The power of environmental norms: marine plastic pollution and the politics of microbeads

Emerging environmental norms gain strength and diffuse more quickly when scientific evidence of harm is consolidating, when activism is intensifying, and when political and corporate resistance is relatively weak. The anti-microbead norm – that plastic microbeads should be removed from personal care products – has been gaining global influence since 2012; witness the upsurge in anti-microbead activism, public concern, voluntary corporate phasedowns and governmental bans. By 2018, the world was on track to eliminate microbeads from ‘rinse-off’ products within a decade, reducing microplastics flowing into oceans by 1–2%. This confirms the power of environmental norms, but how and why this phaseout is occurring – unequally across jurisdictions, with firms creating loopholes, missing deadlines and limiting the scope of reforms – also reveals innate weaknesses of bottom-up, ad hoc norm diffusion as a way of improving marine governance. These weaknesses are heightened when economic stakes are high, solutions are complex and costly, authority is fragmented across jurisdictions and corporate resistance is strong.     

城市天然气加气站噪声影响分析及噪声控制技术简

城市天然气加气站位于城市道路和居民区周边。由于加气站地理位置特殊,声源复杂,与周边道路对环境的影响叠加,还要考虑通风散热等问题,噪声治理难度大。目前,国内关于城市天然气加气站的噪声控制研究的报道较少。本研究以合肥市长江西路天然气加气站为例,根据城市天然气加气站加气工艺噪声源及邻近交通噪声对周围环境进行叠加影响预测,根据预测结果和通风散热等工艺要求设计冷却塔安装进风、出风消声器和隔声罩,压缩机安装局部通风隔声罩及压缩机房东墙内安装隔声墙及通风隔声窗等措施。经检验,研究结果好于《工业企业厂界噪声排放标准（GB12348-2008）》中的2类标准的夜间50 dB（A）的标准。该研究设计技术工艺、参数先进合理,费用低且实际简单,为国内天然气加气站噪声预测及治理提供较好的示范作用。     

农地整理项目治理绩效及影响因素研究——以浙江省48个国投项目为例

从农村土地整理的内涵及现实情境出发构建投入产出绩效评价指标体系,运用DEA方法对浙江省已竣工验收的48个国家投资土地整理项目效率水平进行测度,借此深入分析农村土地整理项目的治理绩效以及影响因素,旨在为改善我国农村土地整理项目治理绩效研究提供新的理论与方法。研究结果显示:(1)浙江省48个国家投资项目的综合效率均值为0.851、技术效率均值为0.903、规模效率均值为0.936,说明项目总体治理绩效较好,但项目之间的差异比较明显;(2)超效率分析发现,杭州北部、宁波南部和温州东南部等自然和社会条件较好地区的项目绩效水平较高,衢州西部和奉化西南等丘陵地区绩效水平较低;(3)影响因素分析发现,生态防护林种植数量、灌溉渠系长度、土地平整土方量、田间道路长度等工程投入过量,作物总产值增加量、单位面积涉及人口数、植被覆盖率等产出不足是导致绩效不高的主要原因;(4)DEA分析法是一种有效的治理绩效分析法,有助于从技术改进和规模调整角度来理解农村土地整理项目治理绩效内涵。根据结论,提出应该从生产技术上增强项目投入产出的转化能力,以改善绩效水平。     

政府环境规制下的企业治理动机与公众参与外部性研究

本文构建了多主体参与环境治理的动态一般均衡模型,进行了政府环境规制下的企业内生治理动机研究与公众参与外部性的分析,模拟结果显示,企业内生治理动机、社会福利等不同目标下对应的最优环境税率存在明显差异。随着政府环境税率的不断上升,企业环境技术研发投入会先上升后下降,当环境研发投入水平达到最大时,政府所征收的环境税完全激发了企业的内生治理动机。在环境税率提高的初期,研发引致的环境技术进步使得企业的全要素生产率得以提高,经济产出不断增加,社会福利水平得到增进。当环境税率上升到一定数值之后,环境税带来的资源配置扭曲效应高于环境负外部性的改善效应,对于经济而言,环境税成为扭曲性税收,并会降低社会福利水平。因此,应在保证经济增长和社会福利增进的同时有效激励企业内在治理动机,将环境税率设定在适当水平。本文还模拟了政府与公众参与的组合对于社会福利的影响情况,与仅考虑政府环境规制政策的情形相对比,政府征收环境税和社会组织参与的共同作用可以使得社会福利提高,充分表明了公众参与环境治理存在着正外部性。环境社会组织在一定程度上可以降低政府信息不对称等因素,改善环境治理状况。环境组织的参与还能够使得环境税所带来的环境治理改善和生产效率提高的双重红利逐渐释放。因此,在发挥政府规制与市场调节功能的同时,充分发挥环境社会组织和公众在环境治理中的作用,是改善环境质量、提高公众福利的重要方式。     

