Looking through the postdisaster policy window

Policy windows are transitory opportunities during which the likelihood of adopting new policy or legislative proposals is greater than usual. Accepted wisdom has held that natural disasters serve as focusing events that generate policy windows in their wake. This paper highlights the need for a more circumscribed understanding of when and where policy windows occur based on the experiences of three US regional planning organizations: a hand-picked commission of community leaders, a council of governments, and a special-purpose substate organization. The first operated in the San Francisco Bay Area of California following the Loma Prieta earthquake (October 1989), and the other two in South Carolina's Atlantic coastal plain after Hurricane Hugo (September 1989). The analysis concludes that natural disasters did not transform the agenda or mission of these entities. Policy windows were neither automatic outcomes of focusing events nor did they ensure the adoption of pertinent policy within the organizations investigated. Several conditions are minimally necessary for using policy windows to bring about hazard mitigation: comprehensive institutional conceptualization of hazards management, institutional strength and flexibility, and well-placed, effective policy entrepreneurs.     

Identifying robust response options to manage environmental change using an Ecosystem Approach: A stress-testing case study for the UK XXX

A diverse range of response options was evaluated in terms of their utility for sustaining ecosystem services in the UK. Robustness of response options was investigated by applying a ‘stress-testing’ method which evaluated expected performance against combined scenarios of socioeconomic and climate change. Based upon stakeholder feedback, a reference scenario representing current trends in climate and socioeconomic drivers (‘business-as-usual’) was used as a dynamic baseline against which to compare results of other scenarios. The robustness of response options was evaluated by their utility in different environmental and social contexts as represented by the scenarios, and linked to their adaptability to adjust to changing conditions. Key findings demonstrate that adaptability becomes increasingly valuable as the magnitude and rate of future change diverges from current trends. Stress-testing also revealed that individual responses in isolation are unlikely to be robust meaning there are advantages from integrating cohesive combinations (bundles) of response options to maximise their individual strengths and compensate for weaknesses. This identifies a role for both top-down and bottom-up responses, including regulation, spatial targeting, incentives and partnership initiatives, and their use in combination through integrated assessment and planning consistent with the adoption of an Ecosystem Approach. Stress-testing approaches can have an important role in future-proofing policy appraisals but important knowledge gaps remain, especially for cultural and supporting ecosystem services. Finally, barriers and enablers to the implementation of more integrated long-term adaptive responses were identified drawing on the ‘4 Is’ (Institutions, Information, Incentives, Identity) conceptual framework. This highlighted the crucial but usually understated role of identity in promoting ownership and uptake of responses.     

Sustainability through system transformation: lessons from Finnish efforts

This special issue of the Journal of Cleaner Production addresses system transformation by examining progress, stumbling blocks and opportunities for sustainable consumption and production in a specific country, Finland, set within a global context. The articles present and analyse top-down policy efforts, bottom-up efforts by municipalities, activities by companies and actions by consumers. They provide material for discussions on the shift from sustainability planning to enhancing system transformation, on the implications of globalisation for system boundaries, on the transformation of complex systems, on learning processes and on methods of assessing transitions. Without providing a singular solution, the articles show that issues of sustainability should be explored in different ways within different contexts, and experimented with. There is a continuous need for transformations and reflexive learning, since conditions are likely to become very different, not least due to climate change. The notion of change and transformation will be high on the agenda of the Rio+20 conference, as will similar efforts to promote large-scale transformations of consumption and production.     

What is the potential and demonstrated role of non-life insurers in fulfilling climate commitments? A case study of Nordic insurers

Collective actions of stakeholders are required for fulfilling the climate commitments of the Kyoto protocol. The insurance sector's global influence and societal impact is fairly well documented. The sector influences societies based on its interaction with stakeholders, on its products, business and political stance. As such, it is a critical actor in facilitating key climate change actions of mitigation and adaptation, and has already been recognized as a leading sector in terms of climate adaptation. The aim of this paper is to explore the role of non-life insurers in fulfilling the climate commitments of the Kyoto Protocol. This paper is based on a case study on Nordic non-life insurance companies. The study documents that Nordic insurers are responding to climate-related threats and opportunities in a strategic manner by reducing their own impacts, through their core activities, and by influencing others to act. Although Nordic insurers do not classify their actions into mitigation and adaptation, but classify them according to their core activities, they demonstrate through actions their role as potential allies for nations in fulfilling the Kyoto protocol climate commitments. The study also reveals that the commercial reality of the industry is not the same as the expected contribution to climate commitments, for instance as specified in international conventions and treaties and in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and industry reports.     

