Energy and environment in the European Union: An indicator-based analysis

The European Environment Agency (EEA) is the European Union body dedicated to providing sound, independent information on the environment. It is a major information source for those involved in developing, adopting, implementing and evaluating environmental policy in Europe, and also for the general public. In line with its mandate, the EEA has developed — focused around a set of policy relevant questions — a set of indicators to assess progress in Europe in integrating environmental considerations into the energy sector. Each question is answered through one or more indicators describing the development of the sector in Europe, implications for the environment and links to policy actions. The indicators cover not only the current situation, but also trends and prospects and, most importantly, point to the conditions for change that are needed for progress towards a more sustainable energy policy that benefits the environment. The results of the most recent assessment are presented in this article and show that in many areas of environmental integration there have been some successes, but overall progress to date has been insufficient. Substantial additional action will therefore be required in the future if the European Union is going to move towards a more environmentally sustainable energy system.     

EU sustainable development indicators: An overview

The European Union's commitment to sustainable development at the 1992 Earth Summit resulted in an EU‐wide sustainable development strategy, adopted in Gothenburg in 2001. This article presents an overview of the set of sustainable development indicators (SDIs) recently adopted by the European Commission to monitor, assess and revise the strategy. It provides a critical assessment of the current status of the indicator set, and reviews the main policy trends in the areas of the strategy through a brief analysis of headline indicators, placing energy and climate change issues in a broader perspective. Finally, the article compares the energy SDIs to the recent inter‐agency energy indicators for sustainable development (EISD), underlining their similarities as well as their different priorities and objectives. The article concludes that further research is needed to improve the SDI set and further explore the linkages between themes.     

Terrestrial Carbon Dynamics: Case Studies in the Former Soviet Union,the Conterminous United States,Mexico and Brazil

This research assessed land-use impacts on C flux at a national level in four countries: former Soviet Union, United States, Mexico and Brazil, including biotic processes in terrestrial ecosystems (closed forests, woodlands, and croplands), harvest of trees for wood and paper products, and direct C emission from fires. The terrestrial ecosystems of the four countries contain approximately 40% of the world's terrestrial biosphere C pool, with the FSU alone having 27% of the global total. Average phytomass C densities decreased from south to north while average soil C densities in all three vegetation types generally increased from south to north. The C flux from land cover conversion was divided into a biotic component and a land-use component. We estimate that the total net biotic flux (Tg/yr) was positive (= uptake) in the FSU (631) and the U.S. (332), but negative in Mexico (−37) and Brazil (−16). In contrast, total flux from land use was negative (= emissions) in all four countries (TgC/yr): FSU −343; U.S. −243; Mexico −35; and Brazil −235. The total net effect of the biotic and land-use factors was a C sink in the FSU and the U.S. and a C source in both Brazil and Mexico. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Culture and the environment in the Soviet Union

The Soviet Union is one of the most physically and culturally diverse nations on earth. Its natural environment embraces a rich variety of resources and ecosystems, many of which, such as Lake Baikal, are of world significance. Culturally, it is comprised of over a hundred ethnic groups, belonging to eight major language groups and six major religions. However, two cultures are dominant: the Slavic group (which takes in 75% of the USSR population and 80% of its land area) and the Turkic-Islamic peoples who account for the large majority of the remainder. Owing to the highly centralized nature of the country's political-administrative system, however, the effect of culture or ethnic traditions in the resolution of national environmental issues is quite small. Major decisions regarding either specific conservation issues or basic environmental policies are made at the centralized level by ministerial, planning, and Communist Party officials, and are based on pragmatically refined ideological considerations, rather than on regional cultural attitudes. This pragmatic refining of ideological considerations will involve the weighing of specific economic and environmental imperatives, and deciding on appropriate trade-offs. To find cultural expression in environmental management, one would need to look closely at local projects and approaches in the various ethnic regions, particularly the non-Slavic ones.     

Voluntary instruments for ambitious objectives? The experience of the EU Covenant of Mayors

ABSTRACT

Over the last decade, innovative governance architectures have been progressively promoted across European Union (EU) environmental and climate policies with the purpose of improving the effectiveness of intervention through better cross-sectoral policy integration and increased involvement of sub-state and non-governmental actors in the policy process. By combining the theoretical insights of polycentric governance and the concept of usage, the case of the Covenant of Mayors (CoM) is analysed to uncover the extent to which this voluntary programme has empowered local authorities within the EU strategy for sustainable energy by encouraging coordination and learning. This illustrates how a range of policy variables determined the dynamics of the programme’s implementation in Italy and the United Kingdom.     

铅冶炼污染防治最佳可行技术筛选研究

分析了国外铅冶炼污染防治的相关政策、欧盟铅冶炼污染防治的最佳可行技术和我国铅冶炼技术现状,并应用层次分析-模糊综合评判法对铅冶炼污染防治技术进行筛选,利用层次分析法确定各评价指标的权重,利用模糊综合评判法进行铅冶炼污染防治技术的评价,通过评价提出铅冶炼污染防治的最佳可行技术工艺组合。     

欧盟可交易白色证书机制的发展及启示

在全球能源危机及气候变暖的背景下,近几年,可交易白色证书机制在欧盟发展迅速。可交易白色证书机制可以分为两部分:节能义务和白色证书交易体系,是指设定节能目标分配给责任主体,并通过市场交易,促进节能工作的有效开展。文章主要介绍可交易白色证书机制的基本原理、组成结构、运行机制和基本规则等,在比较分析意大利、英国、法国等欧盟国家的实践经验基础上,提出可供中国借鉴学习的经验。     

欧盟循环经济发展经验及对我国固体废物管理的启示

在全球循环经济发展的背景下,欧盟全面推进循环经济转型,我国也在循环经济实践中取得一定成果。最新修订的《固体废物污染环境防治法》明确提出推行绿色发展方式,促进清洁生产和循环经济发展。我国正在开展的"无废城市"建设试点工作聚焦于推动实现固体废物可持续管理,助力城市经济社会高质量发展。本文聚焦欧盟始于2015年的循环经济1.0时代到2020年开启的循环经济2.0时代,深入分析其相继出台的重要政策措施以及所取得的成效,总结分析欧盟循环经济发展的经验,尤其是深入分析总结其中针对固体废物管理的相关举措和成效,以期为我国提升固体废物管理水平、推进"无废城市"建设提供可借鉴的经验。     

The Regional Advisory Councils: What is Their Potential to Incorporate Stakeholder Knowledge into Fisheries Governance?

The protection of the Baltic Sea ecosystem is exacerbated by the social, environmental and economic complexities of governing European fisheries. Increased stakeholder participation and knowledge integration are suggested to improve the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), suffering from legitimacy, credibility and compliance problems. As a result, the CFP was revised in 2002 to involve fisheries representatives, NGOs and other stakeholders through so called Regional Advisory Councils (RACs) in the policy process. We address the RAC’s task to incorporate stakeholder knowledge into the EU’s fisheries governance system in empirical and theoretical perspectives. Drawing on a four-stage governance concept we subsequently suggest that a basic problem is a mismatch between participation purpose (knowledge inclusion) and the governance stage at which RACs are formally positioned (evaluation of management proposals). We conclude that, if the aim is to broaden the knowledge base of fisheries management, stakeholders need to be included earlier in the governance process.     

日本公司应对欧盟指令的措施概述

通过介绍日本东芝、松下、索尼公司为应对欧盟WEEE指令和ROHS指令所采取的措施,总结了对我国企业具有借鉴作用的经验及方法。