关于日本《环境教育等促进法》修改的研究

日本于2012年10月1日正式颁布了《环境教育等促进法》,此法由2003年颁布的《有关增进环保意愿以及推进环保教育的法律》修改而来,是一部充分调动各个社会主体协同合作,用环境教育开展环境保护工作的法律。通过分析该法多角度分层次的教育措施及特点,借鉴日本多年来环境教育推广经验,对我国加快环境教育立法进程,实现全民环境教育,增强全民节约意识、生态意识、环保意识,全力建设美丽中国有着重大意义。     

Cities as leaders in EU multilevel climate governance: embedded upscaling of local experiments in Europe

ABSTRACT

The success of local climate governance in Europe depends not only on leading cities but also on the dynamics between leaders, followers, and laggards. Upscaling local experiments helps to close the gap between these actors. This process is driven by the increasing embeddedness of cities and their networks in EU multilevel governance. Embedded upscaling combines horizontal upscaling between leading cities with vertical upscaling between leaders and followers that is mediated by higher levels of government, and hierarchical upscaling that even reaches the laggards. Various types of upscaling, their combinations, and their impacts are analyzed. Networks have become denser and networking has intensified. City networks and their member cities have become embedded in national and EU governance, lost authority and depend more and more on regional, national, and European authorities.     

Uncertainties in a risk management context in early phases of offshore petroleum field development

The current risk management approach for the Norwegian offshore petroleum industry came into effect in 2001 and has been stable with minor changes for 15 years. Relatively few new installations were slated for development until quite recently, and several new projects have been started in the last few years. The paper considers the risk management approach in the pre-FEED phase and builds on two case studies selected from the most recent cases. These case studies have been evaluated with respect to how uncertainties are considered in the early phase, based on the submission of the Plan for Development and Operation, their evaluations by authorities and the supporting documents. Both case studies involve new concepts for which there is no experience from similar environments and/or water depths. In spite of what could have been expected, the case studies conclude that uncertainties have not been in focus at all during concept development. This appears to be definitely the case for the licensees, but also to be the case for the authorities. Some suggestions are presented for what could have been considered by the licensees and authorities.     

对突发环境事件应急立法的思考

建立突发环境事件应急法律体系,是一项复杂的系统工程,需要较长时间.而目前急需综合性的和可操作的法律规范,对突发环境事件予以规制.因此,可行的办法是尽快制定过渡性的《突发环境事件应急条例》制定该条例必须把握突发环境事件的内涵与现状,理清现行相关法律规范,以确立条例的宗旨,调整范围和原则,并在此基础上建立完善的突发环境事件应急法律制度.     

Compilation of EINECS: Descriptions and definitions used for substances,impurities and mixtures

The European INventory of Existing commercial Chemical Substances (EINECS) lists all substances which were on the European Community Market between 1 January 1971 and 18 September 1981. Substances on EINECS are known as ‘existing’ substances. The EINECS inventory was drawn up by the European Commission to meet the requirements of article 13 of Directive 79/831/EEC [1]. EINECS was published in the Official Journal of the European Communities in 1990 [2]. This paper describes how individual substances, impurities and mixtures were defined and dealt with when registered for the EINECS inventory. It is the first in a series of such papers.     

European starling nestling response to chlorpyrifos exposure in a corn agroecosystem

European starling (Sturnus vulgaris) nestlings were used as a surrogate to study the effect of chlorpyrifos application to a corn agroecosystem on songbird reproduction. Chlorpyrifos was applied in a T‐band at 1.3 kg AI/ha, and residues were measured in soil, earthworms, ground‐dwelling insects, and diet items collected from the crop of starling nestlings. Chlorpyrifos levels in soil peaked at 34.2 μg/g, 4 days post‐application, and dissipated to trace levels by 64 days post‐application. Concentrations of chlorpyrifos in earthworms and ground‐dwelling insects reached 0.9 and 0.7 ug/g, respectively. Starling nestling diet items included invertebrates from eight orders with chlorpyrifos concentrations ranging from trace levels to 10.6 μg/g in earthworms. Nestling brain and plasma cholinesterase (ChE) activity and body mass measurements were taken at 3, 8, and 13 days post‐hatch (DPH). Adult starling fecundity was also measured. Body mass differences between treatment and reference site nestlings at 3 and 13 DPH were not significant at α = 0.05. However, 8 DPH nestlings from the Treatment Site had a transient reduction in weight (p = 0.03) when compared with 8 DPH reference nestlings. There were no significant differences in brain or plasma ChE activities of 3, 8, or 13 DPH nestlings. Further, multiple measures of fecundity (i.e., clutch size, hatching percentage, and fledging percentage) indicated that chlorpyrifos application did not affect starling nestling survival to fledging, as the values from the Treatment and Reference Site were nearly identical. This screening‐level study suggests that although one age group of starling nestlings from the Treatment Site weighed less than their Reference Site counterparts, a single T‐band application of chlorpyrifos did not impair starling nesting success.     

