Environmental News in Argentina,Chile, Mexico and the Philippines

From an environmental perspective, the media have raised the level of environmental awareness and, rightly or wrongly, focused the attention of citizens on specific environmental issues. Public reaction to environmental news can filter back into the media and highlight specific policy issues. The importance of the media in this respect has gained strength, particularly in developing countries, where environmental problems have become legitimate concerns, and where access to 'official' information has been historically difficult. In general, newspapers have been found to be one of the most predominant sources of environmental information available to the public, particularly in developing countries. In this paper, we summarise, briefly analyse and compare the newspaper coverage of environmental issues in Argentina, Chile, Mexico and the Philippines. Among numerous other results, it appears that the coverage of environmental issues fell considerably over the period 1990-94 despite an increase in world-wide environmental awareness. Most news reports actions by the environmental agencies (warnings and rewards, etc.). In the Philippines, however, most environmental news reports investments in pollution abatement activities by the private sector. While citizens' complaints represent a small percentage of the coverage of environmental issues, closer examination reveals that such complaints, in the vast majority of cases, trigger governmental actions (warnings) and ultimately an improvement of firms' environmental performance (investment).     

An alternative role for economic instruments: Sustainable finance for environmental management

Economic instruments, such as effluent fees and tradable discharge permits (TDP), have often been suggested by economists as efficient or cost-effective means to control pollution. In recent years such instruments have received increasing attention due to their growing political acceptability. Still, their use in practice has been tentative. The interest in possible application of such instruments has led to a set of studies regarding their practical potential. These studies indicate that economic instruments require substantial government involvement, entailing high administration cost; require restrictions so as to prevent significant deterioration in receptor areas; and have ambivalent effects on innovation adoption. Consequently, the efficiency gains from such instruments may be smaller than potential gains identified in earlier studies. In addition, the distributional impacts of such instruments and their possible adverse effect on market contestability reduce their attractiveness in some cases. These findings raise the question: what is the desired role of economic instruments in addressing environmental concerns? In recent years the demand for environmental services has increased dramatically. Current legislation and studies indicate that desired environmental expenditures are likely to increase. At the same time environmental programs face increasing competition from other programs for a declining pool of general revenues. One outcome of these processes has been the search for alternative sources of funds for environmental programs. Furthermore, as the competition for general revenue funds increases, the allocation of such funds for environmental programs becomes less predictable. This may endanger many long-term environmental programs that require stable funding. This article suggests that economic instruments may prove one source of dedicated funds for many environmental goals. Consequently, studies of environmental-program financing as well as studies of economic instruments may well explore the possible role of economic instruments as financing tools. Some examples of the potential of such tools for estuary cleanup programs are discussed.     

Evaluating policy options for managing diffuse source water quality in Lake Taupo,New Zealand

Environmental policy makers are interested in ways to prevent environmental degradation without significantly limiting economic and social development. Increasingly, market-based instruments are being incorporated into the suite of policy tools to accomplish these aims. However, the lack of information on market-based instruments accessible to non-economists limits understanding of how and when a market-based instrument can be integrated into a traditional policy regime. This paper aims to address the lack of accessible information using a generic screening process for policy instruments demonstrated through application to a non-point source pollution problem in Lake Taupo, New Zealand.     

Environmental News in Argentina, Chile, Mexico and the Philippines

From an environmental perspective, the media have raised the level of environmental awareness and, rightly or wrongly, focused the attention of citizens on specific environmental issues. Public reaction to environmental news can filter back into the media and highlight specific policy issues. The importance of the media in this respect has gained strength, particularly in developing countries, where environmental problems have become legitimate concerns, and where access to 'official' information has been historically difficult. In general, newspapers have been found to be one of the most predominant sources of environmental information available to the public, particularly in developing countries. In this paper, we summarise, briefly analyse and compare the newspaper coverage of environmental issues in Argentina, Chile, Mexico and the Philippines. Among numerous other results, it appears that the coverage of environmental issues fell considerably over the period 1990-94 despite an increase in world-wide environmental awareness. Most news reports actions by the environmental agencies (warnings and rewards, etc.). In the Philippines, however, most environmental news reports investments in pollution abatement activities by the private sector. While citizens' complaints represent a small percentage of the coverage of environmental issues, closer examination reveals that such complaints, in the vast majority of cases, trigger governmental actions (warnings) and ultimately an improvement of firms' environmental performance (investment).     

