我国农地规模经营适宜性评价及分类研究

农地规模经营是农业现代化发展的必经之路,是解决当前“三农”问题的重要途径之一.根据影响农地规模经营的因素建立了农地规模经营适宜性评价指标体系,运用熵值法对我国31个省级行政区的农地规模经营适宜性进行了分析,将我国各地区按照不同的农地规模经营发展条件分为五类,并以评价结果为依据确定各类别的发展条件优劣,为探索农地规模经营发展路径、制定差别化的发展政策等研究和应用提供理论参考.     

我国环保投入财税政策的现状及启示

分析了我国环保投入财税政策的现状,对比国内外相应政策,指出现阶段我国环保财政存在投入仍然不足、投资结构不合理、财税政策对促进环保投入的效果不明显等问题;总结国外经验,提出应加大财政资金投入、综合运用多种财政工具以及深化环保税收政策的改革等对策,以促进我国环保产业稳健、迅速发展。     

近岸海域环境功能区概念辨析及其存在的问题和对策

近岸海域环境功能区是进行近岸海域水环境管理的重要依据.随着经济和环境保护形势的发展,我国近岸海域环境功能区管理也应进行相应的调整.研究了近岸海域环境功能区与海洋功能区之间的差别,根据近岸海域环境功能区的定位,指出其应主要包含3个属性,即自然属性、社会属性和管理属性,因此近岸海域环境功能区划分应立足于保护当地的海洋生态系统,满足人类对近岸海域水体的使用功能,同时方便对近岸海域环境系统的管理.对近岸海域环境功能区目前存在的主要问题进行了分析,即超标严重、调整频繁、排污混合区设置不合理以及监管有待加强等.在此基础上,提出应突出近岸海域环境功能区战略定位,将近岸海域环境功能区划上升为国家标准,加强近岸海域环境功能区的生态保护功能,加快修编《近岸海域环境功能区划分技术规范》,并强化环境保护部对近岸海域环境功能区的监督管理等对策建议.      

农村人居环境综合整治技术管理政策不足及对策

通过分析我国农村人居环境综合整治的技术管理政策现状,指出现行技术管理政策的不足,包括技术政策方面存在针对性和前瞻性不足、评价政策方面缺乏严格的技术评价和审查制度以及支持政策方面存在研发支持和示范推广体系不健全等。在此基础上提出了强化技术政策的系统协调性,建立健全技术评价和审查制度,加大研发支持、健全示范推广体系及技术服务市场等对策建议。     

An overview of the environmental finance policies in China: retrofitting an integrated mechanism for environmental management

Considering the significant roles of the policies in developing environmental finance, an overview is conducted on the environmental finance policies （EFPs） in China. This paper analyzed the definition, scope, evolution and main instruments of EFPs. The implementation progress of financial activities on each instrument are investigated respectively. Then the experiences learned from and failures discovered in the development of the EFPs are discussed well recommendations for further improvement of the EFPs and their implementation are provided. Our study found that the EFPs have been established in China after a four-phase evolution since the early 1980s. The policies have played a critical role in leading to a rapid development in environmental finance by involving more financial instruments to accomplish the objective-led environmental plans. Driven by the policies, the new green credit （GC）, green security （GS）, and green insurance （GI） instruments have been phased in as supplements to the conventional command and control approaches to improve the environmental governance of financial activities and pollution sources. However, the market mechanism of financial institution is limited due to their defensive and incapable performance on implementation some of EFP instruments. To further strengthen the effectiveness of EFPs in facilitating environmental man- agement, recommendations are made mainly on the aspects including developing more specific policy guidelines, enhancing information sharing and disclosure, providing sufficient economic incentives, establishing environmental liabilities with financial activities, and involving issues related to climate change, and biodiversity and ecosystem service.     

