Trends of environmental accidents and impact factors in China

An overview of the spatial and temporal variations of the environmental accidents in China in recent years was presented in this paper using available data. The results showed that the frequency of pollution accidents was significantly decreased, from 3462 in 1990 to 462 in 2007. The water and air pollution accidents were found to be the dominant types, accounting for more than 80% of the total accidents. Considering the classification of environmental accidents at 4 scales, the general environmental accident, i.e., the least serious type, was the most frequent event, taking up 58.98% of the total pollution accidents. In addition, the distribution of environmental accidents was generally in accordance with the industrial layout in the country during the past decade. It is very important to note that the extraordinarily severe environmental accidents showed an increasing trend in underdeveloped regions, which was caused by the transfer and the development of heavy polluted industry in these areas. As to the losses of environmental accidents, the casualties presented an obvious reduction tendency, while the direct economic loss per accident tended to climb up. Furthermore, some key factors that affect the spatial and temporal tendencies of environmental accidents in China were discussed and some suggestions were put forward, hoping to shed light on environmental risk management and emergency plans making associated with environmental accidents in China.     

Good news for environmental self-regulation? Finding the right link

We investigate the stock market response to firm disclosure of positive environmental information and the link from that information to environmental outcomes. We classify environmental media releases by informational content and value relevance, and assess the abnormal stock returns of each type of event. While announcements of future environmental activities lead to the largest favorable stock market reactions, there is no guaranteed link from this type of information to environmental outcomes. Further analysis of the abnormal returns shows that the magnitude of the stock market reaction depends on firm financial characteristics across all event types rather than on firm environmental performance. Our results indicate that the ability for voluntary environmental information disclosure to induce environmental self-regulation is limited to the extent that firms are able to follow through with their announcements of planned environmental activities.     

Insight of chemical environmental risk and its management from the vinyl chloride accident

The combustion of vinyl chloride (VC) after the train derailment accident in Ohio, USA in February, 2023 has caused widespread concern around the world. This paper tried to analyze several issues concerning the accident, including the appropriateness of the VC combustion in the emergency response in this accident, the meanings of so-called “controlled combustion”, the potential environmental risks caused by VC and combustion by-products, and follow-up work. In our view, this accident had surely caused environmental and health risks to some extent. Hence, a comprehensive environmental risk assessment is necessary, and then the site with risk should be comprehensively remediated, hazardous waste should be harmlessly treated as soon as possible. Finally, this accident suggests that further efforts should be taken to bridge the gap between chemical safety management and their environmental risk management.     

CEO education and corporate environmental footprint

We analyze the effect of CEO education on environmental decision-making. Using a unique sample of Danish firms from 1996 to 2012, we find that CEO education significantly improves firms' energy efficiency. We seek to derive causality using health shocks: the hospitalization of highly educated CEOs induces a drop in energy efficiency, whereas the hospitalization of less educated CEOs does not have any significant effect. Exploring the mechanisms at play, we show that our results are largely driven by advanced education in business degrees. Moreover, we show that CEO education is associated with greater environmental awareness: highly educated CEOs exhibit greater concerns for climate change, as measured by a survey of social preferences, and drive more environmentally efficient cars. Taken together, our findings suggest that education shapes managerial styles giving rise to greater sustainability in corporate actions.     

Co-benefits and additionality of the clean development mechanism: An empirical analysis

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) allows industrialized countries to comply with the Kyoto Protocol by using carbon offsets from developing countries. There are two puzzles within this carbon market: additionality (the proposed activity would not have occurred in its absence) and co-benefits (the project has other environmental benefits besides climate mitigation). This paper proposes an econometric approach to evaluate the CDM effect on sulfur dioxide emission reductions and assess its additionality indirectly. Our empirical model is applied to China's emissions at the prefecture level. We found that the CDM does not have a statistically significant effect in lowering sulfur dioxide emissions. This result casts doubt on additionality of these CDM activities, that is, they would have happened anyway.     

Constrained additive ordination

For several decades now, ecologists have sought to determine the shape of species' response curves and how they are distributed along unknown underlying gradients, environmental latent variables, or ordination axes. Its determination has important implications for both continuum theory and community analysis because many theories and models in community ecology assume that responses are symmetric and unimodal. This article proposes a major new technique called constrained additive ordination (CAO) that solves this problem by computing the optimal gradients and flexible response curves. It allows ecologists to see the response curves as they really are, against the dominant gradients. With one gradient, CAO is a generalization of constrained quadratic ordination (CQO; formerly called canonical Gaussian ordination or CGO). It supplants symmetric bell-shaped response curves in CQO with completely flexible smooth curves. The curves are estimated using smoothers such as the smoothing spline. Loosely speaking, CAO models are generalized additive models (GAMs) fitted to a very small number of latent variables. Being data driven rather than model driven, CAO allows the data to "speak for itself" and does not make any of the assumptions made by canonical correspondence analysis. The new methodology is illustrated with a hunting spider data set and a New Zealand tree species data set.     

