Synergisms between climate change mitigation and adaptation: an insurance perspective

As the world’s largest industry, the insurance sector is both an aggregator of the impacts of climate change and a market actor able to play a material role in decreasing the vulnerability of human and natural systems. This article reviews the implications of climate change for insurers and provides specific examples of insurance-relevant synergisms between adaptation and mitigation in the buildings and energy sectors, agriculture, forestry, and land use. Although insurance is far from a “silver bullet” in addressing climate change, it offers significant capacity and ability to understand, manage, and spread risks associated with weather-related events, more so today in industrialized countries but increasingly so in developing countries and economies in transition. Certain measures that integrate climate change mitigation and adaptation also bolster insurers’ solvency and profitability, thereby increasing their appeal. Promising strategies involve innovative products and systems for delivering insurance and the use of new technologies and practices that both reduce vulnerability to disaster-related losses and support sustainable development. However, climate change promises to erode the insurability of many risks, and insurance responses can be more reactive than proactive, resulting in compromised insurance affordability and/or availability. Public–private partnerships involving insurers and entities such as the international relief community offer considerable potential, but have not been adequately explored.

Economic-balance hybrid LCA extended with uncertainty analysis: case study of a laptop computer

The emergence of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) on the global stage as a design and policy tool increases the importance of assessing and managing uncertainty. This article develops and implements uncertainty methods for hybrid LCA. Hybrid LCA combines a bottom-up construction of the supply-chain based on facility-level data on material/energy use with a top-down economic input-output (EIO) model to account for processes for which direct data were unavailable. For the bottom-up part of the LCA, we account for variability in process and usage pattern data by developing parameter ranges. For the EIO side we develop a method to assess price uncertainty. These methods are explored through a case study examining energy use and carbon dioxide emissions of manufacturing and use of a laptop computer, a 2001 Dell Inspiron 2500. Results show that manufacturing the computer requires 3010-4340 MJ of primary energy, 52-67% less than the energy to make a desktop computer, and emits 227-270 kg CO₂. The manufacturing phase represents 62-70% of total primary energy of manufacturing and operation. This indicates, as for desktop computers, that mitigating manufacturing energy use, for example through extending lifespan, can be an important strategy to manage the life cycle energy of laptop computers. Results also indicate that truncation error from excluded processes in the bottom-up process model is significant, perhaps particularly so due to complex supply chains of information technology products.     

How environmental management driving forces affect environmental and economic performance of SMEs: a study in the Northern China district

Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) form the core of societal and economic development. However, most people query on the implementation and performance of environmental management. In this paper, the manufacturing SMEs in Northern China with different pollution levels are studied to explore the main forces (e.g., government, society, market, and enterprise itself) driving SMEs for promoting environmental management. It focuses on the correlation between environmental management and economic performance for SMEs at different pollution levels. The results show that SMEs of different pollution levels have significant differences in the relationship of driving forces and performance. First, for SMEs with high-pollution levels, social and market driving forces and government incentives are revealed having a significant effect on their environmental performance. Driving forces from within the enterprise itself and the market provide a positive effect on the economic performance, while social forces have a negative effect. Second, for SMEs with light pollution, social and market driving forces, and government assistance play a supporting role on corporate environmental performance improvement. It is also found that the driving force of the enterprise itself does not have a significant effect on the environmental performance for SMEs with different pollution levels. In addition, the environmental performance and economic performance for SMEs with high or light-pollution levels are positively correlated. Further, it shows that the environmental performance is moderately correlated with financial indices, but not significantly with the non-financial indices.     

探索齐齐哈尔发展循环经济促进经济转型的思路

为改变传统的粗放型的生产方式,保护生态环境,现就齐齐哈尔发展循环经济促进经济转型的思路进行探索.     

西北地区环境库兹涅茨曲线实证研究

以环境库兹涅茨曲线(EKC)理论为基础,通过选取1995～2009年间我国西北5省的环境质量与经济数据,构建人均GDP污染排放量模型,对西北5省经济增长与环境污染之间的协调发展问题进行研究。结果表明:西北5省的环境曲线不符合EKC特征。其中,工业废水排放曲线为"U"型与倒"U"型的叠加,工业废气排放曲线单调递增,工业固废产生量曲线为倒"U"型曲线的上升阶段。环境质量并非随着收入水平的提高而自动改善。     

碳排放与能源消费和经济增长的灰色关联分析

中国碳排放问题成为世界关注的焦点问题。研究碳排放与经济增长、能源消费关系有助于实现2020年碳减排目标。选取2001～2009年碳排放与能源消费、经济增长数据,运用灰色关联分析模型,分别计算碳排放与能源消费、经济增长的灰色关联度。研究结果表明,无论是从折线的相似程度还是相对于始点变化速率的接近程度来看,碳排放曲线与能源消费曲线、经济增长曲线十分相似,说明碳排放与能源消费、经济增长之间存在紧密联系。     

长江经济带工业废气污染治理效率的时空演变及其影响因素研究

本文选取1998—2015年30个省份数据,采用超效率SBM模型测算全国、长江经济带工业废气污染治理效率;采用门槛效应模型研判长江经济带工业废气污染治理效率的影响因素.研究发现:1998—2015年长江经济带工业废气污染治理效率大于全国工业废气污染治理效率;长江经济带工业废气污染治理效率与全国工业废气污染治理效率的演变轨迹相似;长江经济带工业废气污染治理效率空间格局从"两极分化型"向"过渡型"演变;长江经济带沿线11省份工业废气污染治理效率与重工业占比呈负相关;当人均GDP较小时,长江经济带工业废气污染治理效率与工业化率、地方法规颁布件数、环境污染与破坏总次数呈负相关,与群众因污染来信数呈正相关;当人均GDP跨过门槛阈值拐点后,相关关系反之.为进一步推动长江经济带高质量发展,应加强中央与地方政府合作共促工业污染防控治理,推动重化工业绿色发展,加强媒体对废气污染的长期有效监督,推动建立科学有效的"三方共治"体系.     

投入产出分析在可持续发展计划中的应用

如何在国民经济发展计划中体现资源环境因素的影响?如何用现实可行的方法制定出符合可持续发展要求的国民经济发展计划?是目前环境经济领域急待解决的问题。本文从物质平衡的角度,探讨可持续经济发展计划的研究方法。     

长江经济带湿地空间格局变化及其保护修复对策研究

基于1980年、1995年、2005年和2015年4期土地利用/覆被解译数据,以长江经济带湿地为研究对象,分析了长江经济带湿地的空间格局变化,结果表明:(1)长江经济带湿地主要分布在长江中下游;(2)1980—2015年,长江经济带湿地消失和新生并存,长江经济带的河流湿地和沼泽湿地呈减少趋势,湖泊和库塘湿地呈增加趋势,...     

秦皇岛开发区生态现状与保护措施

秦皇岛市开发区受开发活动的影响,植被面积和生物多样性减少,生态系统服务功能价值下降,水土流失增加。基于秦皇岛开发区生态保护现状,从敏感生态系统建设、城区绿化、城市综合生态功能廊道、生态补偿、水土保持等方面,加强开发区生态保护,构建和谐生态,实现人与自然的协调发展。