Chinese Policies and Practices regarding Payments for Ecological Services in Watersheds

Watersheds provide a variety of ecological services including soil and water conservation, carbon sequestration and biodiversity protection. However, activities in a fast-growing economy significantly impact the supply and demand of these watershed services. To mitigate these impacts, the concept of payment for environmental and ecosystem services from watersheds has emerged in global academic and policy circles. The governments and academic communities in China have increasingly described payments for ecological services from watersheds with the concept of watershed eco-compensation as it is urgent to protect watershed ecosystems. Watershed eco-compensation has proved to be one of the most economically effective means of solving environmental problems of watersheds to be adopted by the Chinese government. This paper presents an objective analysis of the Chinese market for watershed ecosystem services, including supply and demand for the services. It also summarizes Chinese policies on watershed eco-compensation, including relevant laws and regulations and fiscal policies. In addition, it presents a review of Chinese practices in watershed eco-compensation, including the analysis of an ecological construction project in Western China, inter-provincial watershed eco-compensation practices and plans, and payment for ecological services at the provincial and small watershed levels. Finally, it summarizes the key components of the process of payment in Chinese watershed eco-compensation. This discussion forms the basis of concluding suggestions for ecosystem services compensation and ecological protection in the large scale river basin.     

New public policy proposal for the management of industrial toxic substances in São Paulo State,Brazil

In order to find out an alternative to traditional environmental policies in the State of São Paulo (Brazil), which have been mainly focused on legal standard compliance for air and water emissions, as well as in soil contamination, the Environmental Agency of São Paulo State — CETESB — launched a research project entitled Industrial Toxic Substances Use Reduction Programme. The project was launched in 2006 with funding from the United States Trade and Development Agency. Its aim was to propose new policies and strategies to reduce industrial releases of toxic compounds to the environment. Its general steps were the identification of an initial toxic chemical targets list; a review of successful programmes in the United States; the development of key elements and the establishment of alternative combinations of those elements for the implementation of an indigenous programme. Since project completion, CETESB has been discussing the possibility of implementing the results through a pilot project being developed jointly with industry representatives. This pilot project will serve as a model for a broader industrial toxic substances reduction programme to be implemented in São Paulo State.     

Managing for biodiversity from the electric utilities' perspective

The quality and sustainability of the natural environment is a matter of inestimable value and is critical to public health and welfare. All species have a purpose, and they exist for the betterment of other species. It is, therefore, incumbent on all humans to do their part in the preservation of this vast, diverse ecosystem called Earth. All humans are the beneficiaries, the ultimate customers, of a sound environment—water that is safe to drink, air that can be breathed, and soil that will sustain crops. There must be a commitment to leaving a clean and healthy planet for generations to follow, an earth which is enhanced, not diminished, by humans' presence.     

Pollution Control Policies and Natural Resource Dynamics: A Theoretical Analysis

Policies for the management of natural resources and the resources themselves interact to form complex systems. In this paper, we present a highly simplified model that can be used to study the general features of those systems. The model has three state variables, the abundance of the resource, environmental pollution, and the capital devoted to pollution control. We analyse it graphically using the singular perturbation approach. Two modes of behavior are possible; stationary and cyclic. When the abundance of the resources varies cyclically, the length of the period of resource scarcity depends on population size, economic activity, pollution per unit of output, and policy constraints. We distinguish between two classes of policies, one in which decision-makers base their investments in pollution control capital on the abundance of the resource, and another in which those decisions depend on the amount of pollution. We show that policies based on the observation of pollution are safer than those based on resource abundance, because in the latter case, small changes in policy variables can lead much more easily to a collapse of the resource. Increases in population size, even when accompanied by an equiproportional increase in the pollution control budget can lead to a change from stationary to cyclic behavior, especially where policies are based on resource abundance.     

WATER TREATMENT PLANT STAGING POLICY1

Economics of treatment plant staging or capacity expansions is governed by the initial water demand rate, Q₀; the anticipated demand growth rate, G; the discount rate, D; the cost of operation, maintenance, and repair (OMR); the useful plant life, T, as a function of the quality of design, construction, and OMR; the treatment plant load factor, L_f; the salvage value of the plant at the end of the project period; the efficiency of the plant-staging design, eta; and the length of the project period, T_s. Various staging policies are investigated to find an optimal policy. The desirability of adopting a staging policy is governed by the magnitude of percent savings that can be achieved by adopting this policy instead of a no-staging policy. A detailed analysis of the problem shows that the percent savings because of staging increase with an increase in Q, G, D, T, and eta;. A reduction in the plant load factor increases the total costs. Information about the effect of variation in the parameters should help the planner and designer to work out an economical schedule of treatment plant capacity expansions.     

A MERGE Model with Endogenous Technological Progress

We have developed a new version of the MERGE model, called MERGE-ETL, to analyse the dynamics of endogenous technological learning (ETL) in the energy system. This paper describes the basic formulation of MERGE-ETL, the solving techniques used for this model and some first numerical results in the context of policies designed to mitigate global climate changes.     

环境政策法律的经济分析和程序设计

本文对环境政策法律经济分析的对象、目的、作用机制进行了分析,对环境政策法律经济影响经济分析的角度、内容和方法进行了研究.其中包括供给-需求和产业结构角度的分析评价,以及环境政策法律经济影响的分析方法.给出了环境政策法律经济分析程序设计的基本思路.     

美国环境产业相关政策及启示

本文将美国的环境产业发展过程划分为三个阶段，并对后两个阶段的政策特点进行了分析。最后，借鉴美国环境产业相关的政篆并结合我国国情，提出了针对我国环境产业发展的建议。     

有机食品发展与生态保护政策相关性分析

通过对有机食品发展与“三农“问题、生物多样性保护、生态省建设、清洁生产、食品安全等国家生态保护政策之间的相关性进行了分析.在我国积极发展有机食品,是在农业领域内贯彻国家生态保护政策的具体体现.     

四川省工业结构的水污染效应及对策分析

通过对四川省主要工业行业经济和污染贡献率（水）的剖析、污染物排放强度与全国平均水平的比较，反映出四川省工业结构的水污染效应状况——支柱产业经济效益差、水污染贡献大、产业结构不合理是造成水环境问题的主导因素；继而提出通过产业结构的优化和升级来控制水环境污染、协调经济和环境发展的对策和建议。