Overcoming Contradictions Between Growth and Sustainability:Institutional Innovation in the BRICS

The recent accelerated growth rates or efforts to emulate countries that have achieved a rapid pace of economic growth are widely acclaimed as means to uplift millions from poverty. In so doing, however, this rapid economic growth is most likely to coincide with unsustainable levels of consumption, place excessive pressure on life support systems and terrestrial sinks and foreshorten options for the future. Rather than pursuing the "Environmental Kuznets Curve" (EKC) hypothesis that higher income will bring with it the means to reduce the impacts of greater consumption, ecological economists assert that buying our way out of future scarcity with fast growth is indeed contradictory with sustainability. To better understand these contradictions and explore potential institutional innovations that may enable developing nations to better confront them (in effect, "tunneling under" the EKC), this article refers to recent experience in the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). Beginning with a brief comparative summary of major development and environmental indicators, pressures on resources and society in each of the BRICS are discussed, followed by identification of institutional and policy frameworks each country has evolved to confront the challenges of growth and sustainability. The article closes with general conclusions for further research and information sharing among developing nations.     

我国强制性清洁生产审核法律政策形成过程的研究与分析

在资源短缺和环境容量不足的双重约束下。清洁生产成为我国工业可持续发展的必然选择，而清洁生产制度的制定和完善一是促进我国清洁生产向纵深发展的关键。本文回顾了我国清洁生产领域相关政策法规的制定和实施情况，对存在的问题进行了总结分析。并对2005年12月13日国家环保总局出台的《重点企业清洁生产审核程序的规定》做了重点说明,提出了目前面临的主要任务。     

RESEARCH: Optimizing the Mix of Strategies for Control of Vehicular Emissions

/ A number of strategies for the control of vehicular emissions are being considered by the Philippine government to address Metropolitan Manila's air quality problem. An analytical tool is needed for optimizing criteria pollutant reductions given the budgetary constraints. The simplest approach is to take costs and pollutant removals to be linear with each strategy's scale of activity, and this is readily solved as a linear programming problem. Another approach is to use a dynamic system of weights which shift with progressive improvements in pollutant emissions. The two approaches yield somewhat different results, suggesting the sensitivity of the solution to the assumed weights. The study also illustrates the importance of a sound methodology for evaluating priorities given to different air quality goals. One such methodology may involve a polling of expert panels and the public to gain insight into the relative importance given to competing emissions reduction goals. An informal polling of resource agency staff was conducted and discussed in this paper. The authors take the position that proper planning involves tracing intermediate steps to the final outcome and not just focusing on the latter.KEY WORDS: Vehicular emissions; Urban air quality; Emissions control; Optimization; Manila; Environmental systems analysis     

Modelling individual preferences for environmental policy drivers: Empirical evidence of Italian lifestyle changes using a latent class approach

Degraded air quality severely affects the health of citizens worldwide. The design of effective policies requires exploring public preferences for environmental and air quality policy instruments. Within the EC-FP7 SEFIRA project, using a choice experiment that stresses the trade-offs between attributes, this study investigates public preferences for environmental policy drivers in Italy. The main objective is to investigate the role played by selected policy drivers in determining policy preferences, complemented by elasticity and willingness to pay estimations. Preference heterogeneity and the role of socio-economic and attitudinal variables are explored with a latent class model over 2400 respondents sampled across Italy. The results allow identifying the different role played by the policy drivers across the classes. It emerged that most of the respondents (43%) are particularly sensitive to the cost components (cost sensitive respondents). The remaining respondents instead show an important sensitivity towards personal engagement in term of changes in the mobility and eating habits (lifestyle-change sensitive respondents). However, while 29% of them perceive these habits’ changes as negatively impacting on the personal utility, the other 28% of respondents translate the potential changes in the habitual behaviour of driving and eating as environmental and health benefits. Based on the modelling results, potential policies are simulated reporting respondents’ reaction to selected scenarios. It shows the crucial role played by reduction of premature deaths due to atmospheric pollution and measure cost.     

中国城镇化态势分析和可持续城镇化政策建议

在阐述今后15年中国城镇化面临的就业和收入差距、资源和环境、区域发展、政府管治等四大挑战之后，分析了到2020年中国城镇化水平年均增长0．6、0.8、1．0和1．2个百分点的4种态势。如按1978—2002年城镇年均提供636万人就业考虑，到2020年中国城镇化水平年均增长不宜超过0．7个百分点；如果考虑到2005年上半年城镇安排595万人就业，则城镇化水平年均增长1．2个百分点也是可行的。但是，对于所有4种态势，土地短缺都是一个棘手的问题。最后就可持续城镇化提出的政策建议包括：①引导农村富余劳动力向城镇有序转移；②贯彻落实大中小城市和小城镇协调发展的方针；③高效利用和节约资源，保护生态环境；④统筹城乡规划，加强对经济区发展的引导；⑤贯彻落实工业反哺农业，城市支持农村的方针；⑥建立多元化的城镇基础设施投资体制，大力吸引民间和国际资本；⑦全面推进城镇管理体制创新，制定公众参与政策；⑧坚持按城镇化的客观规律办事，控制地方政府的城镇化热情。     

