The Northwest U.S. Dam Breaching Decision: Factors, Costs and Benefits

Northwestern United States' salmon populations have fallen precipitously. Attempts at salmon restoration are going on and dam breaching is being considered. Costs associated with the continued restoration attempts including hatchery stocking, barging and trucking salmon around the dams are high while benefits are unclear. Those costs may be greater than dam breaching. An additional impetus for dam removal is the revival of the commercial salmon fishing industry. This may not occur for both ecological and economic reasons. Ecologically complete restoration may not be feasible. Economically, the rise of competitively priced salmon aquaculture will reduce the value of any future commercial catch. A statistical relationship between falling prices for wild salmon and rising salmon aquaculture output is shown.     

Proposal of Indicators to Assess Urban Sustainability in Brazil

The research related here focuses on municipal situations where problems of sustainability may be defined and tackled on the basis of bottom-up management procedures with the participation of organized society. The aim is to build management models that may be implemented with reasonable administrative effort and cost. Implementation pursues the target of approaching a sustainable situation in the municipality. Environmental parameters for an ideal municipality with undefined geographical location are presented. For each parameter, a set of indicators is developed that can measure the prospect of sustainability. The indicators are defined in terms of numbers or literal concepts according to the possibility of measurement. Examples of management models are presented, which are able to approach the situation defined as sustainable by the indicators. The basic management tool is the learning curve of targeted communities, which is experimentally developed and applied. The indicators are grouped according to their range of applicability.     

全球绿色低碳发展与公平的国际制度建设

在可持续发展和扶贫框架下发展绿色经济与国际可持续发展制度建设及改革是当前世界可持续发展的核心和关键,也是"里约+20"峰会的两个主题。首先,绿色经济是体现经济社会与资源环境相协调和可持续发展的根本途径。绿色经济的核心是以低的自然资源消费、低排放、低污染,达到高的自然资源利用效益,实现高的经济社会发展水平,提供高的生活水平和优良的生活环境。全球绿色经济的发展潮流,将引发社会形态由"工业文明"向"生态文明"转变。虽然经济发展和消除贫困是发展中国家当前首要和压倒一切的优先任务,但也必须探索新型的绿色低碳工业化和现代化道路,在实现工业文明的过程中,努力建设生态文明,实现跨越式发展。同时积极应对全球绿色低碳转型中新的经济、贸易、技术竞争规则和格局的变动,加强先进技术创新,提升自身的低碳竞争力。其次,公平获取可持续发展的理念,应成为国际可持续发展制度建设和改革的基本原则。可持续发展要求既要促进经济社会发展与资源环境相协调,促进"代际公平",又要关注欠发达地区消除贫困,提高生活质量,改善生态环境,实现"国别公平"、"人际公平"。因此,国际可持续发展制度框架的建设和改革,要体现世界各国公平获取可持续发展的理念和原则,全面均衡地反映不同国情和发展阶段国家的利益诉求。主要表现在公平享有全球环境空间、公平获得现代优质能源服务、公平适应全球环境变化、公平承担责任义务及公平的国际制度和机制。中国需要统筹国内外两个大局,走中国特色的绿色低碳发展之路。最后,中国的国情和发展阶段特征,在可持续发展领域又面临比发达国家更多的困难和更严峻的挑战。在全球发展绿色经济,努力实现可持续发展的大背景下,中国要统筹国际国内两个大局,协调推进。在国际上积极参与国际制度的建设和改革,在促进全球经济发展,社会进步和环境保护等方面发挥积极的建设性的作用。在国内加强可持续发展战略的实施,走绿色、低碳和可持续发展的路径。主要战略对策包括加速转变发展方式,强化节能优先,控制能源消费总量和CO2排放总量的过快增长;加强能源结构的低碳化,逐步建立并形成以新能源和可再生能源为主体的可持续能源体系;加强城乡统筹,地区平衡,促进生态城市建设;适应国际可持续发展制度改革的趋势,加强绿色低碳和可持续发展的制度建设;抓住机遇,顺应世界绿色低碳发展潮流,自主实现发展方式的转变,把传统的资源依赖型、粗放扩张的发展方式转变到新型的技术创新型、内涵提高的发展方式上来,基本走上绿色低碳和可持续发展的轨道。     

Fringe View: Problems and Construction of Human Settlement Environment for Village-in-City

1 INTRODUCTIONAs a special pattern of community in city, "village-in-city"has objectively existed for many years, but it is only inrecent years that the phenomenon of "village-in-city" hasreally aroused the attention of scholars, government andmedia. The attention of government and media is mainlyfocused on the urban managerial problems that areproduced by "village-in-city", while the academic circlestry to explain the phenomenon of "village-in-city" andput forward measures in the academic…     

中国脆弱生态区可持续发展指标体系框架设计

本文分析了我国脆弱生态区人口—资源—环境与发展的矛盾,探讨了我国典型脆弱生态区可持续发展指标体系建立的指导原则和方法,提出了我国典型脆弱生态区可持续发展指标体系     

可持续发展治理的一个理论架构

治理作为实施可持续发展的基本途径和重要保障,受到了国际社会的广泛关注.但是目前对可持续发展治理的理解存在着很大程度的模糊性和混乱.本文在界定可持续发展治理内涵的基础上,提出了可持续发展治理的一个理论结构,对可持续发展治理的基本特征、要素组成、实施途径、操作模式以及制度安排进行了比较系统的讨论.可持续发展治理的可操作模式有社会伙伴关系模式、企业自调节模式和利益相关者契约模式;制度安排有兰个核心:制度的结构和功能层、治理功能及其组织、关键制度的规则.     

Understanding Human Development Potentials and Demands for Greenhouse Gas Emissions:with Empirical Analysis using time series and cross-sectional data

Based on an investigation of the meaning of development, the neo-classical economic approach to development, and the post-welfarist theory of development, this paper proposes a conceptual framework for understanding human development potentials, while undertaking empirical analysis using cross-sectional and time series data on human development. Human development is associated with basic necessities for subsistence, the quality of life, and political and civil rights, in addition to income indicators. Our analysis suggests that the concept of human development potentials has two dimensions: the rights of development and limits to human development. Both are largely ignored in the neoclassical theory of development. However, human development is not unbounded, which approaches to a relatively fixed constant at given economic, technological and institutional conditions. This conceptual understanding is supported by results from the empirical examination of the relationships between demands for carbon emis     

内生创新、人文发展与中国的能源效率

基于内生经济增长理论,本文通过运用面板数据分析方法,重点讨论了内生创新和人文发展对中国能源效率的影响。研究结果表明,无论是全国层面的总体估计还是从东部、中部和西部的分区域估计,内生创新对中国的能源效率都产生着正面影响;人文发展状况总体上对能源效率的提高也具有正面的影响,但是人文发展中人均消费量的提高对能源效率的改善产生着负面的效应。内生创新和人文发展对能源效率的作用在中国东部、中部和西部地区不尽相同,这些作用一致呈现出由东部向中部再向西部地区逐渐递减的分布趋势。人文发展较内生创新而言对能源效率的贡献弹性更加显著。因此,从内生创新和人文发展的角度出发,通过有效措施把能源消费方式转变到依靠技术进步、人口与经济社会协调发展的内涵式消费方式上来,依然是提高中国能源效率的有效策略。     

The Role of Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) in␣Promoting the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) in Africa

This article outlines some of the latest developments and opportunities for development finance institutions¹ (DFIs) to become directly supportive of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM²) in Africa. In striving to make development financing more environmentally friendly and sustainable, DFIs can play a key role in promoting the CDM on the African continent by providing monetary incentives through their project financing activities; encouraging and facilitating partnerships in support of sustainable development, particularly with reference to the CDM, and; providing technical advice and support to clients with regard to project design, planning and implementation. DFIs have traditionally focused on financing infrastructure and poverty alleviation projects. However, the emergence of the CDM has brought about a shift towards investments in services and products that reduce carbon dioxide emissions and encourage investments in environmentally friendly technologies. This can be ascribed in part to the development of a “carbon market” under the auspices of the Kyoto Protocol that took effect in February 2005. The carbon market and emerging carbon funds are some of the main drivers enabling DFIs to play an increasingly important role in promoting the CDM in Africa.     

Poverty Reduction and Sustainable Development

The prominent place of the chapter on poverty in the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation (JPI) is totally in keeping with the priority given to poverty reduction in the development thinking of the international community of today. The Johannesburg process did not lead to any new insights or new commitments in the fight against poverty. Section one sets out a factual comparison of the poverty chapters in Rio's Agenda 21 (AG21) and in the JPI. Section two reviews the conceptual links between poverty reduction and sustainable development, since poverty is used both as a dependent and as an independent variable. This analysis shows a shift in the function of growth as related to environmental protection. Section three explores the naturalization of development thinking in its economic and social dimensions and shows how this affects the policy options for social protection. I also explain how social and environmental sustainability have become elements of risk management and how are both aimed at conflict prevention and enhanced growth. Finally, in section four three lines of action are suggested to enhance the emergence of a socially meaningful sustainable development agenda that, ideally, would make poverty reduction strategies redundant.     

中国西部绿色发展概念框架

综合绿色发展的国际经验,以自然资本、经济资本、社会资本与人力资本四大资本为核心,提出了中国西部地区绿色发展概念框架.中国西部地区绿色发展概念框架是以“发展中促转变,转变中谋发展”的良性循环发展原则为指导原则,分析西部地区社会经济发展及生态环境和自然资源保护两个方面在发展过程中相互促进和制约的关系,并根据西部地区当前经济资本、环境资本、社会资本以及人力资本数量,通过政府适当干预,如区域规划、区内调整,最终实现社会经济与生态环境和自然资源相协调的绿色发展.该框架综合考虑了中国西部在绿色发展道路上特有挑战与机遇,阐明了社会经济发展与资源环境承载力之间的相互作用机制,明确了中国西部地区“生态友好、社会包容和内生增长”的绿色发展目标.最后,本文针对该绿色发展框架提出了中国西部地区绿色发展的政策建议:提出“西部地区绿色发展战略”是当前西部地区绿色发展进程中最为迫切的需求,中央政府应当尽快制定和实施“西部地区绿色发展战略”,同时西部地区政府在省级和地方层面将保护中国西部生态环境与区域扶贫开发相结合,加大对以提升西部地区人力资本为目的的各类工程的投入,强化区域绿色基础建设和生态服务供给,缓解西部地区贫困,提升区域绿色发展进程的速度和质量;开展财政体制机制改革,以提高各级财政资金的使用效率;结合各省发展需求与条件实施以生态城市为发展目标的可持续城镇化发展模式,制定差异化的城镇化发展战略;在西部地区重点和限制开发区尤其是贫困集中和区域发展潜力较大地区,鼓励具有区域特色的新型绿色产业的发展.在发展过程中不断加强制度创新以引导长期绿色发展.     

改革开放30年人的发展:评价与反思

传统的“唯GDP ”的经济发展方式成为中国未来经济可持续发展的桎梏,转变发展方式,提高经济增长质量,倡导共享式、包容性增长成为中国经济发展的新主题,而这种发展模式的基本导向就是促进“人的发展”.基于这样一个视角,本文依据经济增长质量提高的要求,从人的素质、人的福利、人的保障、人的迁移4个方面构建综合评价指标体系,对改革开放30年人的发展程度进行了测度与评价.评价结果显示:随着经济不断发展,30年间中国人的发展状况得到明显提高,但是人的发展指数以及人的素质指数、人的福利指数、人的保障指数、人的迁移指数、经济状况指数、资源环境指数仍需不断改善.未来中国在提高增长质量的过程中要促进人的发展,强调经济发展与人的发展的协调,树立“以人为本”的发展理念,着眼于人性,重视人的存在、人的价值、人的意义,建立促进人的素质和能力提升的机制和体制,确定以“富民”为目标的经济发展道路,实现人的发展与生态环境协调发展的有机统一.     

人类健康风险的定量评估与分析

通过深入研究．将人类健康风险解析环境污染、食物安全、疾病流行和医疗保障四个方面。在建立一套评价人类健康风险指标体系的基础上。对40个样本国家进行评估。用聚类分析的方法．将40个国家分为四类，在对每一类国家的人类健康风险特点进行对比发现，在同等经济发展水平下，中国的人类健康风险相对较高。通过分析人类健康风险与经济发展水平的关系得出,人均GNI 1000，3000美元是国家经济发展的关键时期。同样也是改善人类健康状况的关键时期，这一时期国家要高度重视改善人类健康状况。     

碳排放的人文发展绩效指标与实证分析

随着气候问题的日益凸显,发展低碳经济已成为全球共识.因此,提高碳排放绩效便成为题中应有之义.既有的关于碳排放绩效的研究主要围绕碳生产率指标展开,问题在于碳生产率测度的是碳排放的经济绩效,而非经济社会福利绩效.本文综合排放总量、人均排放以及发展阶段三个因素,构建碳排放的人文发展绩效指标,在此基础上对二十国集团1990-2006年的碳排放绩效进行分析,结果显示历年绩效平均值排前五名的国家是印度尼西亚、巴西、阿根廷、土耳其和墨西哥.七个国家的碳排放绩效呈现上升的趋势,其中德国和英国碳排放绩效增速较快,且在控制碳排放的同时保持了人类发展水平的提高,值得其他国家效仿.人类发展指数和碳排放绩效二维组合的国家分类表明,碳排放绩效不高是各国普遍存在的问题.无论从动态还是静态角度来看,中国目前都不具备低碳竞争优势.最后对中国如何提高碳排放绩效提出了从技术、制度与理念三方面进行创新的政策建议.     

