协同治理:2030年可持续发展议程与应对气候变化的国际制度分析

对国际议程间的关联性分析已经成为全球治理中的重要问题。特别是,由联合国引领的全球发展与应对气候变化问题,已经占据了当前国际政治议程的首要位置,两者的协同直接影响到全球治理的有效性。《2030年可持续发展议程》与《巴黎气候协定》不仅具有共同的规范性基础,而且两者通过议题衔接和叠加已经形成了密切的治理关系,国际制度关联性日益突出。从目前来看,这种关联性体现了以下特点:第一,嵌入关系。可持续发展议程的目标之一是应对全球气候变化,《巴黎协定》的治理目标已经嵌入联合国可持续发展议程之中,但也与一些目标存在矛盾,因此,协同治理具有必要性。第二,指标对应。《巴黎协定》下的“国家自主贡献”细化项目与可持续发展议程中的大部分指标已经形成对应关系,治理具有同质性。第三,制度间倡议交叉与功能外溢。其协同治理关系具体表现在诸多层面上,特别是在联合国系统内的协调、治理模式的趋同、资金渠道的整合、围绕联合国可持续发展议程所进行的发展机构改革,以及联合进行政策倡议、规则建构及政策制定等方面。从制度关系演变的角度来看,两者协同治理的类型正在发生变化,制度互动在不同层次上不断累积,并逐渐转向伙伴型的协同治理模式。     

Accounting for the environment as an economic asset: global progress and realizing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

National and international efforts to develop natural capital accounts are proliferating. The newly agreed 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development echoes these efforts. Continued cooperation is needed to overcome key scientific and policy challenges.     

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and China’s implementation

The concept of sustainable development has experienced great development and change at different levels of theoretical connotation and practical implementation since 1960s and 1970s when it was first proposed. People’s understanding of the relationship between economy, society, and environment has been continuously deepened over the years. When it came to the end of 2015, it is necessary to examine the results of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals on sustainable development, and at the same time, the post-2015 framework and guidance on sustainable development at the global level were to be made, including the ideas, action plans, key areas that would guide the global sustainable development. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development has developed a 5P theoretical framework of being people-centered, global environmental security, sustained economic prosperity, social justice and harmony and partnership promotion, including a political declaration, 17 overarching goals and 169 specific targets, specific ways of implementation, as well as the follow-up. It is the road map to achieve global sustainable development and meet the requirements of the millennium development goals. This paper summarizes the understanding of the concept of sustainable development from its origin, its significant development, to the proposition and development of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and its strategic impact on China.     

《21世纪议程》:行动与展望

1992年,联合国环境与发展大会通过了《关于环境与发展的里约热内卢宣言》、《21世纪议程》和《关于森林问题的原则声明》3项重要文件。之后,国际社会为推动"里约精神"的落实做出了积极努力:联合国可持续发展委员会每年举行会议,审议《21世纪议程》的执行情况;许多国家制定了国家和地方层面的《21世纪议程》或可持续发展战略;相关国际组织以可持续发展能力建设为主的活动也十分活跃。人类把发展与环境相协调作为行动准则,各国依据国情制定了促进环境与发展相协调的优先事项,使人类在实现可持续发展的进程中取得了积极进展:全球经济实现了大幅增长,发展中国家在全球经济格局中的地位不断上升;在消除贫困等社会发展方面取得显著效果,全球开始进入城市化时代;全球能源资源供应呈现多元化,资源节约集约利用成效显著。中国在经济发展滞后、贫困现象较严重背景下,承担了全球实施《21世纪议程》的旗舰角色;并依据本国的具体国情,选择性地学习与借鉴,摸索创造出具有自身特色的发展模式和道路,增加了世界可持续发展方式选择的多样性。20年来,尽管各个国家在可持续发展方面采取了积极行动,但是"里约精神"尚未全面转化为行动,在相关国际承诺与公约的履行方面还需付出巨大努力,仍然面临着重大挑战。如:以气候变化为代表的重大全球性环境问题对人类生存构成的直接威胁加大;生态超载背景下的发展空间争夺更趋激烈;全球性民生问题凸显,可持续发展面临的社会风险加大,等等。我们期待:通过"里约+20"大会,使得相关国际制度安排不断形成和完善,可持续发展进一步向全球行动转化;科技创新步伐加快,进一步推动全球向绿色发展转型;加快全球治理体系调整,新兴发展中国家成为全球可持续发展的重要推动力;全球共同努力解决重大资源环境问题,可持续发展领域的国际关系呈现竞争性合作。     