Compositional stability and diversity of vascular plant communities following logging disturbance in Appalachian forests

Human-caused changes in disturbance regimes and introductions of nonnative species have the potential to result in widespread, directional changes in forest community structure. The degree that plant community composition persists or changes following disturbances depends on the balance between local extirpation and colonization by new species, including nonnatives. In this study, we examined species losses and gains, and entry of native vs. exotic species to determine how oak forests in the Appalachian Mountains might shift in species composition following a gradient of pulse disturbances (timber harvesting). We asked (1) how compositional stability of the plant community (resistance and resilience) was influenced by disturbance intensity, (2) whether community responses were driven by extirpation or colonization of species, and (3) how disturbance intensity influenced total and functional group diversity, including the nonnative proportion of the flora through time. We collected data at three spatial scales and three times, including just before, one year post-disturbance, and 10 years post-disturbance. Resistance was estimated using community distance measures between pre- and one year post-disturbance, and resilience using community distance between pre- and 10-year post-disturbance conditions. The number of colonizing and extirpated species between sampling times was analyzed for all species combined and for six functional groups. Resistance and resilience decreased with increasing timber-harvesting disturbance; compositional stability was lower in the most disturbed plots, which was driven by colonization, but not extirpation, of species. Colonization of species also led to increases in diversity after disturbance that was typically maintained after 10 years following disturbance. Most of the community-level responses were driven by post-disturbance colonization of native forbs and graminoids. The nonnative proportion of plant species tended to increase following disturbance, especially at large spatial scales in the most disturbed treatments, but tended to decrease through time following disturbance due to canopy development. The results of this study are consistent with the theory that resources released by disturbance have strong influences on species colonization and community composition. The effects of management activities tested in this study, which span a gradient of timber-harvesting disturbance, shift species composition largely via an increase in species colonization and diversity.     

Jobs Versus the Environment: An Industry-Level Perspective

The possibility that workers could be adversely affected by increasingly stringent environmental policies has led to claims of a “jobs versus the environment” trade-off by both business and labor leaders. The present research examines this claim at the industry level for four heavily polluting industries: pulp and paper mills, plastic manufacturers, petroleum refiners, and iron and steel mills. Combining a unique plant-level data set with industry-level demand information, we find that increased environmental spending generally does not cause a significant change in employment. Our average across all four industries is a net gain of 1.5 jobs per $1 million in additional environmental spending, with a standard error of 2.2 jobs—an economically and statistically insignificant effect. There are statistically significant and positive effects in two industries, but total number of affected jobs remains quite small. These small positive effects can be linked to labor-using factor shifts and relatively inelastic estimated demand.     

Does the stock market value the inclusion in a sustainability stock index? An event study analysis for German firms

This paper empirically analyzes the effect of the inclusion of German corporations in the Dow Jones STOXX Sustainability Index (DJSI STOXX) and the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index (DJSI World) on stock performance. In order to receive robust estimation results, we apply an (short-term) event study approach that is based on both a modern asset pricing model, namely the three-factor model according to Fama and French [24], and additionally a t-GARCH(1,1) model. Our empirical results suggest that stock markets may penalize the inclusion of a firm in sustainability stock indexes. This finding is mainly driven by a strongly negative effect of the inclusion in the DJSI World. In contrast, we do not find significant average cumulative abnormal returns for the inclusion in the DJSI STOXX. This suggests that the inclusion in a more visible sustainability stock index may have larger negative impacts.     

Green,greener, greenest: Eco-label gradation and competition

This paper analyzes two common features of markets in which eco-label programs certify that products are “green”: gradation—single programs offering multiple certification standards (e.g., platinum, gold, silver)—and competition—multiple programs vying to certify to their respective standards. We find that, depending on whether programs are sponsored by industry, environmental groups, or a government, they have strikingly different incentives to grade or compete. Industry sponsors are indifferent about both; environmentalist sponsors optimally grade or compete with other environmentalist sponsors only if consumer preferences for green consumption are skewed in a specific way; and government sponsors׳ decisions depend on the relative importance of private vs. public benefits generated by the green market. We find also that it is no accident that green markets frequently have an environmentalist program competing with an industry one. For each of the cases examined, our analysis is consistent with casual empirical evidence.     

