Globalisation, Regionalisation and Local Voices: The Asian Development Bank and Rescaled Politics of Environment in the Mekong Region

Globalisation is manifested in the Mekong Region both through processes and discourses that reflect the ideology of a borderless world allowing easy passage of capital and commodities, and through resistance to such processes in an increasingly transnationalised civil society movement. However, more immediately significant supranational integrative agendas take the form of regionalisation, a process that has received less attention but which raises analogous concerns of re-scaled governance. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has been a catalysing force for regionalisation amidst a host of regional processes and initiatives; as such it has found itself the object of critique as an institution and through the specific projects it has supported that have impacted on local communities and ecosystems. Meanwhile, local and NGO voices associated with the emergence of a vibrant civil society in Thailand and nascent civil society responses in neighbouring countries have challenged claims on resources made in the name of national development and regional integration.
This paper considers some key issues of re-scaling resource and environmental politics in the Mekong Region, and the extent to which challenges have been recast from national to regional development agendas. Politics of environment are shown to exist as a general rather than exceptional response to the region's development direction, and it is suggested that equitable and sustainable development increasingly needs to address simultaneously the re-scaling and reconfigurations of power in both environmental politics and the "infrapolitics" of environment. The paper is illustrated with case studies of dams in Laos and Thailand.     

Standardization of baseline and additionality determination under the CDM

Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) project developers have long complained about the complexities of project-specific baseline setting and the vagaries of additionality determination. In response to this, the CDM Executive Board took bold steps towards the standardization of CDM methodologies, culminating in the approval of guidelines for the establishment of performance standards in November 2011. The guidelines specify a performance standard stringency level for both baseline and additionality of 80% for several priority sectors and 90% for all other sectors. However, an analysis of 14 large-scale CDM methodologies that use performance standard approaches challenges this top-down approach to the performance standard design. An appropriate performance standard stringency level strongly depends on sector and technology characteristics. A single stringency level for baseline and additionality determination is appropriate only for greenfield projects, but not for retrofit ones. Overly simple, highly aggregated performance standards are unlikely to ensure high environmental integrity, and difficult questions regarding stringency and updating frequency will eventually have to be addressed on a rather disaggregated level. A careful balance between data requirements and the practicability of performance standards is essential because the heavy data requirements of the existing performance standard methodologies have been the key barrier to their actual implementation.

Policy relevance

CDM regulators have been pushed by many stakeholders to standardize baseline setting and eliminate project-specific additionality determination. At first glance, performance standards seem to provide the perfect solution for both tasks. However, a one-size-fits-all political decision – e.g. the average of the top 20% performers as enshrined in the Marrakech Accords – is inappropriate. Substantial disaggregation of performance standards is required both technologically and geographically in order to limit over- and under-crediting and close loopholes for non-additional projects. As a lack of reliable and complete data has been and will be a key bottleneck for the development of performance standards, international support for data collection will be indispensable, but costly, and time-consuming. Empirically driven, techno-economic assessments of performance standard stringency levels must be the central task of the future work on standardized methodologies, and should not be sidelined by perceived needs of policy makers to take bold decisions under time pressures.     

Do bilateral trade relationships influence the distribution of CDM projects?

The use of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is increasingly widespread in developing countries. However, CDM projects are still far from being an effective development activity due to the uneven distribution of these projects in a few relatively well-off economies. One potential cause of this imbalance is analysed in terms of the trade relationships between developed and developing countries. By applying a gravity model to a panel dataset, well-established export flows from developed economies towards developing countries are shown to explain why a large proportion of CDM projects are unevenly geographically distributed. This kind of lock-in effect regarding the CDM between developed and developing countries could be avoided by both enhancing the institutional framework in developing countries that host CDM projects and reinforcing compulsory rules for CDM destinations in the least-developed economies.     

广州城市旅游竞争力研究及其发展战略

随着经济的发展和产业升级的不断推进,旅游业作为第三产业的重要组成部分受到高度重视,国际旅游市场竞争也日益激烈。基于国际旅游竞争力理论,选取18项旅游竞争力评价指标,采用主成分分析法对我国15个大城市进行了旅游竞争力计算与排序,并将广州与各主要城市进行对比分析。结果表明,在城市旅游综合竞争力方面,广州仅次于北京、上海位于第3位,广州在旅游市场、设施、企业等方面有竞争优势,但在旅游文化、城市环境质量、旅游意识等方面存在明湿差距。据此从营销导向、产品升级、品牌带动、持续发展和区域联动等5个方面对广州旅游发展战略选择进行了详细探讨。     

我国气象科技期刊发展与作用

在对历史资料研究的基础上，对气象科技期刊的发展历程与作用进行了回顾及评述，并对目前气象科技期刊的现状及存在的问题做了简要分析。     

The Economic Contributions of Agricultural Tourism in Michigan

Family farms have long generated income from agricultural tourism including U‐picks, wagon rides, corn mazes and petting zoos, but contemporary agricultural tourism reflects much greater sophistication in terms of product variety, services, activities, and marketing. In Michigan, farm operators have moved beyond classic products and activities and the traditional consumer base. New sources of revenue derive from classes on beer, cider, mead and wine making, yarn spinning, perfume/soap‐making, farm markets, fishing, educational classes, school tours and hospitality including weddings and on‐farm restaurants. This case study of Michigan agricultural tourism reports results from a systematic survey of 154 agritourism operations conducted throughout the state during summer and fall of 2013 with a focus on the economic benefits of the fast‐changing sector. This study summarizes tax revenues, sales and employment trends for the farm operations participating in the survey but also quantitatively assesses the contribution of agricultural tourism to Michigan's economy through an extrapolation of the sample to estimate state‐wide totals. Results from OLS multivariate regression analysis intended to identify relationships between employment, advertising and scale to gross sales per day are also reported. These analyses show the importance of agricultural tourism to rural and peri‐urban places in Michigan and throughout the nation, while raising concerns about a growing division between large and small operators and what this growing gap may mean for the future of the sector.     

基于2030年可持续发展目标的吉林省城镇化可持续发展评价

结合联合国2030年可持续发展目标（SDGs）构建城镇化可持续发展评价指标体系,从省内、外两个角度研究吉林省城镇化可持续发展状况。结果表明：吉林省城镇化可持续发展水平波动上升,发展趋势良好,大致可分为3个阶段;研究期内各子系统可持续发展水平均呈上升趋势,其中社会子系统上升幅度最大,经济子系统上升幅度最小。城镇化可持续发展水平空间格局呈“核心-边缘”结构,即长春市水平高、其它地区水平低;经济、社会、资源和环境子系统可持续发展水平总体上表现为“中东部高,西部低”。研究期内吉林省城镇化可持续发展水平低于黑龙江省,2015年后高于辽宁省;相较辽黑两省,吉林省社会子系统可持续发展水平较低。     

沿黄河地带——我国国土开发布局轴线

沿黄河地带是我国重要能源和金属资源富集区,发挥组合资源优势,强化以水资源为特色的复合轴线的作用,发展多元主导工业部门,构成大范围线状分布和小范围点状集中相结合的点轴系统,进一步完善我国沿海、沿江、沿黄三大经济开发轴线的互补格局。     

资源环境系列制图研究的现实基础与发展

本文侧重于全国性资源环境及有关自然条件等专题制图工作的现实基础和成就,作简要总结和回顾。针对提高和重新认识制图效益和重点进行讨论,提出科学效益是基础,社会效益是目的,经济效益是根本,为资源环境的合理开发利用提供依据,并提出今后发展设想。     

SARS的世界性和中国旅游商品的可持续开发

SARS是一种世界性灾难题，医学专家提示，它将与人类长期共存。但2003年春天的SARS却对华人经济圈造成巨大冲击。在这种疫情的紧急状态和长期影响下，中国国民经济各行业中，旅游业所受冲击很大。人民的生命安全重于经济利益，但如何最大限度缩小损失是我们旅游研究者的责任。基于这种背景，结合我国旅游商品长期存在的问题，本文重点探讨了在SARS的紧急状态下，中国旅游商品如何实施可持续开发。作者认为，中国旅游商品开发应坚持走由被动型向主动型转变、计划型向市场型转变、模糊型向标准型转变、短期型向长期型转变的可持续发展之路。