Moving towards sustainable development: rhetoric,policy and reality of ecological agriculture in China

Past decades have witnessed the rise of sustainable agriculture movements throughout the world. In parallel with this international trend, ecological agriculture (with essential goals of food security, rural employment, poverty alleviation, natural resource management and environmental protection) has been advocated as a workable approach for the realization of sustainable agriculture in China. Two decades of ecological agricultural development have shown that it not only gained legitimacy at the senior policy level but also became a focus of scientific research in fields such as ecological economics, ecology, and agricultural and environmental sciences. However, this endeavour is hardly known in the West and little attention has been paid so far to examining the broader politico-economic and sociocultural contexts within which it has evolved. This paper attempts to provide a general review of the emerging background, development history, policy initiatives and recent tendencies of ecological agriculture. In addition, the extant problems and potential contributions of this alternative practice to China's sustainable agricultural development are discussed. The purpose of this study is to identify the gap between the policy rhetoric and practical implementation of Chinese ecological agriculture and therefore to facilitate its moving towards sustainable development.     

Flattening the carbon extraction path in unilateral cost-effective action

Internalizing the global negative externality of carbon emissions requires the flattening of the extraction path of world fossil energy resources (=world carbon emissions). We consider governments with sign-unconstrained emission taxes at their disposal and seeking to prevent world emissions from exceeding some binding aggregate emission ceiling in the medium term. Such a ceiling policy can be carried out either in full cooperation or by a sub-global climate coalition. Unilateral action has to cope with carbon leakage and high costs, which makes a strong case for choosing a policy that implements the ceiling in a cost-effective way. In a two-country, two-period general equilibrium model with a non-renewable fossil-energy resource, we characterize the unilateral cost-effective ceiling policy and compare it with its fully cooperative counterpart. We show that with full cooperation there exists a cost-effective ceiling policy in which only first-period emissions are taxed at a rate that is uniform across countries. In contrast, the cost-effective ceiling policy of a sub-global climate coalition is characterized by emission regulation in both periods. The share of the total stock of energy resources owned by the sub-global climate coalition turns out to be a decisive determinant of the sign and magnitude of unilateral cost-effective taxes.     

The private and social economics of bulk electricity storage

The ability to store excess intermittent renewable electricity is increasingly being seen as a key option for integrating large quantities of renewable capacity. However, intermittent energy sources currently account for very small amounts of total generation. Despite this fact, policymakers have begun implementing requirements that will dramatically increase the amount of bulk storage capacity. This paper examines the social benefits provided by bulk storage in the Texas electricity market, which has a large amount of renewable capacity relative to other states, but still quite limited renewable penetration. We focus on the impact of arbitraging electricity across time—a major service of bulk storage. Using current storage technologies, we demonstrate that electricity arbitrage will increase daily CO₂ emissions by an average of 0.19 tons for each MWh stored. In addition, daily SO₂ emissions will increase by an average of 1.89 pounds/MWh while NO_X emissions will fall by an average of 0.15 pounds/MWh.     

Sustainability of Nations

SUMMARY

A method is presented to interrelate the development of economy, environment and social quality in communities. Economy and environment, in initial development stages, oppose each other. Social welfare and economy generally develop simultaneously. To assess overall progress in sustainable development, an integrated and quantifiable framework is presented which defines five levels of sustainability. Increasing sustainability is characterized by growing responsibility for the impacts of man's actions in space and time. Through increased eco-efficiency and changed awareness, nations and companies arrive at a synergistic relationship between environment and economy. It is indicated that social security benefits expenditure increases by a factor 3.5 and carbon dioxide emissions per capita decreases by a factor 3 at each higher level of sustainability. Quantified differences in sustainability levels of 24 nations are shown. Priorities for improving and safeguarding sustainability are indicated.     

Disarming the population bomb

This paper argues for a renewed international focus on managed population reduction as a key enabler of sustainable development. The paper presents development data that demonstrate why population reduction should be elevated to share top priority with poverty alleviation, as the two over-arching goals of international development strategy. The critical analysis put forth in this paper argues that the current ‘unsustainable’ approach to sustainable development stems from (1) ‘empty world’ economic growth theory applied to a ‘full world’, which is (2) supported and driven by socioeconomic incentives to expand population, (3) justified through flawed interpretation of demographic transition theory, (4) bolstered by the exaggerated efficacy of environmental economic theory applied in a resource-constrained world, (5) insulated from challenge by limitations of scientific knowledge and (6) perpetuated by herd behavior. This paper concludes that failure to reduce global population will inhibit attainment of poverty alleviation and worsen environmental degradation.