Environmental Capital,Negative Externality and Carbon Finance Innovation

In the context of global climate change,the internalization of negative externality,which is brought about by the traditional mode of economic growth,has become an inevitable choice.In order to achieve the internalization,it is necessary to make innovations on the market mechanism and system,find the value of environmental capital,establish a new mode of economic growth based on environmental capital,and then transform the environmental capital,an exogenous factor of economic growth,into an endogenous factor.Of this,the key of market mechanism and system innovation is the financial innovation that is based on environmental capital and negative externality;the government defines the initial property right of environmental resources and establishes environment energy trading market,so as to guide enterprises to trade environmental resources(represented by carbon emission permit trading) based on the Clean Development Mechanism,and to vigorously develop environmental finance and carbon finance.     

Technology advance and discounting of the historical emission responsibilities

Solving the dispute over historical greenhouse gases emission responsibility is critical for the future climate agreement.This article borrows the methodology from the carbon budget proposal,but further develops this approach by proposing discount of the historical responsibility due to the technology advance.Firstly,it studies the Annex I countries’mitigation and financial responsibilities of the historical emission in the carbon budget proposal;furthermore,it analyzes the results and implications of the discount approach.Results show that the discount method significantly reduces the burden of the mitigation and financial responsibilities of the Annex I countries.Thus,we claim that the discount approach is a systematic,pragmatic,and fair approach to solve the historical responsibility dispute and financial problems for the post-2020international climate institutions.     

Sustainability analysis of SEEA indicators for non-renewable resources

Despite the fact that the non-renewable resources industry contributes greatly to regional and national gross domestic product(GDP),it casts massive negative impacts on the environment,which fails to be deducted from economic growth.Hence,sustainable development of non-renewable resources(extraction and processing)is playing an essential role in boosting economic growth continuously.The System of Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting(SEEA)proposed by the United Nations Statistics Division(UNSD)provides a brand-new perspective for sustainability study.This paper designs a fundamental approach of green accounting for non-renewable resources based on SEEA.Three main aspects of the accounting are extracted to explore the way of analysis for sustainability indicators,which are not touched upon by SEEA.Main analyses are as follows:(1)the analysis on the influence of the change of the discount rate in user cost(UC);(2)correlation analysis between environmental degradation and pollutants emission intensity;(3)analysis of the accounting results of green GDP and green GCF(gross capital formation).Then taking petroleum resources in Shandong Province as an example,this paper will calculate and analyze green data based on the accounting and analytical approaches discussed above.However,sustainability indicators studied in the paper are just associated with past economic activities,while investigation into the factors of the change of sustainability indicators is the one most critical point in relevant policymaking.     

Share-Shift Analysis of Geo-Economic Pattern on Global Cereal Crops in Recent 50 Years

In recent 50 years, with the rapid development of international food trade, the geoeconomic pattern of cereal crops has changed tremendously which produced a significant impact on global food security. This paper attempted to analysis the production pattern and trade pattern of global cereals, especially three main crops of wheat, maize and rice by using the method of share-shift. Given the fact of almost every economic phenomenon is driven by their economic return behind them, this paper attempted to a further step into their economic pattern by examining their net trade flow. The results showed that from the view of production and trade, the geographic pattern of global cereals has changed greatly which can be described as developing countries has replaced developed countries and become the world’s biggest cereals production and trading area. But when moving to the net trade flow, it turns out to be another story that can depicted as the regional fixation features of economic returns which can be convinced from the labor division of global cereals trade, among which developed countries acts as net trade profit area while developing countries as net trade output area, and their gap between net export and net import has been widening from the view of evolution trend. So what we learn from the evolution of geoeconomic pattern on this topic is that our place in global cereals trade system, and therefore alert us to concern not only on the pattern transition but also the economic meaning behind it, only by doing so can we learn to plan our food future more wisely and effectively.     