区域大气污染协同减排补偿机制研究

在环境规制逐步从污染排放控制向环境质量管理转型的背景下,现行的单一行政区属地治理和管理模式对区域性流动性的大气污染已力不从心,导致减排目标与环境质量改善不对应,因此,跨行政区域的合作治理亟需管理手段和机制的创新。本文基于大气环境质量目标视角,构建了区域上层管理部门(如国家或区域)和下层所辖各区的双层博弈模型,明确了大气污染减排成本与减排量的函数关系,利用定量分析方法模拟计算出区域减排总成本最小化状况下的污染协同减排补偿标准及各辖区所承担的污染物减排量,提出对实际减排量低于(超过)责任减排量的辖区给予补偿费的征收(奖励)的管理机制,通过市场调节手段实现区域内大气污染协同减排的目的。在此基础上,以我国大气污染重点防控区(长株潭城市群)为例,采用2004—2015年的统计面版数据,对区域内所辖各区二氧化硫减排量和协同减排补偿标准进行了定量测算。计算结果表明:为达到国家设定的2030年环境空气质量总体目标,长株潭区域二氧化硫协同减排的补偿费标准为1 506元/t,以该补偿标准作为区域层面二氧化硫协同减排调控手段,可在区域污染治理总成本最小化的同时,实现域内各辖区自身利益的最大化。文章最后就区域污染协同减排补偿机制提出了实施思路及保障措施。基于此研究,区域环境管理部门应设立专项的协同减排基金,专门用于区域大气质量的改善和提高:一方面用于激励大气污染实际减排量超出本行政区域责任减排量的辖区,目的是为区域空气质量比预期目标更高、对居民健康产生的正向外部性买单;另一方面用于对历史包袱重、减排压力大、治理能力弱的辖区给予一定的政策倾斜或扶持;同时,区域环境管理部门还应从组织机构、交易平台、法律法规等方面提供保障措施,确保协同减排补偿机制的顺利实施。     

The gap report of global climate change mitigation,finance, and governance after the United States declared its withdrawal from the Paris Agreement

On 1 June 2017, the US President Donald Trump officially announced the withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, thus the study on the reasons of withdrawal, the potential impacts, and coping strategies has become a focus among policy circles and of the international community. Based on the self-developed US Policy Assessment Model, this paper systematically evaluates the three potential “major deficits” in terms of mitigation, climate finance, and global climate governance, as a result of the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and puts forward policy suggestions for coping with such transformations accordingly. The study shows that the United States ’withdrawal from the Paris Agreement will affect the existence and implementation of successive climate policies and result in an additional 8.8–13.4% increase in the global emissions reduction deficit. The United States’ withdrawal will also deteriorate the existing climate finance mechanism. The Green Climate Fund (GCF)’s funding gap will increase by US$2 billion, while the gap of long-term climate finance will increase by about US$5 billion a year. Either the China–EU or the “BASIC plus” mechanism could fill the governance deficit caused by the United States and the lack of political momentum may continue for a while in the future.     

垃圾焚烧厂的环境影响评价

垃圾焚烧厂是一类对环境有重大影响的建设项目 ,因此在建设焚烧厂之前 ,必须进行环境影响评价。文章在借鉴国外相关资料的基础上 ,结合国内的实际情况 ,探讨了垃圾焚烧厂环境影响评价的主要步骤和主要内容     

The political economy of complex emergency and recovery in northern Ethiopia

During the 1980s Ethiopia experienced the effects of conflict, drought and famine on a scale far greater than many CPEs elsewhere. In May 1991, after the decisive defeat of the military dictatorship of Mengistu Haile Mariam by the Ethiopian Peoples' Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) and after decades of civil war, drought and famine, Ethiopia faced the prospects of peace and of much needed development. This paper explores both Ethiopia's experience of conflict and humanitarian intervention in areas of Tigray held by the Tigray Peoples' Liberation Front (TPLF) during the 1980s, and its experience of post-conflict rehabilitation and reconstruction in the 1990s. It first deals with the roots of the conflicts within Ethiopia: political marginalisation, heavy state intervention and highly extractive relations between state and peasants, inappropriate and failed development policies, ethnic identity and the politicisation of ethnicity. The Mengistu regime's counter-insurgency measures are then contrasted with the policies and programmes of the TPLF, Ethiopia's most effective opposition movement and the leading element in the EPRDF, and its achievements in mobilising popular support: its establishment of democratically elected structures of local governance and its famine relief distribution programme.     

南水北调中线工程渡槽的综合防洪风险分析

远距离输水工程沿途往往要跨越众多河系,交叉建筑物极易受到洪水的冲击,这就需要对其防洪风险给出定量的评估。以可靠度理论为基础,根据渠道所穿越的各条河流的水文、气象、地质、工程结构的随机特征给出了引水工程交叉建筑物的综合防洪风险计算方法;并以南水北调中线工程河北省段3座渡槽为例对该方法进行了验证。结果表明:南水北调中线工程河北省段渡槽的综合防洪风险小于万分之一。