The participation of core stakeholders in the design of,and challenges to,the US Clean Power Plan

We examine the participation of stakeholders in the rule-making process leading to the design of the US Clean Power Plan (CPP), which was the cornerstone regulation developed during the Obama administration to lower GHG emissions from power plants in the US. Using publicly available information, we identify the core stakeholders that participated in the different stages of the rulemaking process, from the early draft of the rule to its publication in final form, and examine variables that could help explain their decisions to litigate, either against or in favour of the final version of the rule. We show that the ‘pro-CPP’ stakeholders were (a) more likely to participate during the early stages of the rule-making process, attending meetings with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) staff to discuss rule content, and (b) less likely to get involved during the litigation process. ‘Anti-CPP’ stakeholders, on the other hand, did the opposite, being in general less active during the rulemaking stages, and more active during the litigation stage. However, we also find that the ‘anti-CPP’ stakeholders were more tightly organized as a coalition when compared to the ‘pro-CPP’ stakeholders throughout the process (even in the early stages when they participated less). Our results shed new light on the way advocacy coalitions operate in the climate policy subsystem in the US, and help inform debates about the likelihood of conflict and cooperation across a variety of environmental policy topics.

Key policy insights

• The design of the Clean Power Plan was a long and contentious process in which ‘Pro’ and ‘Anti-CPP’ coalitions operated to support and undermine the rule, respectively.

• ‘Pro-CPP’ stakeholders were more active in meetings organized to discuss the CPP with EPA staff, and in submitting written comments.

• ‘Anti-CPP’ stakeholders were more active during litigation, in response to perceived EPA overreach in designing the rule and negative financial impacts on states’ economies.

• Joint participation by ‘Anti-CPP’ stakeholders in meetings conveyed by the EPA to discuss the potential content of the rule helps explain their joint litigation efforts, which hints at their considerable capacity to self-organize as a coalition throughout the process.

     

The influence of social movements on policies that constrain fossil fuel supply

Mounting evidence suggests that a large portion of the world's fossil fuel reserves will have to remain in the ground to prevent dangerous climate change. Yet, the fossil fuel industry continues to invest in new infrastructure to expand fuel supply. There appears to be a prevailing logic that extraction is inevitable, in spite of growing climate change concerns. Few political leaders seem to be willing to challenge this logic. The absence of adequate political action on climate change has sparked a burgeoning social movement focused on constraining fossil fuel supply. This article describes this movement, and explores the role that social mobilization may play in enabling policies that limit fossil fuel extraction. Drawing from literature on social mobilization and political change, this work: (1) discusses some of the social and political barriers to mobilization focused on restricting fossil fuel supply; (2) describes the pathways through which mobilization efforts may influence climate policy; and (3) highlights insights from studies of successful social movements that have relevance for the issue of fossil fuel extraction. The article concludes with directions for future research on social mobilization focused on supply-side climate policy.

Key policy insights

• Enacting policies to limit fossil fuel supply has proven challenging in many contexts.

• There is renewed interest in the role social movements may play in shifting the political landscape, to make it more likely that policies to restrict fossil fuel extraction may succeed.

• Effective social mobilization requires a combination factors aligning at the right time to influence policy outcomes, such as windows of political opportunity opening, and compelling framing that calls citizens to action.

• Critical examination of the factors that lead to movement success is necessary to understand the circumstances where social mobilization may influence supply-side climate policies.

     

The challenges of monitoring national climate policy: learning lessons from the EU

One of the most central and novel features of the new climate governance architecture emerging from the 2015 Paris Agreement is the transparency framework committing countries to provide, inter alia, regular progress reports on national pledges to address climate change. Many countries will rely on public policies to turn their pledges into action. This article focuses on the EU’s experience with monitoring national climate policies in order to understand the challenges that are likely to arise as the Paris Agreement is implemented around the world. To do so, the research employs – for the first time – comparative empirical data submitted by states to the EU’s monitoring system. Our findings reveal how the EU’s predominantly technical interpretation of four international reporting quality criteria – an approach borrowed from reporting on GHG fluxes – has constrained knowledge production and stymied debate on the performance of individual climate policies. Key obstacles to more in-depth reporting include not only political concerns over reporting burdens and costs, but also struggles over who determines the nature of climate policy monitoring, the perceived usefulness of reporting information, and the political control that policy knowledge inevitably generates. Given the post-Paris drive to achieve greater transparency, the EU’s experience offers a sobering reminder of the political and technical challenges associated with climate policy monitoring, challenges that are likely to bedevil the Paris Agreement for decades to come.

Policy relevance

The 2009 Copenhagen summit ushered in a more bottom-up system of international climate governance. Such systems typically depend on strong monitoring approaches to assess past performance and estimate future national contributions over time. This article shows why decision makers at multiple governance levels should pay serious attention to empirical data on the experiences and challenges that have emerged around monitoring in the EU, a self-proclaimed climate leader. The analysis highlights key political and administrative challenges that policy makers will likely encounter in implementing climate policy monitoring and ensuring transparency in the spirit of the Paris Agreement.     

近36年东北地区春玉米气候资源利用率评估

应用1981—2016年中国东北三省170个气象台站的逐日气象资料和50个农业气象观测站的春玉米发育期资料,在前人研究的基础上,采用基于层次分析法和熵权法的组合权重赋权法,对农业气候资源适宜指数模型进行了改进,分析了东北地区春玉米气候资源利用率的时空分布特征。结果表明:东北地区春玉米不同发育阶段的气候资源利用率从大到小排序是,抽雄-成熟期的出苗-拔节期的拔节-抽雄期的播种-出苗期的。从空间分布看,气候资源利用率在播种-出苗期吉林东部的长白山区的最低,热量不足是主要影响因素;出苗-拔节期大兴安岭东部、黑龙江北部和吉林东部长白山区利用率较低,其余大部利用率较高,水分是主要限制因子;拔节-抽雄期吉林和辽宁东部的长白山区的最低;抽雄-成熟期大部分地区利用率较高,且从北到南呈明显递增趋势,黑龙江后期热量不足可能对玉米成熟不利。从时间演变看,播种-出苗期各省利用率在2010年之前增高,之后开始下降,其他发育阶段黑龙江的年代际波动较大,吉林和辽宁的年波动较小。     

Urban growth simulation by incorporating planning policies into a CA-based future land-use simulation model

Urban land-use change is affected by urban planning and government decision-making. Previous urban simulation methods focused only on planning constraints that prevent urban growth from developing in specific regions. However, regional planning produces planning policies that drive urban development, such as traffic planning and development zones, which have rarely been considered in previous studies. This study aims to design two mechanisms based on a cellular automata-based future land-use simulation model to integrate different planning drivers into simulations. The first update mechanism considers the influence of traffic planning, while the second mechanism can model the guiding effect of planning development zones. The proposed mechanisms are applied to the Pearl River Delta region, which is one of the fastest growing areas in China. The first mechanism is validated using simulations from 2000–2013 and demonstrates that simulation accuracy is improved by the consideration of traffic planning. In the simulation from 2013–2052, the two mechanisms are implemented and yield more realistic urban spatial patterns. The simulation outcomes can be employed to identify potential urban expansion inside the master plan. The proposed methods can serve as a useful tool that assists planners in their evaluation of urban evolvement under the impact of different planning policies.     

京津冀协同创新水平评价及提升对策研究

协同创新是京津冀协同发展的核心议题之一,本文从缩小京津冀三地间创新水平差距和推动跨地区、跨主体的创新协作两个视角构建了协同创新指数,对京津冀协同创新水平进行测度评价。测度结果为：2010-2014年期间,京津冀整体的创新能力有了明显提升,但不同地区间、不同主体间的协同创新水平仍然较低。从综合创新水平来看,北京在创新的投入、产出和环境方面都遥遥领先,天津在创新投入和产业创新产出方面进步很快,河北在产业创新产出方面也有较快增长,但创新环境进步缓慢。从主体间协同创新水平来看,企业的主体地位较低,高校和研究机构的知识创新产出丰富但产业化程度较低。从区域间的协同创新水平来看,北京技术转移在全国范围内呈现“跳跃式”扩散特征,但对津冀主要产业的创新带动贡献不大。最后,提出了促进创新要素特别是人才要素的流动、构建官产学研多元主体协同创新模式、加强创新链与产业链对接等政策建议。     

Curbing enthusiasm for Brazilian agribusiness: The use of actor-specific assessments to transform sustainable development on the ground

Current enthusiasm for the potential of sustainable agricultural development must be based on a realistic assessment of the dynamics used by specific farming sectors. This study highlights the structural limitations that impede agricultural progress and explains why it is necessary to overcome these impediments in a case study of Brazil, one of the world's main agricultural exporters. In Brazil, the commodity-exporter large-farmers production chain is largely controlled by multinational corporations, with the investment of national capital a mere 12.4% in the technology-intensive sectors of the soy business (composed of seed production, fertilizers, pesticides, machinery, trading companies). The agricultural sector's future depends on increasing the share of national capital into domestic businesses and confronting the current and simplistic strategy of expansion into new agricultural frontiers, which often have high social and environmental costs. The future of family farmers depends on comprehensive development alternatives and challenging the current policies, since current development has been restricted to the 17.9% of family farmers who have access to rural credit, whom are mostly based in the Southern region of Brazil.     

The spatial distribution of green buildings in China: Regional imbalance,economic fundamentals,and policy incentives

Since China released its 3-Star green building rating system in 2006, the number of certified green buildings in the country has increased sharply. The concentrations of green buildings, however, are not spread evenly across different provinces. Employing the comprehensive green building data as of February 2014, this paper attempts to analyze the spatial distribution of green buildings in China and examine its underlying determinants. The empirical results confirm that a regional imbalance does exist with regard to green building numbers. The paper also finds that local economic fundamentals and subsidy-based incentive policies can explain the presence of green buildings, but the performance of real estate market, energy efficiency, and two specific green policies (local green standard and green building committee) are not significantly associated with green building concentrations at the provincial level. Based on the empirical results, the paper also yields a number of implications, which suggest that the government can promoting more green buildings via the alleviation of economic inequality across different regions, the establishment of a market-oriented mechanism, and the improvement of public awareness regarding sustainability. These implications will help to guide the government in its efforts to establish and implement more efficient and effective green policies. From a spatial perspective, this study unveils a general picture regarding green building development in China.     

主要极地国家的极地科技体制探究——以美国、俄罗斯和澳大利亚为例

引领一国极地科学考察与研究的极地科技体制,已引起世界各国的广泛关注与重视。极地科技体制是指极地科学技术研究与管理的机构设置、职责范围、权属关系和管理方式的结构体系和组织架构,科学合理完善的极地科技体制是促进极地事业发展的前提和基础。文中重点研究分析了美国、俄罗斯和澳大利亚三个具有代表性极地国家的极地科技体制,并对上述三国的极地科技体制进行了概括总结,最后着眼于我国极地科技体制的现状,从学术和理论层面探讨了我国极地科技体制未来的改革方向,期待我国极地事业在"十三五"时期能够搭乘全面深化改革的便车实现跨越式发展,逐步形成适合我国国情并且相对完善的极地科技体制。     

Forest conversion, conservation and forestry in Cross River State, Nigeria

This paper presents new data on the rate and patterns of loss of tropical moist forest cover to agriculture in Cross River State, Nigeria. Data from sequential aerial photographs and field surveys are used to derive an estimate of forest loss of 0.6 per cent per year. This rate is relatively modest, yet current conservation and forestry policy in the area is based on assumptions of rapid conversion of forest. The implications of these findings for debates about conservation and policy are discussed.