The Essence of a Recycling Economy:Circular Utilization of Resources

By analyzing the relationship between a recycling economy and sustainable development theory, this article puts forward the basic concept of a recycling economy as a dynamic economic operational model, and explains the four basic characteristics. It is stressed that the essential element of a recycling economy is the use of resources circularly. In the end, this article analyzes the phenomena of utilizing the recycling economy concept incorrectly, and sets forth a number of problems that should be noted during the process of developing a recycling economy in China.     

The Roles of Countrywomen in Controlling Non-point Source Pollution

The main causes of non-point source pollution in Taihu Lake are the improper ways of crop production, animal husbandry, and daily runoff. The paper discusses the relationship between countrywomen and non-point source pollution control by 731 questionnaires in Weidu village and 466 questionnaires in Dapu Town. The roles of countrywomen have changed in families and they have close relationship with non-point source pollution. Furthermore, we discuss the possibility and methods of organizing countrywomen in non-point source pollution control.     

The Integration and Sustainable Development of Chengdu-Chongqing Urban Agglomeration

Urban Agglomeration is an inevitable outcome of urbanization and industrialization, and a main form of urban development. Based on the analysis of urbanization and urban system situation, this paper will discuss the integration of urban agglomeration development, using the urban area of Cheng （Chengdu）-Yu （Chongqing） Urban agglomeration （CYUA） as a case study. By means of industries, population and spatial integrations, the function, strength and competition of CYUA will be improved and this urban agglomeration will transit from a budding state to a growing and mature one in future. The sustainable development of CYUA will depend on countermeasures, such as accelerating industrialization and urbanization, building a traffic network and express roads, strengthening the ability of self-sufficiency, enlarging the ecological construction and environmental protection, and establishing the synergetic institution of cross districts.     

The Chinese Journal of Population, Resources and Environment

The Chinese Journal of Population, Resources and Environment（CJPRE Chinese Edition and English Edition） is an academic periodical jointly Sponsored by the Chinese Society for Sustainable Development, the Research Center for Sustainable Development of Shandong Province, the Administrative Center for China＇s Agenda 21 and Shandong Normal University. Mr. Deng Xiaoping, our respected general designer of China＇s reform and opening policy, paid great attention to the issues of population, resources and environment in sustainable development. He inscribed the Chinese name of the Journal and placed great expectation and responsibility on the journal.     

The Determinants of Plant Variety Protection Applications in China

China passed its Plant Variety Protection Act (PVPA) in 1997 which allowed us to do some initial testing of this proposition. We used a unique dataset on the applications of the new Plant Variety Protection (PVP), morphological characteristics, and institutional sources of all the important varieties of rice in three provinces of China to estimate the determinants of plant variety protection applications in China. The evidence suggests that both the government and private research programs are responding to economic and policy incentives and investing in plant variety protection as economists would expect profit maximizing firms to invest. The discussion of the evolution of the seed industry suggested that the combination of the new seed law in 2000 and the new plant variety protection regulation had changed the structure of the seed industry and provided an important incentive to invest in PVPs both by public research institutes and commercial firms. Finally, there is some preliminary evidence that private firms have smaller incentives to develop new varieties than to purchase the new varieties.     

The Conservation Status and Conservation Strategy of Picea neoveitchii

Picea neoveitchii is an endemic species in China. It had been listed as an endangered species in red data books. It scatters in several locations of south slope of the Qinling Mountain of China. Upon reviewing the related literature, discussing with leading scholars on gymnosperm, ecology and plant conservation, the field survey was carried out in four locations. There are eleven mature individuals and two seedlings surviving in its natural habitats. With the survey of quadrat method in four locations, related community index were calculated such as relative important value （RIV）, species richness, similarity index, diversity index and evenness index etc. The community could be sorted and characterized as three groups based on the community parameters. The analysis of vegetation table elucidates that Picea neoveitchii is a dominant species with low grouping rate in most surveyed sites. The RAPD analysis shows target species has intraspecific genetic variability. The estimation of Shannon＇s phenotypic diversity index （Ho） also explains the difference of genetic variations of different locations. Due to the lack of enough knowledge and professional guide of conservation biological perspective, Picea neoveitchii had been clear-cut for timber production. The extent of occurrence and area of occupancy declined rapidly from 1950s to 1990s. According to the Conservation Category guideline proposed by the World Conservation Union, the conservation status of Picea neoveitchii was reevaluated as Critically Endangered （CR） B2b C2a D. Upon research in areas of ecology, molecular biology, cluster analysis of environmental parameters, a practical conservation strategy is recommended in this research.     

