领域。上海于80年代末开始着手在环境保护与管理中开展了环境地理信息系统方面的应用研究,并建立《上海市环境地理信息系统》等几个不同层次与专题的环境管理与辅助决策信息系统。本文分析了上海环保局系统所建立的2个信息系统的技术特征,并对建立环境信息系统的一些问题进行了探讨。      

Constructing collaborative communities of researchers in the environmental domain. A case study of interdisciplinary research between legal scholars and policy analysts

The article offers an analysis of the interactions between legal and policy science researchers within a European project on flood risk management using a “Policy Arrangement Approach” (PAA). While interdisciplinary research is increasingly becoming a ‘must’ in environmental governance, under what conditions is cooperation possible and desirable? Our analysis shows that the PAA is not mobilized as an interdisciplinary method, but offers a framework for researchers from different disciplines to learn to work together on a subject such as flooding, requiring interdisciplinary insights. The paper shows the steps that are progressively put in place to reach a common language and reformulate issues by benefitting from each other’s view and approaches. The article concludes by drawing attention to new means of knowledge production relating to so-called “messy” or “wicked” problems, such as environmental issues. Within this framework, interdisciplinary work is not considered to be a pre-condition for the study, but rather the result of the research process itself. The analysis draws attention to the actual (working) conditions established to create an interdisciplinary community of flooding practices by challenging disciplinary borders.     

Food security and global environmental change: emerging challenges

Most research linking global environmental change and food security focuses solely on agriculture: either the impact of climate change on agricultural production, or the impact of agriculture on the environment, e.g. on land use, greenhouse gas emissions, pollution and/or biodiversity. Important though food production is, many other factors also need to be considered to understand food security. A recent international conference on “Environmental Change and Food Security: Bridging Science, Policy and Development for Adaptation” included a range of papers that embraced the multiple dimensions of the food systems that underpin food security. The major conclusion from the conference was that technical fixes alone will not solve the food security challenge. Adapting to the additional threats to food security arising from major environmental changes requires an integrated food system approach, not just a focus on agricultural practices. Six key issues emerged for future research: (i) adapting food systems to global environmental change requires more than just technological solutions to increase agricultural yields; (ii) tradeoffs across multiple scales among food system outcomes are a pervasive feature of globalized food systems; (iii) within food systems, there are some key underexplored areas that are both sensitive to environmental change but also crucial to understanding its implications for food security and adaptation strategies; (iv) scenarios specifically designed to investigate the wider issues that underpin food security and the environmental consequences of different adaptation options are lacking; (v) price variability and volatility often threaten food security; and (vi) more attention needs to be paid to the governance of food systems.     

日本环境管理咨询体系研究

环境执政能力已成为亚洲发展中国家的主要议题之一.政府通过立法、政策、行政和制度手段,可确保实现良好的执政.作为经济、政治和社会现代化的制度手段之一,环境咨询体系(EAS)在日本得以建立.其针对公众不断增长的对环境净化和保护的需求,增加公众参与政府决策过程的力度.强化环境执政能力的经验教训:①EAS产生的背景,即日本工业化和城市化初期几十年的环境退化和环境立法的艰难历程表明,公众对国家和地方政府的环境保护压力与日俱增.②识别了从"防治污染措施咨询委员会"(ACAP)发展到"中央环境咨询委员会"(CEAC)和"内阁全球环境委员会"(CGEC)的主要变化因素、内容和作用.ACAP主要考虑制定污染防治政策,监测、评估和补偿环境污染(如水俣病、痛痛病、呼吸道疾病等)造成的损害.CEAC和CGEC越来越多地涉及到环境保护中,包括地方、国家及全球尺度的污染预防和环境应急准备.     

Minimising emissions and energy wastage by improved industrial processes and integration of renewable energy

This article provides an introduction to this Special Issue of Journal of Cleaner Production (JCLP), which contains thirteen, carefully selected articles from the 12th Conference, “Process Integration, Modelling and Optimisation for Energy Saving and Pollution Reduction” – PRES'09. This issue builds upon the multi-year co-operation between the PRES conference planners and the JCLP. The articles cover important subjects of increased efficiency in energy generation and usage and in improvements in industrial process optimisation. The first group of five papers focuses upon recent advances in emissions reduction and the resulting energy penalties. The second group of four papers deals with improving the efficiency and reliability in the utilisation of renewable energy, where hydrogen and biodiesel are the key energy carriers. The final group of three papers focus on process integration challenges of sustainable energy systems and upon the challenges of industrial/societal integration of sustainable energy systems into regional sustainable development planning.     

跨区域环境协同治理对企业全要素生产率的影响

以2017年“2+26”城市大气污染协同治理为准自然实验,选取2014~2019年沪深两市制造业上市公司数据,利用三重差分法考察跨区域环境协同治理对于企业全要素生产率的影响.研究发现,“2+26”城市环境治理能够有效提高企业全要素生产率,其作用机制来自于企业提高绿色创新能力､环保投资以及研发投入.异质性分析表明,在环保严格执法的地区以及绿色创新能力更强､融资约束较低和国有企业样本中,企业全要素生产率提升作用更加明显.本文的发现为中国进一步推进跨区域环境协同治理具有一定的政策启示.     

global warming — uncertainties,effects, and policy options

Environmental policy making is a challenging task. Often the scope of an issue is not fully comprehended, and its future impact is even less well understood. Global warming is one of these environmental issues. The issue is made more complex because, first, there is a question of whether it is a problem at all and, second, unilateral policy making by one nation may not be sufficient or even significant to tackle the problem globally. This article outlines the scientific factors that contribute to global warming and discusses the uncertainties involved. The authors then discuss the ramifications of taking action (policy making) and failing to act (doing nothing) against the background of global warming, greenhouse gases, and cost-benefit analysis. The article concludes by reporting the results of a multidisciplinary panel of experts composed of scientists, economists, and policy analysts who commented on various policy options.     