Incentives to improve farm management: EMS, supply-chains and civil society

This paper focuses on impediments to environmentally sound management practices and how these might be overcome, with an emphasis on the role of environmental management systems, supply chains and civil society. It argues that: Farmers are under increased pressure to cut costs and improve production but with little opportunity to increase prices. Commonly short-term economic interest has damaging environmental implications. Current government policy, in Australia and in many other jurisdictions, relies heavily on voluntary arrangements, education and information, as the main policy instruments through which to persuade farmers to adopt better environmental farm management - e.g. the recent push to encourage the use of voluntary environmental management systems. However, there is good evidence to suggest that these can only make a valuable contribution when combined with a range of other policy instruments, including positive and negative incentives, intervention by third parties and in some cases, an underpinning of regulation. Arguably, what is needed is a strategy that builds on the strengths of voluntary environmental management arrangements while compensating for their weaknesses by combining them with other, complementary policy instruments. If so, we must engage with a range of questions that have not so far figured substantially in the policy debate. Although the principal focus has been on the role of government in bringing about on-farm change in management practices, supply chain pressure (at least in respect of agricultural chemicals and practices which threaten food safety) and civil society action are also potentially powerful mechanisms for bringing about change. Government can and should play a role in harnessing such forces in the interests of improved environmental on-farm practices.     

Policy planning for air quality management: global and local perspectives

An increasing number of environmental regulators in developed and developing countries have embarked on programmes for the promotion of environmentally sound and sustainable development strategies. Air pollution is among the most important environmental issues that need to be managed since it reflects directly and indirectly on the different aspects of human life. This paper presents an assessment of the evolution of air pollution control philosophies at the global level, and it describes advantages and disadvantages of alternate environmental strategies that can be considered in the development of an integrated and comprehensive plan for air quality management at the local level, with Lebanon as a case study of a typical developing country. The proposed strategy considers short-, medium- and long-term schemes that make use of regulatory and market-based instruments, such as pollution charges, and market creation and usage. The short-term scheme identifies serious polluters and improves environmental performance by adopting and enforcing updated environmental standards. Economic incentive concepts constitute the principal philosophy for medium-term application of a comprehensive environmental strategy, mostly applicable at the level of the transportation and energy sectors. Long-term strategies, targeting the industrial sector, aim at achieving a flexible free market in which polluters would compete on the basis of market forces and governmental incentives to attain better environmental performance and increase potential cost savings. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

一个政府—企业双层优化环境治理模型

构建以政府为主导、企业为主体的环境治理体系，落实企业环境治理主体责任是我国的重大战略任务。目前地方政府环境监管亟待改善，需要加强企业生产规制，基于"污染者付费"原则促使"三废"达标排放。本研究抓住政府和企业两大主体，建立以政府为上层、企业为下层的双层优化环境治理模型，确定上层-下层目标函数及约束条件，研究地方政府环境奖罚政策与企业利润及环境行为的关联性，提出模型"乐观最优解"与"悲观最优解"及地方政府奖惩机制最优解。该模型可反映地方政府与企业的博弈过程，为寻求合理的污染奖惩方式和税费比例，促使企业在自身利润最大化的同时积极治理"三废"污染，平衡经济效益和社会效益，为企业长期粗放式生产排污严重、地方政府环境监管有待加强、西北生态安全屏障和黄河流域健康发展受到严重威胁的宁蒙沿黄地带及类似地区环境管理实践提供参考。     

Overview of Environmental Hazards and Health Effects of Pollution in Developing Countries: A Case Study of Nigeria