The Environmental Effects of New Zealand’s Free-Market Reforms

This paper explains one way in which New Zealand’s free-market reforms have adversely affected its environment. Liberalisation of New Zealand’s economy has radically changed the determinants of agricultural export success, largely due to the elimination of subsidies to domestic producers, and of tariffs on imports. In this exposed agricultural milieu, the dairy industry has thrived; cow numbers have increased by over 50%, with commensurate increases in herd and farm sizes. With this rapid expansion has come increasing pollution of New Zealand’s waterways. New Zealand’s Resource Management Act 1991 is potentially capable of controlling these adverse effects; however, its implementation was slow and piecemeal throughout the 1990s. So, at the same time as production and pollution from dairy farming expanded, the efficacy of environmental policy was limited. The resulting implementation gap has put at risk the ‘clean and green’ image that is an important component of New Zealand’s agricultural export success.Readers should send their comments on this paper to: BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue.     

The Impact of Changes of Property Rights on Farmland Use： An Empirical Study of China during Transition

In China, farmland property rights characterized by the household-responsibility system （HRS） have been improved since the reform and opening-up. The rights of use, transfer and gain become more stable, authorized and complete. This paper firstly analyzes the impact on farmland productivity, which comes from the improvement of farmland property rights. Then, an economet-ric model is built to test the above analysis. It concludes that changes of property rights will affect farmland performance in China. In the end, some policy implications are explored for fur-ther reforms.     

The role of capital deepening in China’s energy transition

ABSTRACT

This paper provides a theoretical model to explain the causality between China’s energy transition and capital deepening found by the empirical study. We prove that in the equilibrium, China’s energy transition is endogenously determined by capital deepening due to the homogeneity of electricity and the monopolistic competition features of China’s electricity market. Price effect, which is the effect of change in relative factor price, will affect energy transition only if the policy intervenes electricity price in terms of the primary sources from which it is generated. We propose that investment can promote energy transition by stimulating capital deepening which is biased to clean energy development. In this regard, our paper provides a new way of thinking for other developing countries to design an effective energy transition policy.     

The Sustainable Development of ICTs in China： An Empirical Study of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises

The wide application of new information and communication technologies （ICTs） has been argued to be critical to business success of small and medium-sized enterprises （SMEs）, especially to those in the developing countries. Drawing upon existing literature, this article will examine the determinants of ICTs application in SMEs in China based on data collected from interviews with top managers and/or owners of 70 SMEs. We identify 20 factors affecting ICTs application in SMEs in China and divide them into four broad categories, namely pressures, firm specific factors, technical factors and local milieu. We also pay special attention to the Chinese business environment affecting ICTs application. Our analysis shows that local ICT infrastructure, external pressures from competitors and ICT knowledge of employees are the determinants of Internet application by SMEs, while product characteristics and market target are important factors of e-commerce adoption.     

Participatory Development of No-tillage Systems without Herbicides for Family Farming: The Experience of the Center-South Region of Paraná

It is currently estimated that 40 million hectares worldwide are cultivated through no-tillage systems (Derpsh, 1998). Small family farms account for less than 50,000ha, half of them located in South America's Southern Cone (Wall, 1998). Many hypotheses have been offered to explain why so few small farmers have adapted to this method. The most simplistic ones relate this limited adoption to small farmers' traditionalism and to their rejection of innovation. Others point to the low technological development of animal-drawn equipment needed for this technology or the low educational level of family farmers.Results of work done in the Center-South of Paraná, Southern Brazil, by AS-PTA¹ in partnership with the region's Forum of Family Farmers Organizations, challenge these hypotheses and draw attention to the need for new approaches and processes of research and extension if the goal is to disseminate and implement appropriate no-tillage systems among family farmers. One requisite is to lower production costs of this method through elimination of herbicides and using green manure and cover crops that shift the crop-weed balance in favor of crops.     

The simulation of long-range transport of ¹³⁷Cs from East Asia to Japan in 2002 and 2006

To evaluate the quantities of ¹³⁷Cs from past nuclear tests being transported to and deposited in Japan by naturally-occurring phenomena, the authors developed long-range transport models for ¹³⁷Cs considering Asian dust. The simulation using these models backed the observed recent increase of ¹³⁷Cs deposition along the coast of the Sea of Japan in early spring. For the sake of public safety, it is vital to ascertain whether an increase of radioactive deposition is caused by natural phenomena or a nuclear accident. The observations in recent years have suggested that dust and soil containing ¹³⁷Cs is transported from the regions around Inner Mongolia to Japan by the wind. In this paper, using observation data from the early spring of 2002 and 2006, the authors have found good agreement between the simulations and the measurements. The simulations reproduced the entrainment of ¹³⁷Cs and subsequent transport to Japan caused by strong winds associated with low pressure areas around the Inner Mongolian grasslands. The most likely cause of high-level ¹³⁷Cs deposition over northern Japan during March 2002 was ¹³⁷Cs associated with particles transported at low-altitude (1 km) and subjected to precipitation on the 22nd to 24th.     

A Study on The Management of Municipal Residential Solid Waste in China

As the main organic pollutant in municipal living waste , kitchen waste causes secondary pollution in the course of its being gathered and transported to the landfill by mixing with other refuse and by decomposition. This makes pollution prevention more difficult and raises the cost of landfill engineering. However, the amount of solid waste to be treated can be decreased and such pollution burden lessened by disposing of the solid waste in local municipal areas. The program in Beijing also shows that this works well with our situation in China and can accelerate marketization and public participation.     

The Fuzzy Synthesizing Evaluation of City''''s Environmental Quality Based on GIOWA Operator:A Case of 13 Cities of Jiangsu Province

1 INTRODUCTION In China, cities have been undergoing a rapid development in recent years. On the one hand, the level of urbanization rises continuously and a large population gathers in a city. The number and the scale of city increase and enlarge continuously. On the other hand, large population gathering in a city brings a huge pressure to the ecological environment of the city. The environmental pollution of the city is becoming more serious. This is a terrible and heavy cost for city…     

The First Session of Asia Carbon Fair was held in Beijing,promoting development of China CDM

From October 26 to October 27, 2006, the first session of Asia Carbon Fair, organized by the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China, National Development and Reform Commission, China Ministry of Finance, and jointly supported by World Bank, International Emissions Trading Association, Cologne International Exhibition Company, Administrative Center for the China's Agenda 21, Asia Development Bank, Japan Bank for International Cooperation and the Italy Ministry for the Environment, Land and Sea, was held in Beijing.     

The impact analysis of policy events on China’s carbon market

ABSTRACT

This paper interrogates the impact of policy events on the efficiency of carbon market in China. The analysis covers five piloting emission trading schemes (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, Shenzhen and Hubei), particularly focusing on Guangdong pilot for its weak form efficiency and the richness of policy events. Twenty-five policy events between 2014 and 2016 are categorized into seven groups. The efficiency test indicates that only Guangdong ETS has reached weak form efficiency. After exploring the policy events occurred in Guangdong ETS, it finds that although a clear long-term climate policy has been set up over the country, China’s carbon market still has a conservative risk appetite and its governing institutions still needs further development. The policy makers need to be aware of and avoid the negative impacts of policy events to the market evolvement, by introducing effective consultancy process with the stakeholders and nurturing market expectations in the long run. We also find that events like allowance auctions have considerably less impacts than previously expected and argue that auction approach should be considered a preferable option over a free allocation system in the future policy design.     

Isolation of natural organic matter — The influence on the assimilable organic carbon

The biofilm formation potential (BFP), determined by the assimilable organic carbon (AOC), was measured in water samples containing natural organic matter (NOM), and in “identical” samples reconstructed from NOM isolated by reverse osmosis (RO) and dissolved in distilled water. The results showed identical BFP in natural and reconstructed NOM water samples within the standard deviation of the AOC measurements. These results indicate that the composition of the NOM is the single most important parameter for the BFP of natural waters, and that the RO isolation of NOM produces a powder which, after dissolution in distilled water, is representative for the natural water containing NOM with regard to BFP determined by AOC.     

The Factor Decomposition on Carbon Emission of China — Based on LMDI Decomposition Technology

Abstract

Carbon emission is the current hot issue of global concern. How to assess various contributing factors for carbon emission is of great importance to find out the key factors and promote carbon emission reduction. In this paper, the author constructs an identical equation for carbon emission, based on the economic aggregate, the economic structure, the efficiency of energy utilization, the structure of energy consumption, and the coefficient of carbon emission; by applying to LMDI decomposition technology, the author analyzes the carbon emission of China from 1995 to 2007 at industrial level and regional level. The results show that the expansion of economic aggregate is the main reason for China’ s rapidly increasing carbon emission and the increase of energy utilization efficiency is the key factor that can hold back the increase of carbon emission. In addition, the change of industrial structure or regional structure and the change of traditional energy structure have limited influence on the carbon emission, and their potentials have not yet been exploited. At the end of this paper, the author proposes the efforts that China should make to reduce carbon emission.