Energy revolution:for a sustainable future

The discovery and use of fossil fuels have not only helped the evolution of human society from agricultural civilization to industrial civilization,but also caused serious environmental and climate problems.The earth is calling for a sustainable future,and a change from industrial civilization to ecological civilization based on the new"energy revolution".A macroscopic quantitative analysis of China’s environmental capacity and climate capacity shows that China is in urgent need of changing the extensive developing mode and having an energy revolution.It is foreseeable that fossil fuels will remain the most consumed source of energies in China now and in the next few decades.Although the efficient and clean use of fossil fuels are very important,this is not an energy revolution or the fundamental solution to environmental and climate problems.Unconventional gases including shale gas play an important role in the mitigation of environmental problems and climate change,but"shale gas revolution"or"shale gas era"is not suitable to China since the proportion of natural gas in primary energy structure in China can only be increased by a maximum of 20%.The transition of Chinese energy structure from fossil-fuels-dominating stage to multiple-energy-sources stage and then to a nonfossil-fuels-dominating stage is the inevitable future,with the help of great contribution from renewable energy and nuclear energy.Among renewable energies,the proportion of non-hydro renewable energies will gradually increase.Improvement of their market competitiveness(economic efficiency)relies on technological innovation.Renewable energies will be the main energy source for the earth in future.Despite the impact of the Fukushima nuclear disaster,the whole world,including China,will not give up nuclear energy development.Safe,steady,and large-scale development of nuclear power is a rational choice of China.Transition from nuclear fission power plant to nuclear fusion power plant is the inevitable future.Nuclear energy will be a sustainable energy source and another main energy source of the earth in future.China needs to enhance energy security consciousness,promote energy saving,and change the energy supply-demand patterns,that is the transition from"meet a too-fast-growing demand with an extensive supply"to"meet a reasonable demand with a rational supply".All countries need to work together to address global environmental problems and climate change.Energy revolution is the foundation for a sustainable future.With a wide range of international cooperation,the win-win cooperation is the only way of overcoming these challenges.     

Towards Sustainable Urban Environmental Management in Jiangyin city, East China

Dramatic economic and social changes have taken place in Jiangyin city due to rapid and uneven urbanization and industrialization. The environmental degradation has followed driven by these changes since the 1980's. With the pressures and effects of environmental deterioration, the city has implemented environmental management to hold back the trends of negative environmental changes. From the viewpoint of systems, DPSER is a good model for urban environmental changes to understand the causes, pressure, state, effect, existing responses and future action strategies. We took Jiangyin city, a developed city in South Jiangsu province, East China, as an example, and analyzed the characteristics of environmental changes and urban responses using DPSER model. Some operational strategies have been put forward to direct the city environmental management towards a sustainable road step by step.     

The Optimal Depletion of Exhaustible Resource under Different Commitment

There are few papers in the literature focusing on the issue of the optimal depletion of exhaustible resources in the framework of variable time preference. This paper attempts to analyze the pure consumption of exhaustible resource under hyperbolic time preference, and to discuss the optimal depletion rate and the effect of the protection of the exhaustible resource under different commitment abilities. The results of model show that the case of the hyperbolic discount with the full commitment of the government is equivalent to the case of constant discount of the social planner problem. In that case, the optimal depletion rate and the initial consumption of exhaustible resource are the slowest. On the contrary, they are the highest and the myopic behaviors lead to excessive consumption of exhaustible resources inevitably without commitment. Otherwise, in the case of partial commitment, the results are between the cases of full commitment and of no commitment. Therefore, with the hyperbolic time preference, the optimal depletion rate of resource depends on the commitment ability. Higher commitment ability leads to lower effective rate of time preference, and consequently, lower depletion rate and lower initial depletion value. The improvement of commitment ability can decrease the impatience and myopia behaviors, and contribute to the protection of the exhaustible resources.     