Analysis of underlying causes of investigated loss of containment incidents in Dutch Seveso plants using the Storybuilder method

In the Netherlands there are around 400 “Seveso” sites that fall under the Dutch Major Hazards Decree (BRZO) 1999. Between 2006 and 2010 the Dutch Labour Inspectorate's Directorate for Major Hazard Control completed investigations of 118 loss of containment incidents involving hazardous substances from this group. On the basis of investigation reports the incidents were entered in a tailor-made tool called Storybuilder developed for the Dutch Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment for identifying the dominant patterns of technical safety barrier failures, barrier task failures and underlying management causes associated with the resulting loss of control events. The model is a bow-tie structure with six lines of defence, three on either side of the central loss of containment event. In the first line of defence, failures in the safety barriers leading to loss of control events were primarily equipment condition failures, pre start-up and safeguarding failures and process deviations such as pressure and flow failures. These deviations, which should have been recovered while still within the safe envelope of operation, were missed primarily because of inadequate indication signals that the deviations have occurred. Through failures of subsequent lines of defence they are developing into serious incidents. Overall, task failures are principally failures to provide adequate technical safety barriers and failures to operate provided barriers appropriately. Underlying management delivery failures were mainly found in equipment specifications and provisions, procedures and competence. The competence delivery system is especially important for identifying equipment condition, equipment isolation for maintenance, pre-start-up status and process deviations. Human errors associated with operating barriers were identified in fifty per cent of cases, were mostly mistakes and feature primarily in failure to prevent deviations and subsequently recover them. Loss of control associated with loss of containment was primarily due to the containment being bypassed (72% of incidents) and less to material strength failures (28%). Transfer pipework, connections in process plant and relief valves are the most frequent release points and the dominant release material is extremely flammable. It is concluded that the analysis of a large number of incidents in Storybuilder can support the quantification of underlying causes and provide evidence of where the weak points exist in major hazard control in the prevention of major accidents.     

Quantitative assessment in safety reports of the consequences from the detonation of solid explosives

Safety reports are mandatory documents in member states of European Union whenever any threshold limits of amounts of either stored or processed hazardous substances are exceeded. After a short introduction to EU Seveso Directives on major-accident hazards involving dangerous substances and to the transposition and implementation by member states, with a brief comment on last 2012/18/EU Directive (also known as Seveso III directive), the paper focuses on drafting of safety reports for industrial activities involving solid explosives. Specifically, the quantitative assessment of consequences from detonation is tackled respect to the side-on overpressure and the debris production. Both direct and inverse problems are illustrated to determine respectively the overpressure value at a given distance, and the explosive amount that allows respecting the regulations. Their solution is based on either analytic or numerical techniques and being based on recent scientific publications on the matter either evaluates or zeroes nonlinear algebraic equations. The availability of these equations avoids grounding the consequences assessment on diagrams and nomograms that otherwise would lead to interpretation and usage errors besides avoiding the automatic solution of the inverse problem. The paper focuses also on details such as embankment, crater, munitions, rocket propellant, building structure, and wall material that, at different levels, play a role in the assessment of detonation consequences. A discussion on debris formation, the available literature, and the evaluation of the impact probability of fragments on both fixed and moving targets closes the paper.     

Investigation into qualitative discourses of the occupational safety and health inspectors in order to promote enforcement

The aim of this study is to conduct an ex-post evaluation of the OSH Enforcement Act. The focus of the study was to collate the views of occupational safety and health (OSH) inspectors on how the OSH Enforcement Act and the practices of the governmental OSH inspectorate operate from an effectiveness perspective. The questionnaire included open questions addressed to OSH inspectors. The results indicated that there is a tension between the quantitative performance targets, e.g., the number of inspections and the effectiveness of the practical enforcement work. Harmonizing the enforcement practices should be implemented at two levels: OSH local agencies and individual inspectors. OSH inspectors believe that developing the professional skills of OSH inspectors and the monitoring of OSH management systems are important ways of promoting the effectiveness of OSH enforcement.     

Testing Sleeping Bags According to EN 13537:2002: Details That Make the Difference

The European Standard on sleeping bag requirements (EN 13537:2002) describes a procedure to determine environmental temperature limits for safe usage of sleeping bags regarding their thermal insulation. However, there are several possible sources of error related to this procedure. The main aim of this work was to determine the influence of the various measuring parameters on the acuity of the respective parameters in order to judge the requirements. The results indicated that air velocity, mattress insulation and time between unpacking the bag and measurement had a significant impact on the result, with a difference of up to 5–15% in thermal insulation between minimum and maximum allowable parameter levels. On the other hand, manikin weight, thickness of the artificial ground and presence of a face mask were found to have a negligible influence. The article also discusses more general aspects of the standard including the calculation methods used.