Pollution has taken on a global dimension, and the effects are most obvious in developing countries. The effects take a toll on human health, animals, and vegetation, as well as on soil, air, and water quality. The objective of this article is to discuss the current relationships among pollution, environmental quality, and human health within the frame of anthropogenic activities in developing countries. In addition to personal observations, we review relevant literature on conditions throughout the developing world and case studies on conditions and activities in Nigeria. Key findings show the significant, adverse contributions to human health and environmental risk from current waste generation and handling practices, indoor and outdoor air pollution, wastewater and effluent generation and disposal, the hazardous nature and pollution potential of wastes, and the human behaviors that contribute to pollution in developing countries. There is an urgent need to create awareness among the various segments of society of the human health hazards posed by pollution as well as a need for the comprehensive development and enforcement of appropriate policies to prevent a descent into an abyss of deteriorating human and environmental health.     

节能环保产业政策工具评述与展望

节能环保产业是打赢污染防治攻坚战的重要支撑,也是推动经济发展的新兴绿色动能。本文利用瓦当设计的政策工具三分法,对当前节能环保产业政策工具进行了分类研究。当前,影响节能环保产业政策的工具主要包括管制型工具、经济型工具、信息型工具三个类型。管制型工具包括指标控制、强制性标准和监督考核等;经济型工具包括财政支持、税收优惠、价格政策、金融政策等;信息型工具包括技术推广机制、产品推广机制等。尽管我国已经初步建立了政策支持体系,但当前政策工具仍然存在一系列不足,管制型工具、经济型工具、信息型工具都有较大的改进调整空间,应当进一步形成规范、合理的管制型制度,以普惠为主而非补助为主的经济型制度,以提供信息服务为主的信息型制度,并以此促进节能环保产业健康、有序发展。     

污染场地风险管控环境经济政策体系：国外经验与本土实践

快速城市化和工业化给我国带来了大量的场地污染问题,污染场地修复和风险管控成为国土资源可持续利用的重要领域,创新土壤污染防治经济政策,充分发挥市场调节作用是土壤污染防治的内在要求,是破解土壤生态环境问题、推进土壤污染防治管理转型的重要支撑。本文从经济政策的体系、投融资模式与机制等方面展开,对美国、德国、荷兰等发达国家的污染场地风险管控环境经济政策进行了梳理分析,总结其可借鉴的成功经验;介绍了我国污染场地风险管控环境经济政策实施现状,最终从完善调控体系、明晰权责归属、拓宽资金来源、规范资金运营、丰富投融资模式、探索费用效益分析机制等方面提出我国污染场地风险管控环境经济政策体系的改进建议。     

An Assessment Methodology for Environmental Policy Instruments: An Illustrative Application to Solid Wastes in Hong Kong

This paper outlines a methodology for the systematic assessment of policy instruments for environmental management and illustrates its application using solid waste management in Hong Kong. The methodology consists of three steps: (i) developing a set of evaluation criteria (and deciding whether certain criteria are to be given greater weight than others), (ii) selecting the relevant combination of potential policy instruments, and (iii) ranking each set of policy instruments on the basis of the evaluation criteria. One advantage of this approach is that the tradeoffs among the various evaluation criteria are made explicit when one policy instrument is chosen over the alternatives, thus making the assessment process more open and potentially less contentious. Unfortunately, in Hong Kong, the assessment of solid waste management options, like that for most other environmental problems, has beenad hoc, piecemeal, and has allowed for very little consultation at early stages from those outside of the principal government agency involved. Largely as a consequence, outside groups (including those from other parts of government) often strongly object to the selected policy and seek to block its implementation.     

Controlling industrial pollution in the developing world

Industrial pollution has become a serious problem in many developing countries during the past two decades. Support for regulation of industrial pollution has remained lukewarm from many policymakers, despite research suggesting large benefits from pollution reduction even in very poor countries. Since 1993, a World Bank research team on the environment has worked in collaboration with pollution control agencies to understand existing regulatory practices, industry's environmental performance, and pollution abatement costs in developing countries. The researchers'ongoing work has already produced a large number of publicly-available research papers and datasets, and is providing the Bank team with considerable expertise and insights into the design of effective pollution control policies.     

The central role of centralisation in environmental policy initialisation

While economic research on environmental policy is mainly concerned with instruments, political science concentrates on actors. The issue of centralisation needs to be analysed using a multidisciplinary approach because it is connected with both actors and instruments. Linking the Advocacy Coalition Framework with an economic approach, the paper first develops an innovative model in order to understand the mechanisms of centralisation and decentralisation in the different phases of policy processes. Focusing on environmental policy, the idea is developed that environmental policy needs the push of centralisation in order to institutionalise the prevailing social norm, but then should be organised decentrally to account for regional differences. The examples of air pollution, climate change and urban sprawl are used to test the explanatory power of the theoretical approach.     

Scope of fossil energy resources in Mexico and the Andean Group

The article focuses on fossil energy resources in the Andean Group and Mexico, and argues for a dynamic approach to calculating reserves to production ratios. Individual countries are surveyed in terms of estimated reserves of fossil energy resources, current production rates and future prospects; energy policy options for individual countries are analysed. As a primary objective of energy policy is to ensure security of supply, it is important that calculations of reserves to production ratios accurately estimate the desired level of investment in exploration. The calculations need to take into account a variety of parameters, including different energy sources, availability and risk; geographic considerations including proximity, transport, storage capacity and commercial aspects; the competitive and environmental implications of developing indigenous resources; and the use of instruments to establish contingency plans for emergencies.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of OLADE, ECLAC or GTZ. The authors apologize for any inaccuracies or omissions in the article.     

Pragmatics of Policy: The Compliance of Dutch Environmental Policy Instruments to European Union Standards

Despite a general decrease in Dutch environmental emission trends, it remains difficult to comply with European Union (EU) environmental policy targets. Furthermore, environmental issues have become increasingly complex and entangled with society. Therefore, Dutch environmental policy follows a pragmatic line by adopting a flexible approach for compliance, rather than aiming at further reduction at the source of emission. This may be politically useful in order to adequately reach EU targets, but restoration of environmental conditions may be delayed. However, due to the complexity of today’s environmental issues, the restoration of environmental conditions might not be the only standard for a proper policy approach. Consequently this raises the question how the Dutch pragmatic approach to compliance qualifies in a broader policy assessment. In order to answer this question, we adapt a policy assessment framework, developed by Hemerijck and Hazeu (Bestuurskunde 13(2), 2004), based on the dimensions of legitimacy and policy logic. We apply this framework for three environmental policy assessments: flexible instruments in climate policy, fine-tuning of national and local measures to meet air quality standards, and derogation for the Nitrate Directive. We conclude with general assessment notes on the appliance of flexible instruments in environmental policy, showing that a broad and comprehensive perspective can help to understand the arguments to put such policy instruments into place and to identify trade-offs between assessment criteria.     

The Role of Information in Environmental Management and Governance in Lesotho

Successful environmental management and governance can be realised through maximum dissemination of information. Environmental management and governance involve knowledge and understanding of environmental laws and citizens' involvement in environmental issues. Citizens' contributions to environmental laws, policies and regulations lead to good governance and management and, as a result, access to environmental information. Structures of environmental information dissemination, from as far back as during the traditional land tenure, are in place in Lesotho; to what extent these instruments facilitate awareness of key environmental issues in Lesotho, facilitate policy implementation and influence decision making is what this paper tries to reveal.     