Research on Indicator System of Regional Eco-efficiency:A Case Study of Chengyang District

Eco-efficiency is a valuable tool for managing and solving issues involving resource consumption and pollution emission in current production processes. Despite the popularity of the term “eeo-efficiency“ in business, limited attention has been paid to measuring and reporting regional eco-efficiency for local government policy makers. Based on the concept and method of eco-efficiency, an indicator system of regional eco-efficiency is established in this study. The indicator system comprises 22 indicators, which are divided in to three categories including socio-economic development, resources consumption,environmental pressure. As a promising statistical technique,principle component analysis is used to set the weight of indicators which attempts to calculate the eco-efficiency indices of Qingdao‘s Chengyang District. The results show that the eco-efficiency of Chengyang District has clearly improved 35.1% with small fluctuation from 1995 to 2003. Socio-economic development index and resources consumption index also represent obvious increasing trends. The correlation coefficient between soci-economic development index and resources consumption index is 0.979, which means the social progress and economic growth of Chengyang District depend on an extravagant consumption of resources. The environmental pressure index increased slowly before 1997 and declined gradually after 1997, due to more attention being paid to environmental protection by local government in recent years. Chengyang District still keeps the traditional economic development mode with a high consumption and high production, so the emphases of future development should put on improving the improving the efficient use of natural resources and promoting environmental management sustainability. The results show that the indicators system of regional eco-efficiency is a promising method to quantitatively evaluate resources and environmental efficiency and provide an effective decision-making support for local governments.     

Exploration on Relativity of Modern Economic Science： Viewpoint Based on Sustainable Development

Modem economics is necessary knowledge for people a market economic theory and a to understand market economy. However, when modem economic science puts in a ＂great economic system＂, modem economic science seems to be little convincing and even deviates from the science of sustainable development. This shows that modem economic science has relativity, and must be transformed by the idea of sustainable development.     

Longevity, Capital Formation and Economic Development

Many researchers have concluded that longer life expectancies prompt increased investment in education,as a prolonged labor supply raises the rate of return on education.Besides explaining the empirical evidence behind this conclusion(at an absolute level),there is another issue to be discussed:does time spent studying and working increase proportionally with higher longevity? Building on an extended life-cycle model,this paper shows that prolonged life expectancy will cause individuals to increase their time in education but may not warrant rises in labor input.Later we show that higher improvement rate of longevity rather than initial life expectancy will promote economic growth,even we exclude the mechanism of human capital formation,and only consider growth effects of higher improvement rate of life expectancy from physical capital investment.     

Overcoming Contradictions Between Growth and SustainabiUty： Institutional Innovation in the BRICS

The recent accelerated growth rates or efforts to emulate countries that have achieved a rapid pace of economic growth are widely acclaimed as means to uplift millions from poverty. In so doing, however, this rapid economic growth is most likely to coincide with unsustainable levels of consumption, place excessive pressure on life support systems and terrestrial sinks and foreshorten options for the future. Rather than pursuing the ＂Environmental Kuznets Curve＂ （EKC） hypothesis that higher income will bring with it the means to reduce the impacts of greater consumption, ecological economists assert that buying our way out of future scarcity with fast growth is indeed contradictory with sustainability. To better understand these contradictions and explore potential institutional innovations that may enable developing nations to better confront them （in effect, ＂tunneling under＂ the EKC）, this article refers to recent experience in the BRICS countries （Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa）. Beginning with a brief comparative summary of major development and environmental indicators, pressures on resources and society in each of the BRICS are discussed, followed by identification of institutional and policy frameworks each country has evolved to confront the challenges of growth and sustainability. The article closes with general conclusions for further research and information sharing among developing nations.     

Research on challenges and strategies for China’s green economy development

The last 20 years have been the fastest economic developing period of China,and China has made great economic achievements through undertaking international industrial transfer.However,undertaking international industrial transfer has brought about severe environmental problems to China and the process of undertaking international industry transfer is also a process of undertaking international transfer of natural resource consumption and environmental pollution.Nowadays,China has the heaviest ecological burden and highest environmental risk in the world,and is gradually losing international competitive advantages among traditional industries.China is facing unprecedented pressure of economic transformation.Besides the advantages like huge domestic demands and abundant civil capital,China faces more challenges in its green economy development.First,China is still in the middle of industrialization and urbanization processes,hence the huge demands for traditional industries will only last 10-15 more years.Meanwhile,China lacks core technologies for transforming traditional industries,which means these industries will have high shut-down risks.Second,the domestic market share for new green industries is limited,since the market is dominated by traditional energy industries.Third,the value of land,water,mineral,and other natural resources is extremely underestimated because the environmental cost is excluded from the enterprises’cost-benefit calculation.China should foster and expand green industries based on domestic demands,and then strive for competitive advantages in the international market in the future.Therefore,China should focus on the following four points in order to promote green industry development:establishing a forced-upgrading-mechanism for traditional industries,an incentive-development-mechanism for new green industries and a TFP-based(total factor productivity based)economic development evaluation system;promoting the integration of new-type urbanization,new emerging industries,and new employments;taking the model of"technology innovating-patent formulating-standard establishing-market guiding"to enhance the global competitiveness of China’s new emerging industries;and building green consumption patterns in the whole society.     

