巨灾债券与政府灾害救助

发生概率小而损失巨大的巨灾无疑对国民经济有着重要的影响。我国幅员辽阔，尽管每年灾害的性质和发生地点不同，但是损失总量和政府救灾的支付总量却是一个稳定的大数，然而依然不能满足救灾与恢复生产的需要。借鉴经济发达国家保险业的巨灾债券，首次提出在政府救灾中引入市场机制——发行政府巨灾债券。这对于投资者是收益高的风险投资，对于政府可以减轻公共财政负担，而对于受灾地区则可以获得更多的资金支援，加快恢复生产，保证经济增长的稳定性。     

Sustainability,education and local government: insights from the Australian state of Victoria

Local government (LG) is increasingly playing a role in tackling environmental issues and promoting sustainability. An important element of this LG focus is sustainability education and engagement, yet only few details on the nature of these activities are evident. Similarly there is little understanding of the professional competencies required by LG staff to deliver the relevant sustainability education and engagement activities. A web-based survey of LG sustainability officers in the State of Victoria (Australia) provides insight into the focus of these officers’ work and the competencies they rely on. The findings seek to guide the training and employment of LG sustainability staff and the effective delivery of sustainability education and engagement activities. Broadly, the sustainability officers surveyed are closely involved with activities within their LG organisation, but are engaging less so with specific education institutions, organisational sectors and the community in general. In keeping with this, the major sustainability education and engagement focuses are collaboration with peers and stakeholders, rather than community-wide initiatives. For undertaking sustainability education and engagement activities, systems-thinking, anticipatory competence and normative competence were highlighted as important; however, strategic competence and interpersonal competence were considered most important.     

农村环境治理中地方政府的职能研究

本文通过对地方政府在农村环境治理中的职能定位,以及地方政府在农村环境治理中职能失效的原因分析,依据农村环境保护的相关立法和实践,重新梳理和配置地方政府的农村环境管理职能,从而探索农村环境治理的真正出路。     

中国土地利用规划的指标分配逻辑：兼论对国土空间规划的启示

用地指标是我国空间规划实施和国土空间管制的关键政策工具。研究收集省级土地利用总体规划（2006—2020年）新增建设用地指标数据,利用多层线性模型,分析了用地指标分配的偏好及其影响因素,并探讨了省级和市级因素对指标分配的交互作用机制。结果表明： （1）用地指标分配策略具有明显的地区差异性,绝对量呈现东高西低的格局,而相对量呈现西部和东南高、中部和东北低的空间特征;（2）用地指标分配模式主要受经济发展需求驱动,缺乏对水土等资源环境限制性因素的考虑;（3）快速发展期的省倾向于集中分配策略,发展水平较高的省则更为均衡。因此,需坚守资源环境底线,配合有效的经济激励政策,实施差别化的用地指标管理策略。     

我国水务企业核心竞争力的探讨

我国的水务市场正处于快速发展阶段,本土水务企业的发展面临着巨大的竞争压力。本文通过对企业核心竞争力理论的梳理,结合我国特殊国情和发达国家水务企业的发展经验,对我国水务企业核心竞争力的构成进行了探讨,并指出在现阶段,水务企业的运营与服务能力、各类资源的整合能力、技术创新能力以及政策与市场的应变能力是决定水务企业竞争优势的主要构成要素。     

省级政府应急管理网站功能建设分析

网站是目前政府开展应急管理工作最具时效性和覆盖面最广的平台,各地纷纷在政府网站上设置应急管理专栏或开设专门的政府应急管理网站,逐渐把政府网站发展成为进行应急管理工作,提供应急服务的常态工具.构建了应急管理栏目(网站)评价指标体系,从10个方面对全国32个省市区的应急管理栏目(网站)进行综合比较,在此基础上分析省级政府应急管理网站功能建设现状、已取得的成效和建设中存在的主要问题,借鉴国内外应急管理网站的建设经验提出相应的改进建议.     

Australian local government action on climate change adaptation: some critical reflections to assist decision-making

The primary objective of this paper is to discuss the limitations of risk management as a strategy for Australian local government climate change adaptation and explore the advantages of complementary approaches, including a social-ecological resilience framework, adaptive and transition management, and vulnerability assessment. Some federal and local government initiatives addressing the limitations of risk-based approaches are introduced. We argue that conventional risk-based approaches to adaptation, largely focused on hazard identification and quantitative modelling, will be inadequate on their own for dealing with the challenges of climate change. We suggest that responses to climate change adaptation should move beyond conventional risk-based strategies to more realistically account for complex and dynamically evolving social-ecological systems.     

Emissions trading,equity, and sustainability: the case for allocating entitlements to “individuals-in-community”

Given the likelihood that a post-Kyoto climate change agreement will include provisions for trading greenhouse gas (GHG) emission rights (carbon credits), it is timely and important to look more closely into the merits (or otherwise) of emissions trading systems (ETS), in particular with regard to the issue of the allocation and distribution of entitlements. Thus far, ETSs and other tradable permit systems have allocated entitlements to those historically responsible for emissions or the exploitation of resources (the “grandfathering” principle). There are, however, strong reasons for challenging this practice, and for advocating the allocation of entitlements to all people, in line with the per capita distribution principle. This article argues that GHG emission rights, if they are to be granted, should be distributed on a globally determined equal per capita basis, but collectively managed by community bodies (Community Carbon Trusts) on an “individuals-in-community” basis, instead of being granted or sold by governments to (big) emitters. The approach advocated here is not only ethically more justified, but also strengthens the capacity of communities to deal with climate change and to advance sustainability. It offers an example of how a significant environmental challenge can be met in a more positive way than by the prevailing approaches based on narrow, mainly economic, considerations.     

Integrating climate change adaptation into Dutch local policies and the role of contextual factors

Moving towards a more sustainable adaptation process requires closer integration of policies related to the environment. An important actor in this is the local government. This paper examines to what extend adaptation is currently being integrated into Dutch local policies, and what the role is of a municipality's size, risk and experience in the encountered manifestations of adaptation. First, it was determined that adaptations taking place only anticipate currently perceivable weather extremes – mostly increasing precipitation. Second, it was determined that the realisation of further adaptations is hindered by a strongly sectoral divided reality. Adaptation is now heavily dominated by the water department, while spatial planning and the environment are only limitedly involved. Finally, it was observed that the contextual factor size proved to most important for horizontal policy integration, whereas the contextual factor extreme-weather experience was the most definite for the realisation of adaptations. We conclude that a more sustainable adaptation should first tackle the sectoral divides which requires administrative efforts, for example, professional training. These would preferably be initiated from a vertical direction.     

Deforestation in the drylands of Africa: Quantitative modelling approach

This paper has developed a two-sector model of forestry that gives some insights into the interactions of poverty, land tenure insecurity, economic growth, trade and deforestation in the context of the drylands of Africa. Externally, the model results show that the world demand for non-timber forestry products can lead to a win-win situation whereby both trade and environmental sustainability can be promoted. Monopolistic measures to control the supply of these products, for short-term price gains, are harmful economically and environmentally. By contrast, productivity-raising measures have a favourable impact on both the economy and the environment. Internally, the model results show that the growth of the rest of the economy has driven the economic growth of the forestry sector, but at the same time, its environmental degradation. Poverty and land tenure insecurity also contribute to this degradation. Fortunately, policies promoting basic needs satisfaction and property rights security are shown to be effective in mitigating environmental degradation in the forestry sector. The paper results contribute towards a more sustainable exploitation of forestry.Readers should send their comments on this paper to: BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue.