China Population, Resources and Environment最新文献

The composition and the emphasis of environmental protection investment in the 10th Five-Year Plan period have been studied, and the result shows that the connotation of environmental investment, the incompatibility between investment direction and investment demand, and unreasonable investment composition were the most important influencing factors. If the investment in sewage treatment and solid waste disposal facilities is defined as investment in urban environmental infrastructure, environmental protection investment will decrease by about 50 percent. The deficiency of investment was concealed by the superficial increase of urban environmental infrastructure construction investment and the inappropriate extension of the connotation of environmental investment. The distortion of environmental protection investment is very serious. It is suggested that the concept of environmental protection investment should be redefined, the statistical methods of environmental protection investment be modified, and at the same time, the environmental protection investment be strengthened and the efficiency be promoted in order to enhance the efficiency of pollution abatement.

Steady-state economics claims that a low circulation rate of the natural system and social-economic system is necessary for us, whose aim is to keep the balance between substance and energy, namely, sustainable development. Due to its intrinsic tendency of anti-consumptionism and anti-technical omnipotence, steady-state economic theory has never been the mainstream. However, in the process of promoting circular economy in China, it is urgent to reappraise and re-study the steady-state economics. For China, which is not rich in natural and environmental resources, not only the material recovery, but also the cost of energy and low-entropy material should be taken into consideration in the process of developing circular economy.

The deterioration of water pollution drainage in China is caused by poor administrative capabilities as well as natural forces. Low efficiency, even inefficacy in trans-jurisdictional water pollution management by local governments, has resulted in environmental damage accompanying economic development, conflicts between people living up- and down-stream, and potential hidden problems for social stabilization. By examining the process of policy evolution and reform of water pollution management and cooperation between Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, this paper tries to learn from successful global experiences in domestic trans-boundary water management. The study shows that resolution of the conflict between watershed management and regional management based on “Tiao-Kuai-System” (China's system of vertical and horizontal relations between central and local government and within government) is the highest priority. The integrated reform of trans-jurisdictional water pollution management of river basin in China should include insitutional and law reforms.

Health condition is related to the economic and social development of a country and the whole world. We concluded that the influencing factors of health risk include environment pollution, food security, disease threat and health care condition, and then an indicators system is put forward in the paper. Based on the foundation of the indicators system, 40 countries were chosen to evaluate the condition of human health risk. With the method of Hierarchical Cluster Analysis, 40 countries were divided into four groups, and we analyzed the characteristic of each group. Compared with other countries at the similar development level of economy, the human health risk of China is much higher. We analyzed the correlation between human health risk and the economy development level, and then we concluded that a country should attach importance to improving the condition of human health, when the GNI per capita is between $ 1000 and 3000 US dollars. The stage is vital for economy development, and also for the improvement of the human health condition. We found that countries with high human health risk are mostly in Africa and Asia. The developed countries should help the developing countries reduce the human health risk for a win-win situation of the development of the whole humanity.

One of the requirements of sustainable utilization of resources is the efficiency of intergenerational allocation, which is important to the long-term utilization of resources. Based on the principle of efficient intergenerational allocation of resource in resource economics, this paper builds an ex post model to measure the efficiency of intergenerational allocation of farmland resource, and points out that with the continuous testing and modifying in practice according to the model results, the allocation of farmland resource in the future can continuously converge at the efficient allocation. This paper employs this model to test the allocation of the farmland resource from 1989 to 2003, and the result shows that if the test sample is divided into 1989 to 1996 period and 1997 to 2003 period, which due to the stricter farmland resource protection policy issued after 1996, the inefficient farmland conversion of the three main regions in China in the period of 1989 to 1996 was 6.58%, 6.84%, 7.85%, respectively.

According to the option characteristic of environmental protection infrastructure build-operate-transfer (BOT) project, this paper sets the concession term as the government's decision variable and adopts option game method to analyze the investment behavior of the project company under the condition that the government makes the concession term certain, and establishes the decision-making models both for the concession term and the investment cost of environmental protection infrastructure. The result shows that to introduce the growth option makes the concession term more reasonable, and the project company enhances the investment in construction cost to benefit itself. Consequently, the time of government operating the environmental protection infrastructure will be lengthened.

This article reviews the development of current environmental policies in China: their initiation started following the United Nations Conference on Human Environment (1972 in Stockholm), and got great progress during 1979?2006. Learning lessons from industrialized countries and combining own situation, China realizes the main features of its environmental policies as follow: (1) explore command and control measures to its full extent; (2) strive to raise funding for environmental protection; (3) identify who should take the accountability for environmental protection, (4) encourage”combination of prevention and control” and “integrated utilization”, (5) Open in field of environmental policy and international cooperation earlier. For the past 30 years, China's environmental policies have been evolved and deepened: status from national basic policy to sustainable development strategy; focus changed from pollution control to combination of pollution control and ecological protection; method changed from end control to source control; scope changed form point treatment to watershed and territory treatment; management style changed from using executive power to using legal and economic measures. At last, this article introduces the evaluation of policies by the international community and the prospects of them.

The inexplicit efficiency of environmental property rights lies in its fuzziness. Based on the character of environmental property rights discussed, unit environment shows intra relationship between efficiency and duty of environmental property rights, and constructs a symmetrical system arrangement. Through analyzing the possibility and feasibility of unit environmental property rights, the significance of symmetrical system arrangement to avoid the inexplicit efficiency of environmental property rights is discussed in this dissertation from the aspect of the validity of offering and implementing system.

Climate change is treated in China as an issue related closely to the national strategy for sustainable development as well as an issue in international collaboration in environment. The duality of the issue makes the climate change policy often waver between domestic and international emphases. In the past one and a half decades, the central government emphasized mostly on responding to international pressure by participating in negotiations in international treaties. However, the nation, as well as the world, will probably benefit more by taking a more proactive attitude towards mitigation and adaptation to climate change. This paper described the current governance structure for climate change management in China and made concrete recommendations for its improvement. The most urgent recommendation is to improve the cooperation of current National Coordination Committee on Climate Change with authority for policy-making and to oversee climate change.

Compared with the traditional development model, sustainable development embodies more public and long-term tendency in its goal and content. This means government ability will face more challenges. “Kaldor-Hicks Improvement” principle supplies a frame for government implementing sustainable development and going to “Pareto Improvement”, and decides that the core of government ability is institution supply ability. In order to fully exert government ability, institution arrangement should obey four basic principles of market priority, local government priority, public participation and legalization.