全球可持续发展面临的挑战与对策

全球可持续发展涉及可持续经济、可持续环境和可持续社会三方面的协调统一,要求人类在发展中讲究经济效率、关注环境和谐与追求社会公平,最终达到人的全面发展。自1992年联合国环境与发展大会以来,国际社会积极推动实施《关于环境与发展的里约宣言》、《21世纪议程》和《可持续发展首脑会议执行计划》,各种形式的国际和区域环发合作深入开展,各个国家为促进可持续发展付出了巨大努力,在消除贫困和实现千年发展目标方面取得一些成绩。但是,全球在经济、环境和社会发展方面正在面临着越来越复杂的形势,全球可持续发展事业依然面临严峻的挑战。本文从经济、环境与社会三个方面,系统分析了全球可持续发展面临的挑战。分析表明:全球经济发展依然不平衡,不稳定性在加大,而且世界贫富差距明显,发达国家对发展中国家的官方援助不足;全球能源结构没有根本性改变,CO2排放不断增加,气候变化问题突出,而且一些国家生态环境问题较为严重;世界总人口数不断增加,各国就业水平难以提高,各国教育水平非常不均衡,而且欠发达国家人均医疗卫生支出水平低,居民健康状况堪忧。针对全球可持续发展面临的挑战,本文提出了相应的对策:①坚持"共同但有区别的责任"原则。可持续发展没有统一的模式,各国的发展阶段、条件和能力的不同必须予以正视;要区别发达国家和发展中国家的不同国情,要充分尊重发展中国家的发展权利;要为发展中国家向可持续发展转型提供技术、资金和能力建设方面的强有力支持。②加强各国政府在环境领域的交流与合作。不仅要重视全球性环境问题,而且更要优先考虑区域性环境问题,特别是发展中国家和最不发达国家面临的生态环境问题。③积极推动全球社会朝向均衡、普惠和共赢的方向发展。世界上所有国家都应有权以平等的身份参与全球治理过程以及不断改进和优化治理机制,而且全球治理结构应该向发展中国家倾斜;要积极消除贫困、减少不平等现象、使增长具有包容性、使生产和消费更可持续;要增强人们做出可持续选择的权利,特别是妇女、年轻人、失业者以及社会最弱势和最脆弱群体的权利等。     

Are SDGs suitable for China’s sustainable development assessment? An application and amendment of the SDGs Indicators in China

In order to further ensure that the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is to be implemented and the action measures of all countries are consistent, the United Nations has put forward a set of indicators to monitor and evaluate the progress of global sustainable development. This set of evaluation indicators is aimed for global and regional progress. An important feature of the evaluation indicators is that they are internationally comparable, but due to the large differences in the levels of sustainable development among countries, this framework of evaluation indicators has a disadvantage that it does not apply to tracking the progress of sustainable development at the national level. This paper focuses on the analysis of specific issues in the application of the global sustainable development indicators framework to meet the goals and targets of the UN and builds a system of evaluation indicators to assess the progress of sustainable development at the national level in China, and offers a perspective to assess China’s progress as well.     