Analysing the influence of visualisations in global environmental governance

Visualisations can highly contribute to the importance and authority of new ideas, concepts, and knowledge claims. Among the many visualisations, few become well-known and influential in environmental governance. Whilst these have been objects of specific research, this study questions what constitutes and underpins their influence. For this, the paper codifies influential visualisations and defines criteria for studying their visual characteristics. The criteria are applied to two case studies, the “traffic light” and the “planetary boundaries” diagrams. To increase the validity of the findings, the study also introduces two “failure cases” as a plausibility check.     

降尺度与融合化：环境空间管控转型与体系优化——代“环境空间管控研究”专栏序言

由于经济增长与污染物排放增加尚未脱钩，当前中国环境保护与污染防治的结构性、根源性压力尚未根本缓解，在生产生活污染源头治理上仍然面临排污基数大、溢出效应强、空间跨度广等难题，亟需强化污染源管控精准落地、建立健全面向污染源头的环境空间管控体系，以降尺度与融合化空间管控形成更加精准、严格、高效的环境空间管控制度，系统提升环境空间治理效能.本文基于区域环境功能和环境承载力视角分析了环境空间管控体系的科学基点及优化逻辑，从降尺度建立分区分级管控体系、形成融合化环境管理机制、嵌入多层级国土空间规划体系、夯实环境空间管控信息化支撑等方面提出新时期环境空间管控转型与体系优化路径.此外，研究团队结合典型城市化地区和重点生态功能区的案例实证，从人类生产生活污染物排放过程和格局入手，按照"驱动机制解析—分区分类管控—环境效应评估"的主线设置了"环境空间管控研究"专栏，以期为污染物源头减排及环境空间管控技术方法探索、环境综合治理策略制定提供参考依据.     

Correction to: Identification of structural breaks in the forest product markets: how sensitive are to changes in the Nordic region?

Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change - This paper was published on March 2017, Volume 22, Issue 3, 469–483pp, titled “Identification of structural breaks in the forest...     

Understanding socio-cultural dimensions of environmental decision-making: A knowledge governance approach

Sociological critiques of scientific research processes and their application have developed nuanced understandings of the social, cultural and political forces shaping relationships between science and decision-making. Simultaneously, environmental researchers have sought to construct more engaged, dynamic modes of conducting research to facilitate the application of science in decision-making and action. To date, however, there are relatively few theoretically-oriented approaches that have been able to draw productive connections between the sociological critique and the practical applications that can aid in navigating this complex and diverse milieu. In this article, we propose that the concept of “knowledge governance” can bring together targeted inquiry into the socio-political context in which environmental science is situated, alongside analysis of specific interventions that change knowledge-to-action relationships. Drawing together Jasanoff’s (2005) concept of civic epistemology with Cash et al.’s (2003) knowledge systems for sustainability approach, this knowledge governance inquiry framework offers an integrative lens through which to critically reflect on knowledge-based processes, and incorporate that deeper understanding into intervention efforts. We briefly illustrate its application with reference to a pilot project examining conservation decision-making in the Western Pacific island nation of Palau.     

Environmental management accounting as a reflexive modernization strategy in cleaner production

Understanding the material purchase value of wastes and emissions and related processing costs is the essential contribution of an Environmental Management Accounting methodology proposed by a United Nations expert working group organised through the Division for Sustainable Development (UNDSD). Tracing costs and benefits according to this UNDSD methodology, considered as a “reflexive” modernization strategy in this article, sheds new light on cleaner production initiatives for corporate sustainability. Information on the first category of costs, waste and emission treatment, is generally the most accurate. Information on the second category, prevention and environmental management costs, is more difficult to determine because this category overlaps with, or is confused with, the first category of costs. Data for the two novel and innovative cost categories of the material purchase value of waste and emissions and related processing costs are even harder to obtain. Frequently, the costs are either hidden in overhead accounts or are not recorded because they are not required in conventional accounting systems. The outcome is that companies, even though they may profess otherwise, have very little knowledge about their full environmental costs, cost saving opportunities, or how best to achieve cleaner production initiatives to promote corporate sustainability. A more systematic application of the UNDSD EMA methodology would provide a better record of costs and act as a catalyst in promoting cleaner production processes. This application inevitably requires “reflexive institutions” including “reflexive corporations”, that is, corporations with the capacity to examine the side effects of their operations as modernization rebounds upon them.     

环境安全与可持续发展

本文已经提出了如果将环境安全作为人类安全被实现。那就需要较好的环境治理。环境安全可以被理解为一系列的价值观、原则、政策、技术、体制和程序,由此,社区与社会管理环境和自然资源以透明、负责任的参与和公平的方式克服可持续发展的障碍。可持续发展与环境安全是否相互依存、相互促进还需要进一步论证。环境安全和可持续发展之间的关系也常常解释为实际的产出。社会性学习对于应对有关的不安全环境,并导致不可持续发展的挑战至关重要。社会必须利用信息共享、传播和共同的理解改进决策而发展适应改变的能力。这只有通过发展学习型社会才能成为可能。环境安全和可持续发展是社会性学习的产出,而且所有相关方利用创新方法的环境友好政策,是基于环境安全和环境治理的原则为基础的,大大地推动了生态系统的管理、性别公平、尊重人权、解决冲突、建立社区信任为应对未来的意外或潜在风险和新的挑战需要适应性管理,建立社会和生态系统恢复。应集中努力改进人们的生活质量,不要使用超过环境所能承受的自然资源能力。