基于政策规律的战略环境影响评价

对政策失误环境危害行为的原因和特点，对政策战略评价产生背景，功能进行深刻透彻分析，根据政策与环境相互作用关系，将政策分为以直接作用于环境的政策，以间接作用于环境为主的政策和直接作用及间接作用兼具并重的政策，对每类政策战略环境影响评价原理和方法予以深刻探讨。     

中国的改革开放政策与环境保护发展

从产业结构、能源结构、基本设施、西部大开发、新工业文明等5个方面分析了中国经济体制的改革和经济增长方式的转变,并从法制建设、行政管理、公众 意识、经济手段、科技进步等5个角度讨论了中国环境保护政策的演化。展望 了中国的环境保护在综合决策、控制人口、强化法制、增加投入、清洁生产等5种措施上的发展效果。     

基于全球调查数据的中国公众气候变化认知与政策研究

基于全球公众气候变化认知调查数据,分析我国公众对气候变化的了解程度、对气候变化影响的认知、担忧程度、以及个人应对气候变化的信心和意愿。结果表明:我国公众自我报告对气候变化的了解程度较高,约70%都声称不同程度地了解气候变化,但对导致气候变化的原因认知不一致;对气候变化的担忧程度较高,将气候变化看作是"非常严重"的问题或"非常担心"的占比近40%;应对气候变化的信心还需提高,但80%左右都声称愿意为气候变化支付更高成本。     

Heavy duty vehicles: Impact on the environment and the path to green operation

The increase in the number of heavy duty vehicles (HDV) is inherently accompanied by increase in congestion, pollutant emissions and energy use as well as infrastructure overuse, all of which have broad societal implications. In addition to affecting the environment, contributing markedly to global warming, significant implications for the health of many residents living along traffic corridors as well as increases in the cost of infrastructure maintenance are logical consequences. In this interdisciplinary work a holistic approach is presented for the assessment of the combined effects of HDV employing pollutant emissions, noise and dynamic load of vehicles as criteria. Results show that vehicles that are environmentally friendly due to their pollutant emissions are not necessarily environmentally friendly when their noise emissions are considered. Each relevant parameter has to be assessed individually. Using a proposed model, the parameters are combined to obtain a holistic impression of the vehicles’ total environmental footprint. This information can be used by policy makers to introduce a bonus/malus system that would encourage vehicles with a total low environmental footprint using the “polluter/user pays” principle.     

经济发展与环境保护双赢政策初探——从临沂治污事件谈起

新环保法实施以来,环境治理工作取得成效显著。但在一些地区具体环保工作的开展中也出现了一些争议。作为争议焦点事件的临沂治霾工作,引发了地方经济发展与环境保护工作二者关系问题的讨论。实现经济发展与环境保护双赢政策,需要建立环保长效机制,完善法律体系,优化管理机制。更好发挥以环境财税体制和排污权交易为代表的经济杠杆作用,实现污染末端治理与源头治理及产业结构优化调整并举,推进环境微观管理与宏观决策的协调统一,同时做好严格执法与完善立法的最优响应工作。     

The poverty of forestry policy: double standards on an uneven playing field

Can policies designed to maximize exploitation by elites benefit the people who live in forests? Forestry policy throughout the developing world originates from European “scientific” forestry traditions exported during the colonial period. These policies were implemented by foreign and local elite whose interest was to maximize and extract profit. In spite of reforms since the end of the colonial period, policies on the environment usually remain biased against rural communities. Even when more recent policies are fair, the rural poor face severe biases in implementation. In addition, they must compete on an uneven playing field of ethnic and other social inequities and economic hurdles. This article examines how forestry policy and implementation maintain double standards on this uneven playing field in a manner that permanently excludes the rural poor from the natural wealth around them—producing poverty in the process. Change that would support poverty alleviation for forest-based communities requires a radical rethinking of forest policy so as to counterbalance widespread regressive policies and structural asymmetries.