《中国21世纪议程》:迎接挑战的战略抉择与实践探索

制定《中国21世纪议程》是中国发展必然的战略选择,是中国履行环发大会精神的重要举措。近20年来,我国立足基本国情,积极推进《中国21世纪议程》的实施,探索实践中国特色的可持续发展道路,做出了巨大努力,在发展经济、消除贫困、节约资源、保护环境等领域取得了举世瞩目的成就,对全球可持续发展做出了重要贡献。随着世情国情的深刻变化,我国进一步实施可持续发展战略面临着新的挑战,发展中不平衡、不协调、不可持续的问题依然严峻,发展的任务仍然十分艰巨。我们应该坚持以科学发展观为统领,坚定不移地走中国特色的可持续发展之路,充分把握全球绿色技术创新迸发的历史机遇,切实加快经济发展方式的转变;坚持共同但有区别责任的原则和合作共赢的理念,积极参与全球可持续发展治理,促进世界的可持续发展、和谐发展。     

Water resource governance in China’s regional cooperation

ABSTRACT

A series of water disputes and conflicts have gradually emerged between China and some neighboring countries after 2000, influencing China’s neighborhood relations. China increasingly realizes the importance and urgency of the water resource governance in the regional cooperation, but under complicated geopolitical context, China’s water resource governance must serve several important main functions in its regional cooperation. Overall, water resource governance is the demands of crisis management and conflict prevention, and also is a kind of positive factor that promotes sub-regional cooperation. From the perspective of the current situation, China should take more proactive attitude toward the water resource governance, expand the areas and stakeholders of the water resource governance, and thus promote the formulation of water resource governance strategy.     

中国建立落实2030年可持续发展议程创新示范区的战略思考

2016年12月,国务院发布《中国落实2030年可持续发展议程创新示范区建设方案》,引起了国内外的广泛关注,成为当前中国推进可持续发展的标志性事件.本文介绍了该方案的制定过程及其重要意义,对方案的主要内容进行了解析,并提出了近期应围绕创新示范区建设开展的几项重点工作.文章认为,建立落实2030年可持续发展议程创新示范区是中国顺应全球可持续发展趋势的必然选择,是解决国内可持续发展主要问题的迫切需要,是回应国际社会期待的客观要求.文章提出,在建设落实2030年可持续发展议程创新示范区时关键要把握好四个原则:①勇于突破GDP导向的传统发展思维,真正以可持续发展的理念推动地方发展;②从制约地方可持续发展的瓶颈问题入手,通过制度、科技等各方面的改革和创新,形成成熟有效的系统性解决方案;③调动社会各界的积极性,形成政府引导、市场配置资源、各利益攸关方共同参与的机制;④主动分享系统性解决方案和实践经验,为全球可持续发展做出中国贡献.文章最后提出,面向未来,建设中国落实2030年可持续发展议程创新示范区要做好四个衔接:①加强与国家可持续发展实验区工作的衔接,形成互为支撑的布局体系;②加强与"绿色技术银行"工作的衔接,促进先进适用技术落地生根;③加强与国家科技计划的衔接,促进创新能力的提升;④加强与各领域改革工作的衔接,形成综合创新示范的局面.     

The Johannesburg Conference

The World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), held in Johannesburg during 26 August and 4 September 2002, was the biggest event of its kind organised by the United Nations to date. A major objective of the WSSD was to set out strategies for greater and more effective implementation of Agenda 21, negotiated in Rio ten years ago, than hitherto. An overview of the WSSD is presented in this chapter, including a scrutiny of its major outcomes.Discussion begins with a detailed account of major UN environmental conferences and related events, such as Doha and Monterrey conferences, that led to the WSSD, followed by a brief discussion of the deliberations that took place at the preparatory meetings (PrepComs) of the WSSD. A detailed account and scrutiny of the following, that are the main outcomes of the WSSD, is then given.The "Johannesburg Declaration on Sustainable Development", which is a political declaration mirroring the will of the international community to move towards sustainable development.The "Johannesburg Plan of Implementation", which is the core document of the WSSD containing an impressive list of recommendations for accelerating the implementation of Agenda 21."Type II partnerships", which are projects that allow civil society to contribute to the implementation of sustainable development.The increasingly important post-Rio issue of globalisation, which has serious implications for a number of issues directly or indirectly impinging on global sustainability, was an important element in the contextual background to the WSSD. Reference is made to some of these implications.Type II partnerships are an innovation of the WSSD. Although a good deal of confusion persists over their precise nature and modus operandi, they were nevertheless presented at the WSSD as powerful and more democratic instruments for the realisation of Agenda 21 objectives.The analysis shows that the Summit contributed at defining sustainable development more precisely. The Plan of Implementation is most instrumental in showing how to make resource use and the generation of pollution less unsustainable. In this way implementing the recommendations of the Johannesburg Summit offers an important defeat, worldwide.     