Confronting Uncertainty and Missing Values in Environmental Value Transfer as Applied to Species Conservation

Abstract: The nonuse (or passive) value of nature is important but time‐consuming and costly to quantify with direct surveys. In the absence of estimates of these values, there will likely be less investment in conservation actions that generate substantial nonuse benefits, such as conservation of native species. To help overcome decisions about the allocation of conservation dollars that reflect the lack of estimates of nonuse values, these values can be estimated indirectly by environmental value transfer (EVT). EVT uses existing data or information from a study site such that the estimated monetary value of an environmental good is transferred to another location or policy site. A major challenge in the use of EVT is the uncertainty about the sign and size of the error (i.e., the percentage by which transferred value exceeds the actual value) that results from transferring direct estimates of nonuse values from a study to a policy site, the site where the value is transferred. An EVT is most useful if the decision‐making framework does not require highly accurate information and when the conservation decision is constrained by time and financial resources. To account for uncertainty in the decision‐making process, a decision heuristic that guides the decision process and illustrates the possible decision branches, can be followed. To account for the uncertainty associated with the transfer of values from one site to another, we developed a risk and simulation approach that uses Monte Carlo simulations to evaluate the net benefits of conservation investments and takes into account different possible distributions of transfer error. This method does not reduce transfer error, but it provides a way to account for the effect of transfer error in conservation decision making. Our risk and simulation approach and decision‐based framework on when to use EVT offer better‐informed decision making in conservation.     

Can incomplete information lead to under-exploitation in the commons?

This paper analyzes the protection of a common pool resource (CPR) through the management of information. Specifically, we examine an entry deterrence model between an incumbent perfectly informed about the initial stock of a CPR and an uninformed potential entrant. In our model, the appropriation of the CPR by the incumbent reduces both players' future profits from exploiting the resource. In the case of complete information, we show that the incumbent operating in a high-stock common pool overexploits the CPR during the first period since it does not internalize the negative external effect that its first-period exploitation imposes on the entrant's future profits. This inefficiency, however, is absent when the commons totally regenerate across periods. Under incomplete information, we identify an additional form of inefficiency. In particular, the incumbent operating in a low-stock CPR underexploits the resource in order to signal the low available stock to potential entrants, deterring entry.     

Tradable fuel economy credits: Competition and oligopoly

Corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) regulations specify minimum standards for fuel efficiency that vehicle manufacturers must meet independently. We design a system of tradeable fuel economy credits that allows trading across vehicle classes and manufacturers with and without considering market power in the credit market. We perform numerical simulations to measure the potential cost savings from moving from the current CAFE system to one with stricter standards, but that allows vehicle manufacturers various levels of increased flexibility. We find that the ability for each manufacturer to average credits between its cars and trucks provides a large percentage of the potential savings. As expected, the greatest savings come from the greatest flexibility in the credit system. Market power lowers the potential cost savings to the industry as a whole, but only modestly. Loss in efficiency from market power does not eliminate the gains from credit trading.     

A behavioral rebound effect

Pro-environmental behaviors are an important avenue for mitigating environmental impacts. Technological improvements are also a vital tool for reducing environmental damage from consumption. However, their benefits are partially offset by the direct rebound effect, whereby a consumer rationally responds to an increase in resource use efficiency by consuming more. This paper investigates whether technological improvement might also reduce behaviorally motivated mitigation of environmental damage. A behavioral rebound effect operates through two channels. First, pro-environmental effort is reduced after a decrease in marginal environmental damage. Second, moral licensing reduces pro-environmental effort further when technological change is endogenous. I develop a novel real effort laboratory experiment to identify these behaviors. I find a positive behavioral rebound effect. I also find evidence consistent with moral licensing, which is strongest among subjects with a higher degree of pro-environmental attitudes and beliefs. Subjects’ baseline level of pro-environmental effort is driven by beliefs about social norms.     

Compliance with ivory trade regulations in the United Kingdom among traders

Global demand for elephant ivory is contributing to illegal poaching and significant decline of African elephant (Loxondonta africana) populations. To help mitigate decline, countries with legal domestic ivory markets were recommended by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora to close domestic markets for commercial trade. However, implementing stricter regulations on wildlife trade does not necessarily mean compliance with rules will follow. Using an online questionnaire, we examined the relationship between self-reported compliance with ivory trade regulations among 115 ivory traders in the United Kingdom and 4 dimensions (control, deterrence, legitimacy, and social norms) hypothesized to influence compliance with conservation regulations. Although most traders supported regulations, a large number did not always check that they comply with them when trading objects containing ivory. The main factors influencing compliance with ivory trade regulations were traders’ ability to comply and their perceptions of the regulations and punishments to deter illegal trade. These findings demonstrate the utility of conservation criminology to improve wildlife trade regulations and identify opportunities to reduce illegal ivory entering the market in the United Kingdom. Compliance could be improved by clearer regulations that facilitate easier detection of illegal ivory products and stronger prosecution of violations.     