Effect analysis of carbon trading on Economy-Energy-Environment system and calculation of reasonable carbon price intervals

This paper constructs a 4-lier computable general equilibrium model which includes such modules as modeling carbon emission constraints and carbon trading(CT),and incorporates the cost of carbon emissions into constant elasticity of substitute production function.Under scenario settings under different carbon abatement targets,based on 2007 national social accounting matrix and related statistical data about energy consumption and carbon emission,effects on economic outputs,energy consumption,and carbon abatement are estimated and analyzed at both macro and sector level.By calculating selected novel indicators that compromise between macroeconomic opportunity cost and achievable carbon abatement,reasonable carbon price intervals are given for enhancing the robustness and liquidity of carbon market.Further,by decomposition and share-weighted methods,expected carbon abatement and energy price are measured and analyzed in details.Some results are meaningful for fundamental design of the future carbon market.Given constant energy utilization and carbon abatement technologies at the macro level,the higher the carbon price the more actual carbon abatement;the more gross domestic product loss,the less energy consumption.Accwding to the overall situation estimated for 2007 in China,the advice given is to introduce a carbon abatement target rate(R_c)of-10%,which is helpful to make carbon market stable against unexpected carbon price shocks between[6.9,35]/tC with less economic loss.According to Kaya decomposition,after introduction of carbon pricing,carbon abatement is mainly contributed by the effects of energy intensity(EI)and technical progress.Further,CT may help reduce energy consumption and induce transformation to a low-carbon energy structure.At the sector level,the introduction of CT could induce economic recession in all sectors,especially energy.However,the overall economic structure remains unchanged to some extent.CT will help reduce energy consumption in all sectors,especially energy.Overall utilization costs of the energy composite can be divided in two,market price and carbonrelated costs.Carbon-related costs mainly contribute to variation in the utilization cos of the energy composite;carbon pricing may help non-energy sectors achieve sufficient carbon abatement by pushing up energy utilization cost.However,despite achievable carbon abatement by the energy sector being relatively high,induced by carbon pricing,there is still significant potential for other incentive policies to stimulate further abatement,such as energy resources taxation and transportation fuel taxation,especially in the sectors of coal and transportation.Finally,some advice is proposed in regard to policy decisions and further research.     

Trade and the environment: An application of the WIOD database

The new WIOD database allows for improved empirical analysis on a wide range of important environmental research questions.In this paper we demonstrate the scientific power of the WIOD database and analyze very urgent policy questions on the impacts of international trade and structural change on the environment.We apply recent econometric approaches to show the impact of international trade on the environment via its different channels as for instance to increase welfare and potentially affect environmental regulation as well as countries’sector.This approach has become known as the econometric structural decomposition method.In addition to these guidelines by the literature,an econometric panel data approach is offered to shed some light on the impact of structural change and international trade on environmental pressure,where we especially address and solve several endogeneity issues that add further complexity to the analysis.     

Environmental Disclosure of Chemical Industry： Evidence from Chinese A-Share Market

Environmental pollution and environmental reporting have increasingly drawn the attention of the countries around the world. The paper selects A-share listed companies of chemical industry in China. Using logistic model, we research the impact of financial performance of listed companies upon environmental reporting. The conclusion of the study shows that the total number of enterprises which disclosed environmental information （EI） has increased year by year, and EI content and volume disclosed by heavy pollution corporations have increased annually. And the more profitability the listed companies attain, the more EI they are inclined to disclose. Moreover, companies will have an ability to disclose EI so as to reduce the agency costs arising from information asymmetry. Furthermore, the development capability of companies is of negative correlation to environmental reporting, and the liabilities degree of listed companies is of negative correlation to environmental reporting, but it is not significant. This paper also offers policy recommendations that enhance EI transparency and regulate EI reporting of listed companies.     

Diversification and Sustainable Development in Chinese Agriculture

Feeding a growing population exceeding 1 billion is a big challenge to the Chinese government and has partly led to the self-sufficient policy in grain production and supply for decades. However, the efforts to push grain production everywhere have resulted in not only deterioration of the environment but also stagnation or even reduction in farmers' income as production costs continue to increase. This situation might be worsening after China's accession to the WTO that provides market access for bulk commodity imports. A sustainable development in Chinese agriculture depends on diversification, or structural adjustment, that allows Chinese farmers to fully utilize their comparative advantage in production of labor-intensive goods. Past experience has shown that diversification has contributed more than a half of the growth in Chinese agriculture during the reform period and reduced stresses on the environment at the same time. It is likely to contribute even more to Chinese agriculture in the future an     

Pollutant emissions,energy consumption and economic development in China:Evidence from dynamic panel data

This study investigates the relationship among pollutant emissions,energy consumption and economic development in China during the period 1982-2007 by using a one-step GMM-system model under a multivariable panel VAR framework,controlling for capital stock and labor force.Regarding the data for all 28 provinces as a whole,we find that there is a unidirectional positive relationship running from pollutant emission to economic development and a unidirectional negative relationship between pollutant emission and energy consumption.Based on traditional economic planning,the panel data of28 provinces are divided into two cross-province groups.It is discovered that in the eastern coastal region of China,there is only a unidirectional positive causal relationship leading from economic development to pollutant emission;while in the central and western regions,there are the unidirectional Granger causal relationships between pollutant emission and energy consumption,as well as between pollutant emission and economic development.There is also a unique unidirectional causal relationship running from economic development to energy consumption,which does not appear in the eastem coastal region or in China as a whole.     

Uncovering the Connections Among Sustainability, Governance and GDP

This paper examines the connections among sustainability, governance and GDP, using the data from 123 countries. Sustainability is found to be related with GDP in two contradictory ways. On the one hand, growth in GDP strengthens a nation＇s ability to maintain favorable environmental conditions into the future. On the other hand, GDP growth is built on more consumption of natural resources, and therefore generates a larger ＂foot-print＂ on the Earth. Governance plays a key role in sustainable development. However, it is not helping to reduce our footprint on the Earth. In fact, good governance is linked to a larger footprint. This reflects our materialist value and human impulse. When a society prefers the comfort and wellbeing of human beings to the welfare of its environment, democratic governance might be used as an effective tool against nature.     

NEWS

China vows to promote win-win cooperation Chinese President Hu Jintao said in Santiago on Nov.19 that China, as a large developing country with a strong sense of responsibility, is ready to contribute its share in advan cing win-win cooperation for sustainable development. Delivering a speech at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation CEO Summit which opened in the Chilean capital Friday, the Chinese president said that a sound and rapidly growing Chinese economy serves the economic development of the region and that of the world at large. With an average annual growth rate of 9.4 percent in the past 20-odd years of reform and opening-up, China has succeeded in meeting the basic needs for food, clothing and shelter by its     

An Interpretation of the Influential Power of China Development

Through the analysis on China’s economic development, utilization of resource environment and soft power, a basic judgment was made of the influence of "China development". The overall influential power of China development on international community was misunderstood. What we see is the role of "China Factor" in different fields. In the process of economic globalization, what economic system of capitalist market has seen is "China’s cheap labor", "China’s loose economic system environment", "earlier abuse of unlimited resource environment", "China’s broad consumption market" and "demographic dividend". In global or Asian financial crisis, what other countries valued was China’s "foreign currency" accumulated over the years. In global governance or crisis management, what international community expected was "China’s obligations and responsibilities" without the right of speech, etc.. All these are the "passive" roles produced by "a single factor" in definite fields. The active and initiative role China will play in international community still needs time and the continuous efforts of several generations. China once was a big country that had significant influential power on the world, and China’s renaissance is a normal process of development of things. What excessive talks about its influential power reflect may be the lack of China’s influence.