Projecting ozone-related mortality in East China

BackgroundThe concentrations of ozone (O₃) in China are increasing, especially in East China, but its future trends and potential health impacts remain to be explored.ObjectivesThe objective was to assess future trends in O₃ concentrations and related premature death in East China between 2005 and 2030.MethodsFirst, a global chemical transport model (MIROC-ESM-CHEM) and regional chemical transport modelling system (including the Weather Research and Forecasting model and the Community Multiscale Air Quality model) were combined to estimate daily O₃ concentrations in 2005 and 2030 in East China under the “current legislation” (CLE) and “maximum technically feasible reduction” (MFR) scenarios which were applied globally. O₃ concentrations were then linked with population projections, mortality projections, and O₃-mortality associations to estimate changes in O₃-related mortality in East China.ResultsThe annual mean O₃ concentration was projected to increase in East China between 2005 and 2030 under the CLE scenario, while decrease under the MFR scenario. Under the CLE scenario, O₃-attributable health burden could increase by at least 40,000 premature deaths in East China, without considering the population growth. Under the MFR scenario, the health burden could decrease by up to 260,000 premature deaths as a result of the reduction in O₃ concentration with a static population. However, when the population growth was considered, O₃-attributable health burden could increase by up to 46,000 premature deaths in East China under the MFR scenario.ConclusionsThe results suggest that the health burden attributable to O₃ may increase in East China in 2030.     

联合国可持续发展行动的回顾与展望

该文以时间先后为顺序,系统总结了1972年人类环境会议以来,联合国为推进全球可持续发展所采取的重要行动,对取得的进展和存在的差距进行了评述。认为,人类环境会议特别是环发大会以来,联合国为实现全球经济社会可持续发展付出了巨大的努力,在许多领域推动形成了重要的共识和多边国际公约,促进了可持续发展伙伴关系的形成与发展,加快了许多国家和地区的可持续发展行动。但是,从目前来看,所取得的进展远低于需要达到的水平,突出地体现在千年发展目标进展缓慢、环发领域谈判举步维艰、国际履约明显不足、可持续发展伙伴关系的效果并不理想等。基于这一现实,本文认为"里约+20"大会应努力在如下四个方面取得进展:一是重振里约精神,加快已有政治承诺的落实;二是在坚持里约原则的前提下,围绕气候变化等重大全球性挑战做出新的政治承诺;三是在坚持里约原则的前提下,勾画出人类绿色发展的未来蓝图;四是促进以南南合作为重点的国家合作。     

Production, Consumption and the World Summit on Sustainable Development

At the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), world leaders agreed that eliminating unsustainable production and consumption is one of the three overriding objectives of sustainable development. Achieving that objective should have been a major priority for the WSSD Plan of Implementation. Increases in consumption and production over the past decade were largely responsible for the worsening environmental and social trends. Unfortunately, the negotiators of the Plan paid insufficient attention to the lessons from 10 years of discussions about the concepts, the available policies and tools and their effectiveness, the impacts of those policies on developing countries, and the political commitment of countries in an era of globalization. Despite a promising proposal for a new ten-year work programme aimed at bridging the gap implementing the Agenda 21 commitments from Rio, Summit negotiators produced barely more than a muted echo of recommendations from the past which have yet to be taken seriously enough by the world's leaders in a comprehensive intergovernmental strategy. In the ten-year review of progress to achieve sustainable production and consumption (SPAC), governments quickly skipped past the critical work of examining why things are getting worse, avoiding the task of identifying the obstacles (which in some cases were themselves) and in turn avoiding the commitment to time-bound measurable targets. If nothing else, the WSSD demonstrated that a global strategy to achieve SPAC will come not from a UN consensus of world leaders but from a strategic alliance of responsible governments, civil society and others with a vision beyond the next election cycle.     

Review and Prospect of the UN Efforts for Sustainable Development

The present paper reviews the UN important efforts to promote global sustainable development in the chronological order since UN Conference on Human Environment in 1972, and analyzes the progress and gap. The results show that the UN system has made great efforts for global sustainable development since the UN Conference on Human Environment, especially since UN Conference on Environment and Development, promoted the formation of important consensus and multilateral international conventions on many fields, boosted the development of partnership in the field of sustainable development, and accelerated actions for sustainable development of many countries and regions. However, at present, the progress made is still far below the level required, prominently reflected in the slow progress toward the millen- nium development goals, the difficulties in negotiations in the field of environment and development, insufficient fulfillment of international agreements and conventions, and undesirable effects of partnership in the field of sustainable development. Based on these, the paper puts forward four suggestions for UN Conference on Sustainable Development in 2012(Rio+20):(1) to revitalize the "spirit of Rio" and accelerate the implementation of existing politi- cal commitments; (2) to make new political commitments focusing on climate change and other major global challenges under the Rio principles; (3) to lay out a blueprint of green economy under the Rio principles; and (4) to promote South-South cooperation as the focus of international cooperation.     

Education for Sustainable Development: The Johannesburg Summit and Beyond

The World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), held in Johannesburg during 26 August and 4 September 2002, was a truly remarkable event, not least because it identified and committed the world community to what has to be done to realise Agenda 21 objectives. Discussion begins with the "means of implementation" of the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation (JPI). Education for, and raising awareness of, sustainable development are the key commitments in the "means of implementation". The issues central to these commitments are discussed. The crucial role of moral philosophy in education for sustainable development is then discussed. Defining the "problem" as lack of progress (in fact negative progress between Rio and Johannesburg) towards global sustainable development, a cause–effect relationship of the "problem" is developed based on a systematic and logical analysis. It shows that the "cause" is West's profoundly materialistic, environment-degrading and exploitative attitude and activities to satisfy grossly unsustainable, hedonistic and insatiably avaricious Western life-styles – life-styles that are held up by the West as "ideal" fruits of economic "development" to be aspired by all. The "effects" are pollution of air, water and soil; mounting loss of biodiversity, ecosystems and species; relentlessly widening north–south divide, etc. It is argued that while science and technology can address some of the "effects", they cannot address the "cause". Only moral philosophy can by fundamentally re-orienting moral values genuinely to respect nature and the environment. Based on sound and tested principles of Educational Psychology, a proposal is then made for including moral philosophy in the formal curricula (content and pedagogy) of primary, secondary and higher education for instilling in children and young people genuinely environment-respecting moral values. To this end a generic syllabus for the secondary level is proposed. Finally, it is argued that if the scientific community really believes that science or technology alone can radically change the pervasive environment-degrading moral values to those that genuinely respect the environment, thus paving the way to real global sustainability, then it must demonstrate how this could be done and explain why, despite their abundant science and technology, the developed nations are the biggest polluters and consumers with grossly unsustainable life-styles. Certainly, examples would be much more convincing than rhetoric or tired old clichés about how science and technology alone could deliver global sustainable development.     

The win-win pathway of economic growth and CO2 emission reduction: a case study for China

ABSTRACT

Continuously reducing the CO₂ intensity of GDP is the core strategy for developing countries to realize the dual targets of economic growth and CO₂ emissions reduction. The measures are twofold: one is to strengthen energy saving and decrease energy intensity of GDP and the other is to promote energy structural decarbonization and reduce CO₂ intensity of energy consumption. In order to control global temperature rise no more than 2°C, the decrease in CO₂ intensity of GDP needs surpass 4% before 2030, but it could be merely about 2% based on the current trend. Therefore, all countries ought to speed up the low-carbon transition in energy and economy. As for China, keeping a continuous decline in CO₂ intensity of GDP of 4%–5% will ensure the realization of the NDC objectives, and also promotes the early peaking of CO₂ emissions before 2030. China will play a positive leading role in realizing a win-win low-carbon development coordinating sustainable development and climate change mitigation.     