水环境优先与兼顾水资源——关于水发展秩序的一个新型战略发展框架

水既是母体性的重要战略环境．还是父体性的重要战略资源。其双重特征和叠加功用决定了水对人类的生存发展具有至高无上的战略性。我们有充分的论据认为。在水的双重特性中水环境比水资源更加重要．在水发展序列中水环境发展重于水资源发展。中国决策层已经在水资源方面提出了建构“节水型”社会的发展要求，但还没有从水环境的视角确立建构“洁水型”社会的发展战略。21世纪的现代水科学发展观要求我们必须在洁水优先和兼顾节水的发展理念引领下。建构洁水与节水相结合的杜会发展模式。寻求21世纪中国新型的水利科学发展道路。只有如此．才能真正建构起能够切实保障中国水利安全的战略发展框架。     

Energy and Sustainable Development at Global Environmental Summits: An Evolving Agenda

This paper presents a framework for understanding energy issues in the context of sustainable development. It posits that there are three important ways in which energy is related to sustainable development: (a) energy as a source of environmental stress, (b) energy as a principal motor of macroeconomic growth and (c) energy as a prerequisite for meeting basic human needs. These three dimensions correspond to the three dimensions of the often-used triangle of sustainable development: environmental, economic, and social. Using this framework, the paper traces how successive environmental summits at Stockholm (1972), Rio de Janeiro (1992) and Johannesburg (2002) have dealt with energy issues. It identifies a slow, surprising and important evolution of how energy issues have been treated at these global discussions. Energy has received increasing prominence at these meetings and become more firmly rooted in the framework of sustainable development. Stockholm was primarily concerned with the environmental dimension, Rio de Janeiro focused on both the environmental and economic dimensions, and the major headway made at Johannesburg was the meaningful addition of the social dimension and the linking of energy issues to the UN's Millennium Development Goals.     

Introduction: Natural Capital, Poverty and Development

Can development occur without running down natural resources in an unsustainable way? The concept of natural capital offers a way for those with divergent views (ecologists and economists for example) to discuss this difficult question. Four aspects are examined in detail. First, the role of institutions in facilitating sustainable development is discussed, with examples from forestry. Then examples from (eco)tourism illustrate the potential – and limits – of applicability of the concept. Measurement issues for natural capital are then considered in detail. Finally, the concept is applied to agricultural strategy in fragile lands, where the tradeoff between the environment and development is likely to be most severe. Some implications for future research and policy are developed.     

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.     

A New Conceptual Framework for Sustainable Development

A critical review of the multidisciplinary literature on sustainable development reveals a lack of a comprehensive theoretical framework for understanding sustainable development and its complexities. A critical review shows that the definitions of sustainable development are vague; there is a lack of operative definitions and disagreement over what should be sustained; the concept is unclear in terms of emotional commitment; and it “remains a confused topic”, “fraught with contradictions”. This article aims to theoretically synthesize the interdisciplinary literature on sustainable development, and then identify the results by broad categories. Therefore, this article uses conceptual analysis, which reviews multidisciplinary literature on sustainable development, which recognizes patterns and similarities within the literature, then it synthesizes the patterns to different categories and independent concepts, where each concept has distinctive meanings and represents close ideas on sustainability. The analytical process elaborates seven concepts that together assemble the theoretical framework of ‘sustainable development’ and each concept represents distinctive meanings of the theoretical framework.     

A Hierarchy of Groundwater Management, Land-Use, and Social Needs Integrated for Sustainable Resource Development

The pyramid of human needs developed by Abraham Maslow is based upon the presumption that until a person's lower level needs are fulfilled, higher level needs remain irrelevant. Groundwater and land-use management can likewise utilize such a hierarchy in integrating plans and operations with the needs of the society. Only once a region's population has fulfilled more basic concerns can higher-level groundwater and land-use management needs be effectively achieved. Attaining the ultimate goal of resource sustainability would certainly require considerable public backing, both for financial support and minimizing ambient pollution. For efficient water management to supply a society's water needs for future generations, sustainable groundwater management will require the full support of an educated society. The objective of the authors is to point out how essential it is to integrate operational strategies into regional hierarchies of needs applicable to groundwater management, land-use, and social planning. The situation of groundwater resources in Israel's Sharon Coastal aquifer region is taken as a case in point. Remedial groundwater activities have been undertaken in the management program for this aquifer. But it appears that maximal management efficiency cannot be achieved until the public's basic concerns are satisfactorily addressed and water resources planners reach consensus and a working partnership with the society in question. Operational measures must be clearly shown to benefit the region's population as regards their social, economic, and environmental concerns. This can only be achieved through public education, promoting awareness of the issuesbreak involved.