Evaluating Experience with Renewables Portfolio Standards in the United States

Increased use of renewable energy is one of several promising methods for reducing emissions of local, regional, and global air pollutants, including greenhouse gas emissions associated with fossil-fuel based electricity production. Among the available options for encouraging renewable electricity generation, the renewables portfolio standard (RPS) has become especially popular in recent years. The RPS is a newly established policy mechanism, however, and experience with its use has not been widely documented and evaluated. This paper describes and evaluates the design, impacts, and early experience of 13 U.S. state RPS policies. These 13 policies share a common goal of encouraging renewable energy supply, but each specific RPS is designed differently. Our evaluation shows both successes and failures with this policy mechanism; some state RPS policies are positively impacting renewable energy development, while others have been poorly designed and will do little to advance renewable energy markets.We emphasize the importance of policy design details, and specifically highlight critical design pitfalls that have been commonly experienced. Though experience with the RPS is still limited, we have now gained some knowledge of the conditions and design features necessary to make an RPS policy work. An important objective of this article is therefore to identify and describe broad policy design principles and specific best practice design elements that might be used to guide the design of future renewables portfolio standards.     

乡镇企业环境问题与可持续发展

未来跨世纪的１５年，中国乡镇企业将成为国民经济的主力军，它带来的环境污染和破坏将成为中国最为突出的问题。预测分析，今后乡镇企业环境污染趋势是由东部地区向中、西部地区转移，污染范围、速度和程度将进一步增大。针对目前乡镇企业的技术、管理和政策弊端，从可持续发展高度出发，加强政策宏观调控力度、加快技术进步进度、加大环境管理强度，促进持续、稳定、健康地发展。     

The minerals sector, sectoral analysis, and economic development

Sectoral analysis, a new branch of political science, alleges that mineral extraction creates a socio-political climate that promotes inflexible statism, which in turn leads to substandard development performance. The theory, that mineral economies underperform bureaucratically and economically, is said not only to hold in a post-dictive sense for the mature mineral economies, such as Zambia, but also in a predictive sense for the newer mineral economies, such as Ecuador. This essay reviews and assesses this hypothesis in the light of the empirical evidence comparing mineral production, state capacity, and economic performance. It finds that the sectoralist view is supportable only in selected cases, and is not a general result.     

徐州市环保产业的发展现状及对策研究

近几年来，徐州市经济发展迅速，但环保产业发展相对滞后，文章分析了徐州市环保产业的发展现状和存在的问题，提出了相应的解决措施，希望能够对徐州市环保产业的发展起到一定的促进作用。     

The market-incentive recycling system for waste packaging containers in Taiwan

This paper presents a new market-incentive (MI) system to recycle waste-packaging containers in Taiwan. Since most used packaging containers have no or insufficient market value, the government imposes a combined product charge and subsidy policy to provide enough economic incentive for recycling various kinds of packaging containers, such as iron, aluminum, paper, glass and plastic. Empirical results show that the new MI approach has stimulated and established the recycling market for waste-packaging containers. The new recycling system has provided 18,356 employment opportunities and generated NT$ 6.97 billion in real-production value and NT$ 3.18 billion in real GDP during the 1998 survey year. Cost-effectiveness analysis constitutes the theoretical foundation of the new scheme, whereas data used to compute empirical product charge are from two sources: marketing surveys of internal conventional costs of solid-waste collection, disposal and recycling in Taiwan, and benefit transfer of external environmental costs in the United States. The new recycling policy designed by the authors provides a reasonable solution for solid-waste management in a country with limited land resources such as Taiwan.     

基于决策支持系统的多目标参与评价分析--异龙湖综合治理总体规划方法研讨

“异龙湖流域环境保护与总体规划”对经过预选的拟议措施进行基于决策支持系统的多目标参与评价分析,依据多目标参与评价的综合指数进行排序,优选总体规划的实施措施清单,最后,利用决策支持系统进行最终选定措施对异龙湖水质改善效果进行分析。     

提高环境政策法律效益的探讨

首先探讨环境行为的相关性强、连带影响大、副作用多的特性 ,揭示和比较行为限制与区域限制的区别和联系 ;然后讨论环境政策易产生间接影响、极易产生经济效应和社会效应的特性和环境政策实施会造成暂时性经济损失 ,造成部分人暂时生活困难的特性。在此基础上 ,提出保护策略应从单纯“禁、堵”策略改为“禁、堵、疏、导”策略 ,强调应加强环境政策社会学分析和环境政策经济分析 ,加强环境政策评估 ,以提高环境保护效益     

日本森林管理的最新发展——以日本神奈川县林业政策过程为例

为了追求更好的森林管理效果,对相关森林政策的实施,不是仅仅停留在传统的狭义的行政管理部门上,同时还要涉及到经营者、市民以及当地居民等利益相关者,使他们都要以相互协调的方式参与到森林管理当中来.它是建立在一定的森林价值现基础上,基于科学原理并突破以往的技术层面而对森林进行的一系列更加合理的管理措施体系.本文以日本神奈川县的林业政策形成过程为例对森林治理问题进行了讨论.     

Integrating mitigation and adaptation into climate and development policy: three research questions

The potential for developing synergies between climate change mitigation and adaptation has become a recent focus of both climate research and policy. Presumably the interest in synergies springs from the appeal of creating win–win situations by implementing a single climate policy option. However, institutional complexity, insufficient opportunities and uncertainty surrounding their efficiency and effectiveness present major challenges to the widespread development of synergies. There are also increasing calls for research to define the optimal mix of mitigation and adaptation. These calls are based on the misguided assumption that there is one single optimal mix of adaptation and mitigation options for all possible scenarios of climate and socio-economic change, notwithstanding uncertainty and irrespective of the diversity of values and preferences in society. In the face of current uncertainty, research is needed to provide guidance on how to develop a socially and economically justifiable mix of mitigation, adaptation and development policy, as well as on which elements would be part of such a mix. Moreover, research is needed to establish the conditions under which the process of mainstreaming can be most effective. Rather than actually developing and implementing specific mitigation and adaptation options, the objective of climate policy should be to facilitate such development and implementation as part of sectoral policies. Finally, analysis needs to focus on the optimal use and expected effectiveness of financial instruments, taking into account the mutual effects between these instruments on the one hand, and national and international sectoral investments and official development assistance on the other.     

深刻研究环境问题生成-演变规律是科学制定环境政策前提和关键

本文研究环境问题诱导孕育机制、形成机制、动力机制、强化机制、发展机制、防护机制、扩散机制等，以揭示环境问题生命周期各个阶段的规律、特征、过程、动态；对环境问题来龙去脉、变化过程和影响因素系统而深刻研究。以环境行为为主线，综合应用环境心理学、环境社会学、环境政治、环境伦理学等有关环境人文社会科学理论，探讨环境问题诱导、形成、发生、发展、扩散、作用、衰退等各个阶段的数量动态、空间格局、演变态势等，同时也为环境人文社会科学综合集成，提供一个范式。为环境政策调控奠定微观基础，为环境政策综合调控提供微观分析技术和控制手段。