Ensuring social acceptance of the energy transition. The German government’s ‘consensus management’ strategy

This study deals with the German Federal Government’s approach of ensuring public support for its ‘Energiewende’, the swift and complete transition to an energy system based on renewable sources. First, the government’s ‘consensus management’ strategy is described as consisting of four elements: the setup of stakeholder deliberation fora; the funding of organisations dedicated to the public promotion of the energy transition; public campaigns that appeal to people’s commitment and the support of research on energy technologies. The study then traces the need for a strong social mandate of the energy transition back to the scope of the regulatory challenge and the recently growing conflicts around implementation, to institutional constraints of a consensus democracy and to the narrative of ‘Energiewende’ as the ‘grand national task’.     

A responsibility–accountability framework for private sector use of a World Heritage Area

The Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is a natural asset of global significance, spanning 2600?km’s along the Australian coastline. On the southern tip of the GBR is the Gladstone region, where high levels of industrial activity have been juxtaposed with the natural wonder, and World Heritage Listed, GBR. Given these competing local priorities, this research explores local perceptions of the GBR and its management. Exploratory analysis of 38 interviews with residents and stakeholders from Gladstone revealed a potential incongruence between environmental concern and support for more stringent management of the tourism and resources sectors on the GBR. A responsibility–accountability framework (RAF) for managing the use and protection of the GBR is developed by drawing on current theoretical frameworks and the results of the interviews. Importantly the framework highlights the importance of business responsibility combined with monitoring and control mechanisms to ensure accountability and to deliver transparency, education and partnership. Future research should apply the RAF for testing and application in other marine World Heritage Area contexts.     

The evolution of regional cross-border water regimes,the case of Deltarhine

In this study, we look at the evolution of a cooperative water regime in the delta of the Rhine catchment. In a Dutch–German case study, we focus on cross-border cooperation on the local and regional scale, describing and analyzing how a remarkably resilient and robust transboundary water regime has evolved over the course of 50 years. Context-, interest- and knowledge-based explanations contribute important insights into the evolution of the Deltarhine regime, and it is shown that the legal, institutional and socio-economic context shapes and constrains regional cross-border cooperation. Surprisingly in this regard, we find that European water directives have not yet played a decisive, catalyzing role for policy harmonization across borders. Finally, we show that key individuals play a crucial role in regime formation and development. We suggest that the presence of entrepreneurs and leaders adds explanatory power to current conceptual frameworks in international river basin management, thus meriting further research.     

Exploring public perception of environmental technology over time

This paper analyses how new information shapes public perception of a controversially discussed technology over time. The test case analysed in this paper is solar radiation management (SRM), a potentially risky, environmental engineering technology, which aims to fight climate change by the injection of sulphate aerosols into the stratosphere. Using panel survey data, we show that most respondents initially show strong negative emotions towards SRM and reject the technology. However, public perception is not stable over time as emotions cool off and acceptance increases. The increase in acceptance is greater, the longer the cooling-off period between two surveys. Furthermore, we show that the cooling-off effect is more pronounced for more impulsive respondents.     

杭州市生态补偿机制的实践

建立生态补偿机制已成为社会共识,各级政府就开展生态补偿进行了多种形式的探索与实践,流域下游地区对上游地区予以适当经济补偿作为解决区域之间社会经济失衡、保护流域水资源生态安全问题的重要手段和迫切需要。本文综述了杭州市生态补偿机制,主要分析了生态补偿专项资金的实践效果及现存问题,并提出进一步完善的对策措施,旨在对中国生态补偿机制的建立和完善提供借鉴。     

我国水环境管理的现状与展望

水环境管理在国家的环境保护中具有极为重要的地位,国外在水环境管理方面有成熟的经验和新的发展趋势。通过分析国外在水环境管理方面的先进经验和发展趋势及我国水环境管理现状,提出以流域管理为中心、加强立法保证等建议。并强调,借鉴国外水环境管理的先进经验,以流域管理为基础,以水资源管理和水污染控制—体化为目标的管理模式是解决我国水环境管理存在问题的必然途径。     

基于共词分析的城市生活垃圾治理公共政策变迁量化分析

以1979—2020年我国中央政府颁发的411份城市生活垃圾治理政策文本作为研究对象,运用共词与聚类分析方法研究了我国不同时期城市生活垃圾治理公共政策焦点的演变规律。结果发现:纵观我国城市生活垃圾治理公共政策焦点的演变轨迹,在"技术路线"、"垃圾属性"、"管理手段"、"治理结构"和"保障机制"方面发生了显著的政策主题变迁,呈现出垃圾治理朝更加绿色、更加经济方向发展的趋势。未来,应从监管体系、资源评估、财政补贴、空间布局4个方面保障生活垃圾零污染、高价值资源化治理。     

战略环境影响评价的发展与应用

本文介绍了SEA的发展背景，现有项目EIA在PPPs决策层次上的缺陷和可持续发展理论如何导致SEA的发展，新发展的SEA比较传统的项目EIA所具有的优点，以及当前对SEA的认识和理解，在实践中所采用的形式，和成功的SEA必具备的特征，同时对在当前形势下SEA的实践方式进行了一定的评价，发现SEA的增值效应是SEA实施的先决条件。     

天津市工业污染治理费用函数研究

本文利用天津市工业污染治理设施运行数据,依据环境工程学原理,研究了厂级污染费用函数和边际削减费用函数。采用环境经济学软件Ｓｔａｔａ进行多元回归,得到的天津市厂级污染削减费用函数和边际削减费用函数具有很高的统计意义,可以作为环境保护投入资金铁利用与环境、经济效益的估计,并可应用于工业废水处理的技术、经济分析、工业废水排放标准的经济分析,以及工业废水区域控制规划、战略和政策的研究等领域。