Sand-dust Storm,Population and Environment in Northwest China

Abstract

Sand-dust storms are the result of the integrated influences of climate, geography, society and human factors. A theoretical framework is built to explain the coherence of population growth, agriculture change and environmental degradation. On the basis of the analysis of the causes of the sand-dust storm in terms of human factors, a discussion will be given to show that these factors are internally consistent with the theoretical framework. After that, it will look at China's Agenda 21 and try to find relevant measures to reduce such large sand-dust storms happening in Northwest China and eventually make this area develop sustainably.     

Application of environmentally conscious manufacturing strategies for an automotive component

Application of appropriate environmentally conscious manufacturing strategies enables the sustainable development of products and processes. Automotive component manufacturers recognise the potential of applying appropriate strategies for attaining Triple Bottom Line benefits. In this context, three strategies such as eco-efficiency, waste minimisation and material efficiency are being applied to minimise environmental impacts associated with the manufacture of automotive products and its associated processes. A case study of an automotive component manufacturing firm has been exemplified. After conducting the study, the potential environmental impact was reduced by 20% and eco-efficiency was improved by 13%. Further, improvements have been observed in terms of overall resource consumption and material efficiency. The overall power consumption was reduced by 18% and weight of the component was reduced by 11%. The study aimed at improving the sustainable performance of product by incorporating green and environmentally friendlier manufacturing practices.

Abbreviations: USEPA: United Nations Environmental Protection Agency; OECD: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development; WBCSD: World Business Council for Sustainable Development; Eco-QFD: Environmental Quality Function Deployment; WCED: World Commission on Environment and Development; LCA: Life Cycle Assessment     

Research from global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to sustainability science based on the object-subject-process framework

Since United Nations adopted the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for the next 15 years (2016–2030), sustainable development will further become a core concept and main principle to guide global and national economic and social development. According to this background, strengthening the integrative research on the theories and methodologies of sustainable development has been a strategically important mission. This article provided an analytic framework for sustainability science, named the object-subject-process (OSP) framework for examining the key issues encountered during the theoretical research and policy analysis. This study emphasized that, on the object dimension, sustainable development means to seek for economic and social development within biophysical limits of the earth and the relationship of environment, society, and economy should be containing and complementary rather than parallel and substitute; on the process dimension, sustainable development should adopt both the responsive and proactive strategies for the whole process management which employing pressure-state-response (PRS) model rather than dealing with one part of them; on the subject dimension, sustainable development research should involve the key stakeholders who are kind of collaborate governance rather than separate each other. From the perspective of sustainability science, green economy was utilized as a case study to explore the issues of object, process and subject and also the significance of green economy was discussed in this study.     

Agricultural productivity and environmental insecurity in the Usangu plain, Tanzania: policy implications for sustainability of agriculture

Sustainable agricultural development is a necessity for sustainable economic growth and social development in Africa. Sustainable agriculture largely depends on how effective natural and environmental resources are managed and utilized; it also depends on the security of continuous access to such resources. This research was aimed to look into trends in agricultural productivity, examine the persistence of the environmental insecurity, analyze the relationship between the two, and explore their links to the national development policies. The results are discussed in the context of relevance to national development policies and their implications on the sustainability of agriculture and rural livelihoods security. Literature survey, records collection from the stakeholders, village level participatory assessments (PAs), observations and questionnaire survey were tools used for data collection. The study shows significant (P < 0.01) declines in cereal crop yields, cattle milk yield and cattle calving rate, and increasing cattle mortality rate. Elements of environmental insecurity were found to account for decline in agricultural productivity; significant (P < 0.01) proportion (68%), of 266 households interviewed, reported land resources deterioration, declining soil fertility, and increasing drought frequencies as the causes of their low productivity. Declined fertilizer consumption and increasing variability in rainfall amount significantly (P < 0.01) accounted for 59% and 39%, respectively, of the variations observed in total annual production of rice and maize, which are major cereals in the study area. This study recommends measures to improve soil productivity such as improved fertilizer application and use of organic manures along with mineral fertilizers for maintaining soil productivity; education of farmers on sustainable use and management of land resources; and pro-poor rural policies in agricultural development and environmental governance. Readers should send their comments on this paper to: BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue.