Risk management: Time for innovative approaches

Risk management practices under the current environmental regulations is a long, complex process that considers scientific, technologic, and management factors to develop various regulatory standards and pollution control measures. Using the mandatory enforcement approach, sometimes referred to as “command-and-control”, a set of preliminary environmental goals, such as better air and water qualities, were achieved. However, the information-intensive nature of the risk management process and the lack of flexibility in conventional regulatory methods to changing economic and technologic realities of the decade has created interest among risk managers to examine some innovative management approaches. Above all, environmental problems of a global scale require novel management methods while striving to achieve the desired environmental goals. As the principal analytical tool in risk management, quantitative risk assessment exerts considerable influence on the risk management process. Therefore, advances in risk management are closely associated with scientific developments that enhance the risk assessment process, particularly those efforts aimed at improving human exposure and toxicity assessments. Market incentives, information dissemination, creative enforcement practices, and interagency and intergovernmental interactions were identified as the key elements of innovative environmental risk management practices. This paper will present an overview of the emerging innovative risk management approaches.     

城市防洪工程风险决策方法

本文着重讨论了与城市防洪工程决策制定密切相关的几个问题：①城市防洪工程设计标准的确定；②现有防洪工程的性能评估，③最优防洪工程对策的确定等，并在风险分析的基础上，给出了解决上述问题的方法。所得结论可为城市防洪工程决策的制定提供较为科学的理论依据。     

A comparative study of risk perception in small and large communities where chemical industries are present

Opinion polls were conducted to assess the level of risk perceived by the citizens in communities of different sizes where chemical industries were present. The aim of the study was to relate the risk perceived to variables such as the nature of risks, the specific information received regarding the industrial activity and the economic impact of this activity in the community.     

Fostering sustainable small-scale investments: lessons from experience and ideas for intervention and innovation

This article presents lessons from experience pertinent to implementing small-scale natural resource and related investment projects in developing countries. It outlines ideas for intervention and innovation to foster such investments. Particular emphasis is placed on private-sector participation in these investments. Following a brief presentation of the economic development and other arguments that support intervention and innovation in support of such small-scale natural resource investments, the article discusses many of the lessons learned from experience. These lessons reinforce those touched upon in the investment-specific discussions in the previous articles. The experience and associated lessons that are examined include experiences in both developing and developed countries and encompass not just lessons from natural resource investments, but also small-scale investments in other sectors. Financing and other innovations which facilitate meeting the challenges are drawn from relevant experience where barriers to investment have been surmounted. Options for programme and project interventions to increase market penetration of small-scale investments and achieve the associated development linkages and synergies are suggested. These suggestions are aimed especially at governments and bilateral and multilateral development finance and development assistance entities. It is those players who might support such interventions in collaboration with local financial institutions and other market players.     

Major hazards—Thinking the unthinkable

It is a common experience that public administrations tend to shy away from the explicit acknowledgment of quantitative risk levels. Faced with extreme concentrations of population and of industrial activities, including LPG and liquid chlorine storage, within a very small land area, Hong Kong has faced up to the issue of major man-made hazards by “thinking the unthinkable” and adopting explicit risk guidelines. This article describes how these guidelines were developed and the arguments that led to their adoption. It is emphasized that the risk guidelines are not rigid standards but simply a method of focusing decision making and ensuring that any decision to contravene the guidelines is taken at an appropriately senior level in the administration. The way in which the guidelines have been incorporated intimately into the planning and decision-making process is described and details are given on how this has led to the implementation of a variety of measures that have greatly reduced both societal and individual risk from certain types of chemical storage and chemical processing installations in Hong Kong. The opinions in this paper represent the views of the authors and not necessarily those of the Hong Kong Government.     

中国山区沟谷泥石流危险度的定量判定法

本文根据专家系统调查,确定了一次泥石流冲出物最大方量和泥石流暴发频率作为判定泥石流危险度的主要危险因子。运用灰色关联度分析,优选出10项判定泥石流危险度的次要危险因子,并根据关联序确定了它们的权重。在各危险因子等级划分的基础上,得出了泥石流危险度的定量计算公式。通过实例检验,证明该判定方法具有60％以上的可靠度。     

Deliberation and ecological democracy: from citizen to global system

ABSTRACT

Ecological democracy confronts a challenge of not only reconciling democracy and ecology, but doing so where human activities and their environmental consequences are increasingly global. Deliberative scholars dealing with these issues emphasise reflexive governance, involving the contestation of discourses, as part of the solution, mostly aimed at high-level institutions and intergovernmental cooperation. However, even at this level democracy demands responsiveness to the citizen. To this end, the paper explores citizen-level deliberation to inform possibilities for ecological democracy writ large, via a growing literature on deliberative governance and polycentrism. Different system levels are connected via ecologically reflexive capacity and the discursive conditions under which it is enhanced, including in small-scale minipublics. This understanding informs mechanisms for ‘scaling up’ deliberative quality to the wider public sphere via regulating the manipulation of public discourse. Minipublic deliberation, properly harnessed, can serve to decontaminate public debate of anti-reflexive strategic arguments and reshape public discourse. Such anti-reflexive strategies seek to shape the public will, specifically by de-emphasising ecology via intuitive arguments that short-cut public reasoning. Acting as discursive regulatory trustees, minipublics can improve reflexivity in the wider system via a nested polycentric approach that discursively connects citizens’ deliberation to the global system both horizontally and vertically.     

碳中和愿景下电力部门低碳转型路径研究

碳中和愿景一方面加速了全社会电气化发展,致使电力需求持续增加,另一方面对尽早实现零碳电力提出要求,电力部门低碳转型进程更加紧迫而复杂。本文首先定性分析碳中和背景下电力部门的总体转型思路和技术不确定性影响,其次采用电力部门与终端部门耦合的C~3IAM/NET模型对电力需求进行预测,同时根据关键低碳技术发展的保守预期和积极预期设计多种情景,以开展电力低碳转型路径优化和成本效益研究。结果显示,发电碳排放量峰值可能出现在40亿～42亿吨,在2049—2060年有望实现零碳电力,电力部门低碳转型速度和效果因技术不确定性而存在明显差异。2021—2060年电力低碳转型累计投入为171万亿～180万亿元,CCS技术累计减排贡献超过250亿吨,可再生能源电力占比需达到68%以上,风电和光电将成为主要电力。     

中国与欧美非道路移动机械排放标准对比分析

随着非道路移动机械保有量与使用量的不断增加,其排放造成的环境问题日益严重,相关的防治策略研究亟待加强。本研究首先总结了中国与欧美对非道路移动机械类型的划分方式及标准;其次,对中国与欧美的非道路移动机械排放标准进行归纳;最后,对现行中国与欧美的非道路移动机械排放标准进行了全面对比分析,分析发现,国内标准与欧美标准之间仍存在显著差距,以期为国内制定科学的非道路移动机械排放标准提供参考,为污染物防治策略的制定提供理论支撑。     

Is “No-Threshold” a “Non-Concept”?

A controversy prominent in scientific literature that has carried over to newspapers, magazines, and popular books is having serious social and political expressions today: “Is there, or is there not, a threshold below which exposure to a carcinogen will not induce cancer?” The distinction between establishing the existence of this threshold (which is a theoretical question) and its value (which is an experimental one) gets lost in the scientific arguments. Establishing the existence of this threshold has now become a philosophical question (and an emotional one). In this paper I qualitatively outline theoretical reasons why a threshold must exist, discuss experiments which measure thresholds on two chemicals, and describe and apply a statistical method for estimating the threshold value from exposure-response data.