National policies for biosphere greenhouse gas management: issues and opportunities

Biosphere greenhouse gas (GHG) management consists of preserving and enhancing terrestrial carbon pools and producing biomass as a fossil fuel substitute. The discussion of this topic has focused primarily on carbon-accounting and project-level issues, particularly relating to carbon sequestration as a source of emissions credits under the Kyoto Protocol. While international consensus on these matters is needed, this paper argues that an important domestic policy agenda also deserves attention. National policies for biosphere GHG management are necessary to bring about large-scale changes in land-use, forestry, and agricultural practices and can address some of the technical and policy issues that have proven to be particularly problematic from carbon-accounting and project-level perspectives. These policies should minimize land-use and resource-management conflicts, account for collateral benefits, and ensure institutional compatibility with existing resource-management regimes. Issues relating to project permanence, leakage, and transaction costs should also be addressed. A range of policy instruments should be used and biosphere GHG management should be one component of an integrated approach to environmental and resource management. Countries promoting biosphere GHG management as an important element of their climate change strategies should be developing these domestic policies to complement international negotiations and to demonstrate that carbon sequestration and biomass production can make an effective contribution to the stabilization of atmospheric GHG concentrations.     

Environmental Management and the New Politics of Western Water: The Animas-La Plata Project and Implementation of the Endangered Species Act

/ This paper explores the new politics of western water policy through an examination of the Animas-La Plata water project and implementation of the Endangered Species Act. It is suggested that the focus of western water programming has shifted from the source of distributed funds, the United States Congress, to the agencies originally created to deliver federal benefits because funding for new project construction has not been forthcoming. Under this new system, members of Congress continue to excite their constituents with promises of money for new project starts, while the administrative agencies perform the myriad duties needed to keep these projects alive. The result is that political objectives have replaced operational/management objectives in administrative processes. In this case, the author demonstrates how resource managers in the Bureau of Reclamation manipulated hydrological analysis to control administrative process, why their manipulation was unfair, and perhaps illegal, and why biologists from the US Fish and Wildlife Service accepted the analysis. While ostensibly protecting all interests, the result is that none of the objectives of federal water programming are achieved. KEY WORDS: Environmental management; Administrative politics; Water policy; Endangered Species Act; Animas-La Plata, Bureau of Reclamation     

Heat as emergency,heat as chronic stress: policy and institutional responses to vulnerability to extreme heat

Increasingly commonplace in cities, extreme heat events introduce multi-stress vulnerability, affecting people’s health and well-being, financial situation, mobility, social relations, and access to basic services. Planning to reduce heat vulnerability has become part of government business and to some extent community-level responses, cutting across a number of sectors including public health, emergency management, social services, critical infrastructure, and housing. This planning is often framed around heat as an emergency, focusing on preventing loss of life and severe health impacts, yet a vulnerability perspective also draws attention to the chronic and persistent impacts of heat. Our research, based on interviews and desktop research in Melbourne, Australia, found tensions between addressing heat as an emergency and heat as a source of chronic stress, with emergency responses taking precedence over responses addressing the chronic dimensions of heat. Each approach results in different but nonetheless related programmatic priorities for reducing vulnerability. In complex institutional settings, improving relations between policy and programme managers, non-government organisations, and vulnerable people themselves would enable the multiple stresses associated with extreme heat to be more effectively addressed. Policy and institutional responses that better appreciate the interconnections between the emergency and chronic aspects of heat would likely reduce vulnerability and contribute to more just approaches to urban sustainability.     

财政分权能促进中国农村人居环境治理吗？

新时期合理调整中央及地方政府财事权关系,拓宽地方政府财政收入渠道是补齐农村人居环境治理短板,构建长效投资机制的关键。该研究基于中国式财政分权的典型事实,从理论上系统诠释了财政分权、官员晋升激励对农村人居环境治理的内在影响逻辑,并基于时长11年的省际面板数据,选用系统GMM方法实证分析了财政收支分权与自主度、晋升激励对农村人居环境治理的影响效应。研究结果表明：①政府财政收入与支出分权对农村生活垃圾集中处理与卫生厕所普及都存在显著的正向影响作用,且对农村生活垃圾集中处理的影响更大。②官员晋升激励通过影响地方政府的财政支出偏好来正向影响中国农村生活垃圾和污水的集中处理及卫生厕所的有效普及,所有结果都显示在财政收入分权下的影响效应更大。③联合影响方面,交互项对农村生活垃圾、污水的集中处理与卫生厕所的普及的影响系数都显著为正,且稳健性较好,说明二者的联合效应对农村基础设施的建设、居住条件与环境的改善等起到正向的调节作用。认为应在中国式现代化建设进程中进一步完善中央与地方财事权关系,优化中央及地方财力与事权划分格局,扩大地方税收收入规模及占比,增加农村人居环境方面的民生投入;逐步完善政府官员绩效考核机制,强化对民生事业发展的绩效评价,引导官员树立科学的政绩观,为宜居宜业和美乡村建设提供制度性保障。