不完全竞争行业中的环境工具有效性研究:一个理论框架

各级政府贯彻落实绿色发展的理念,实现经济增长与环境保护的共赢,才能真正实现"绿水青山就是金山银山"。在经济"新常态"背景下,防治环境污染是个复杂而系统性的工程,需要进行经济追因与综合治理,其中,制定实施有效的环境政策工具尤为关键。本文把微观经济学中的双寡头产量竞争模型作为基准模型拓展用于环境经济分析,并把环境税、环境规制、排污权交易这三类主要环境工具对企业生产决策的影响纳入基准模型,旨在对比研究不完全竞争行业中环境工具的有效性问题。结果表明:主要基于市场机制的环境经济政策比行政色彩浓厚的环境规制更有效率。提高环境税率或排污权价格均能显著削减行业污染物排放量,如果环境税率恰好等于排污权价格,则环境税与排污权交易这两类环境工具的效力相等。这对进一步建立和完善我国尚处于探索或初始实施阶段的环境工具,促进石化、电力、钢铁等不完全竞争行业的主要污染物减排,具有一定参考价值和借鉴意义。     

A Decision Support Framework for Environmental Planning in Developing Countries

This paper presents a decision support framework for environmental planning in developing countries. The interest in protecting the natural environment from pollution gained increased importance in the 1990s with a push by world communities for sustainable development. Developing countries as well as the industrialized nations are expected to cut down on pollution and control the use of non-renewable natural resources. Although the concept of sustainable development sounds plausible, it is difficult to implement in many countries due to their conflicting goals. The world-wide targets on emissions, use of fossil fuels, reduction in water and atmospheric pollution require the participation of every nation. These goals are not easily achievable by some of the poorer developing countries partly because of their economic dependence on natural resources and partly because of their inability to afford more modern and efficient technologies. Thus, environmental planning goals are often in conflict with the development,social and economic needs of a country. In this paper, we develop a decision support framework that utilizes multicriteria and optimization models to address environmental planning problems. This framework is based on identifying the priorities of conflicting goals by working through and reducing the conflicts. A strategic planning framework is introduced into the decision support system since national planning is a strategic issue and these goals can only be achieved by adopting a systemic view.     

Efficient use of energy and materials: progress and policies

There is a growing awareness of the serious problems associated with the provision of sufficient energy to meet human needs and to fuel economic growth world-wide. This has pointed to the need for energy and material efficiency, which would reduce air, water and thermal pollution, as well as waste production. Increasing energy and material efficiency also have the benefits of increased employment, improved balance of imports and exports, increased security of energy supply and adopting environmentally advantageous energy supply. A large potential exists for energy savings through energy and material efficiency improvements. Technologies are not now, nor will they be, in the foreseeable future, the limiting factors with regard to continuing energy efficiency improvements. There are serious barriers to energy efficiency improvements, including unwillingness to invest, lack of available and accessible information, economic disincentives and organizational barriers. A wide range of policy instruments, as well as innovative approaches have been tried in some countries in order to achieve the desired energy efficiency improvements. These include: regulation and guidelines; economic instruments and incentives; voluntary agreements and actions; information, education and training; and research, development and demonstration. An area that requires particular attention is that of improved international co-operation to develop policy instruments and technologies to meet the needs of developing countries. Material efficiency has not received the attention that it deserves. Consequently, there is a dearth of data on the qualities and quantities of final consumption, thus, making it difficult to formulate policies. Available data, however, suggest that there is a large potential for improved use of many materials in industrialized countries.     

Urban economy or environmental policy? The case of Egypt

This paper shows how prevailing economic development paradigms over the last five decades have favoured an urban-based model of economic development at the expense of environmental considerations in developing countries. How the disjuncture between these competing agendas has been experienced in Egypt forms the focus of the paper. Tension between environmental and development/urbanization policies reflects their political encoding aimed at maintaining regime stability. The state has attempted to mediate between the domestic interests of an urban-based elite and the urban poor, international donor dominance of Egypt's economic and urban development strategies, and the country's limited institutional capacity to manage its developmental aspirations. In a policy configuration that buttresses macro-economic policy with urban development priorities, the unfettered role of market processes has produced vast but unregulated urban expansion with, now, increasingly severe environmental consequences. Despite attempts to reconcile the two agendas in the last decade, the paper concludes that the main issues endemic to the public policy domain in Egypt, and in many developing countries, remain: poor line ministry coordination, weak enforcement of environment law, resistance to participation, limited implementation capacity, conflicts between sectoral and cross-sectoral policy formulation, and dependency on external donors. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.