Water Resource Management in Botswana: Balancing Sustainability and Economic Development*

Botswana is a rapidly developing country in southern Africa. Over the last three decades, diamond mining and tourism have provided double-digit rates of economic growth. Yet most of Botswana’s land is in the Kalahari desert where the climate is subject to sustained periods of severe drought. In this environment, water resources are the most crucial of all environmental resources. Water use directly affects economic development because water utilization impacts all the major national economic sectors. A sustainable water use resource management plan must stretch several decades into the future to assure the availability of adequate supplies of water to future generations while not compromising the ability of the current generation to reasonable rates of economic development. Yet thinking about sustainability is present in Botswana water policy mostly only in rhetoric. A series of cultural traditions and political constraints, coupled with bureaucratic managerial weaknesses, serve to maintain a system of water allocation that is unsustainable in the long run and inefficient in the short-term. Unless sustainable water use patterns are adopted, the results for the short-term, as well as the long-term, will be devastating. Drawing on data obtained through a series of interviews with government officials, leaders of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and water resource researchers, this paper explores water policy in Botswana within the larger context of sustainable natural resource management practice and the pressures of economic development. This research was partially funded under U.S. Department of State, College and University Affiliations Grant # ASCS-1095.     

基于生态安全的快速城市化地区空间冲突测度 ——以长株潭城市群为例

空间冲突是城市化过程中各种矛盾形成与激化的直接原因,是影响区域可持续发展的关键因素,合理测度快速城市化地区的空间冲突水平,对于优化区域发展模式、 避免区域生态风险具有重要意义。在利用遥感与GIS技术分析长株潭近年来空间格局变化的基础上,量化影响区域生态安全的空间外部压力值、 生态风险暴露值、 生态风险效应值3个因子,构建基于生态安全的空间冲突测度模型,对长株潭地区的空间冲突水平进行评估。研究表明:近年来长株潭地区的空间冲突作用强度总体呈现上升趋势,1993—2008年其冲突指数均值由0.264增长到0.323,且严重失控级别空间冲突的区域面积比例增幅最大,达1.07倍;不同空间类型的空间冲突强度不同,林地、 耕地的空间冲突水平相对较低,建设用地的空间冲突水平较高;城乡过渡地带是空间格局变化最为频繁、 空间冲突最为激烈的区域,其次是城市内部,农村地区的空间冲突强度远远低于城市。     

城市轨道交通浮置式减振措施的减振降噪效果

从分析轨道交通地下隧道振动传播特征出发,说明了地下振动的传播规律,并给出了不同埋深条件下地下振动影响范围的经验公式;结合地下振动激发频率特征的分析,对减振措施的减振效果的合理评价量进行了分析,指出采用Z计权减振效果评价量将获得与实际应用效果一致的降噪效果。结合两种浮置式减振措施减振降噪效果的实测,指出浮置板道床的减振效果应采用安装减振垫浮置板道床前后桥面的Z振级差来评价,而不宜采用轨面与桥梁直接的振级落差来评价。对橡胶减振垫以及钢弹簧浮置板的实测减振降噪效果进行了介绍。     

闽三角城市群自然资本损失评估

在快速城镇化进程中,城市群发展在促进区域经济竞争与合作的同时,也在一定程度上造成人地关系矛盾的加剧,生态系统服务水平下降。为了量化城镇化对自然资本产生的变动,揭示人类资源消耗过程对区域生态系统服务的影响机制,以快速城镇化的典型区域——闽三角城市群为例,运用能值分析方法与GIS技术,分析了2000-2015年闽三角城市群可更新资源时空演变特征,城镇化进程中生态环境价值演变规律以及土地转化过程中的自然资本损失。研究结果表明：（1）闽三角城市群可更新资源在时间上呈波动减小趋势,空间上自沿海区域向内陆区域逐渐升高;（2）高环境质量等级中城镇用地面积占比呈显著增加趋势,由0增加到10.63%,人类活动导致区域生态环境价值的损失逐渐上升;（3）城镇化过程中由于城市空间扩张,使部分自然用地与农业用地转化为城镇用地,转化过程造成的自然资本损失总量为1.27×10²² seJ,货币价值超过6.30×10⁹元。研究有助于完善城镇化影响下的生态环境效应研究,为城市群或区域生态环境管理与修复提供决策参考。     

地方政府推进循环经济发展的局限性及对策研究——以山东省日照市为例

在分析日照市发展循环经济的路径、措施和难题的基础上，研究了地方政府的自利性、选择性偏差、调控手段和行政分割等方面的局限性，提出了规范中央政府和地方政府关系、构建科学的政绩考核体系、加强区域分类指导、加快立法与强化执法、制定相应的经济制度与政策等发展循环经济的建议。