1985年以来我国重大水体突发污染事件及在线生物监测的必要性分析

通过查阅和检索公开报道的期刊、报纸和网络,统计分析我国1985以来水体突发污染事件。1985—2015年间,我国水体突发污染事件年均发生数量总体变化呈现先动态增长后逐渐下降的趋势,其中2006年为水体突发性污染事件发生频次的转折点。导致水体突发性污染的主要原因包括企业违规排放、企业事故性泄漏、交通事故、自然因素和人为投毒等,污染方式多样。水体突发性污染的污染物种类包括化学品、污水(工业废水和生活污水)、油类、农药、重金属、生物污染物和其他不明污染物。鉴于水体突发性污染事件污染方式的多样性和污染物的复杂性,采用在线生物监测技术可实现对水体突发性污染事件在线监测与分析预警,已成为当前监测和评价水体突发污染事件有效手段。     

Regulator reputation, enforcement, and environmental compliance

This paper explores empirically the impact of enforcement efforts on environmental compliance, focusing on the role of regulator reputation spillover effects. We find that, on the margin, the impact of a fine for water pollutant violations is about a two-thirds reduction in the statewide violation rate in the year following a fine. This large result obtains through the regulator's enhanced reputation; the deterrence impact on other plants in a state is almost as strong as the impact on the sanctioned plant. Focusing only on the response of the sanctioned plant, as in previous studies, may therefore seriously underestimate the efficacy of fines and other sanctions. This paper also examines the relative effectiveness of monitoring and enforcement instruments. Non-monetary sanctions contribute no detected impact on compliance, and the marginal fine induces substantially greater compliance than the marginal inspection.     

Can incomplete information lead to under-exploitation in the commons?

This paper analyzes the protection of a common pool resource (CPR) through the management of information. Specifically, we examine an entry deterrence model between an incumbent perfectly informed about the initial stock of a CPR and an uninformed potential entrant. In our model, the appropriation of the CPR by the incumbent reduces both players' future profits from exploiting the resource. In the case of complete information, we show that the incumbent operating in a high-stock common pool overexploits the CPR during the first period since it does not internalize the negative external effect that its first-period exploitation imposes on the entrant's future profits. This inefficiency, however, is absent when the commons totally regenerate across periods. Under incomplete information, we identify an additional form of inefficiency. In particular, the incumbent operating in a low-stock CPR underexploits the resource in order to signal the low available stock to potential entrants, deterring entry.     

Methodological approaches for delimitating mixing zones in rivers: establishing admissibility criteria and flow regime representation

The present paper addresses defining the extent of the mixing zones of effluents discharged into rivers, which is a problem that should be analyzed based on probabilistic terms, as it is governed by several random processes. A river’s flow regime is one of the main variables, and it has a high dependence on hydrological processes. Additionally, after calculating the extent of the mixing zone, it is necessary to determine if the resulting dimensions are admissible or not. Common practice includes the admissibility criteria associated with the geometry of the river. However, this practice does not consider the environmental characteristics of the river that make it capable of absorbing the impact of the effluent (the biological and hydromorphological status of the river and the presence of structures that can change the river flow conditions, ecologically sensitive area or threatened species). This paper presents work on two important topics: on the one hand, the development of a methodology to establish the admissible extent of the mixing zone as a function of the environmental vulnerability of the river to the discharged effluent and, on the other hand, the proposal of a procedure to perform the calculations of the effluent mixing considering the variability of the river’s flow regime. The proposed methodological approaches are illustrated with an application to a real case, including a numerical simulation of the hydrodynamic and effluent evolution of the river during a year, to test the proposed methodology’s suitability and demonstrate the important savings in computational effort that can be achieved.     

Disentangling the effects of heterogeneity, stochastic dynamics and sampling in a community of aquatic insects

A dynamic and heterogeneous species abundance model generating the lognormal species abundance distribution is fitted to time series of species data from an assemblage of stoneflies and mayflies (Plecoptera and Ephemeroptera) of an aquatic insect community collected over a period of 15 years. In each year except one, we analyze 5 parallel samples taken at the same time of the season giving information about the over-dispersion in the sampling relative to the Poisson distribution. Results are derived from a correlation analysis, where the correlation in the bivariate normal distribution of log abundance is used as measurement of similarity between communities. The analysis enables decomposition of the variance of the lognormal species abundance distribution into three components due to heterogeneity among species, stochastic dynamics driven by environmental noise, and over-dispersion in sampling, accounting for 62.9, 30.6 and 6.5% of the total variance, respectively. Corrected for sampling the heterogeneity and stochastic components accordingly account for 67.3 and 32.7% of the among species variance in log abundance. By using this method, it is possible to disentangle the effect of heterogeneity and stochastic dynamics by quantifying these components and correctly remove sampling effects on the observed species abundance distribution.