How can environment get better? A research review of pollution governance

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuqing He ◽  
Xintian Liu ◽  
Xiaoqing Wang

PurposeThis study aims to build a global environmental quality protection convention to jointly address the problems of environmental pollution governance worldwide.Design/methodology/approachFrom the perspective of environmental pollution of the air, ocean, forest, water and solid waste, the authors summarize the main important measures and mechanisms of environmental pollution governance in various countries.FindingsThe results indicate that management research on biodiversity and natural resources must be strengthened, the relationship between economic development and environmental quality management needs to be balanced, the comparative study of domestic and international environmental governance theories and practices should be strengthened, empirical and applied research on environmental governance needs to be focused on, and complete system research on environmental governance and management should be explored. In the future, further strengthening environmental awareness, addressing environmental pollution and managing environmental quality are necessary.Originality/valueThe environment is the foundation of human survival and development. With the development of economy, contradictions between human and natural environment (e.g. air, ocean, forest and water) have become prominent. Environmental pollution governance cannot only help address existing environmental problems but also solve economic problems of various countries. The prerequisite for sustainable development is to lay a solid foundation for the coordinated development of economic growth and pollution management.

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 5865
Author(s):  
Qiming Yang ◽  
Jun He ◽  
Ting Liu ◽  
Zhitao Zhu

This article studies how the allocation structure of bank credit capital between state-owned and private enterprises and government environmental expenditures affect environmental pollution in China. The present literature argues that credit allocation and government environmental expenditures may play an important role in environmental quality improvement. However, these studies rarely consider the credit allocation structure between State-owned enterprises (SOEs) and private enterprises; in addition, they overlook the interaction effects of credit allocation and government environmental expenditures. Based on these, we put forward three hypotheses. Moreover, the study applies relevant spatial data for 2011–2017 from 31 provinces in China to a spatial econometric model, and the results indicate that (1) environmental pollution among provincial regions shows a significant positive spatial autocorrelation. (2) Environmental expenditures and environmental pollution display an inverse U-shaped relationship, which supports the numerical simulation results. (3) The interaction effect of credit allocation structure and environmental expenditures on environmental pollution is significantly positive, which means that the allocation of more credit capital to private enterprises will restrain the effect of government environmental expenditures. With the increasing significance of environmental protection in China, it is necessary to strengthen the supervision of private enterprises’ environmental pollution behavior, expand government expenditures on ecological protection, and promote regional collaborative environmental governance to improve environmental quality.


Author(s):  
Faure Michael

This chapter explains that the starting point for the economic approach to both domestic as well as international environmental law is that environmental problems (including but not limited to environmental pollution) constitute a market failure. From this economic perspective transboundary environmental pollution emerges. Moreover, global environmental quality is, from an economic perspective, a so-called public good of which all states will benefit. But since no state can exclude others from benefitting from this global environmental good, there is a danger of ‘free-riding’ as a result of which this global public good (environmental quality) may be insufficiently produced. These starting points provide a basis for the emergence of international environmental law, more particularly treaty law. However, a classic paradigm in what has become known as the law and economics literature is the Coase Theorem. The chapter then addresses the likelihood of Coasean solutions to emerge as a remedy to transboundary environmental pollution. It also looks at reasons for states to conclude treaties.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
James Temitope Dada ◽  
Folorunsho Monsur Ajide ◽  
Akinwumi Sharimakin

PurposeThis study investigates the effect of shadow economy on environmental pollution and the role of institutional quality in moderating the impact in African countries between 1991 and 2015.Design/methodology/approachThe study employs three pollutant variables namely: carbon dioxide emissions per capita, methane emission and nitrous oxide emission as robustness check. Also, battery of methodologies; ordinary least squares, fixed effects and system generalised method of moments are used to drive out the conclusions of this study.FindingsThe findings reveal that shadow economy and institutional quality contribute significantly to environmental pollution in Africa. Further, the interactive effect of shadow economy and institutional quality worsens environmental quality in the region. This reveals that weak institutional quality recorded in the region increases the level of shadow economy, thereby intensifying environmental pollution.Practical implicationsThe study concludes that weak institutional framework in the region reinforces shadow economy and environmental pollution. Hence, findings from this study can help policymakers in the region to better understand the role of institutional quality in reducing shadow economy and environmental pollution.Originality/valueThis study enriches one’s understanding on the role of institutional quality in the relationship between environmental quality and shadow economy in African context. It investigates the direct and indirect impact of institutions and shadow economy on environmental quality. The study also uses three different robust variables to measure environmental pollution (carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions per capita, methane emission and nitrous oxide emission) for sensitivity analysis.


Significance The meeting will set a new Global Biodiversity Framework and agree targets to be met by 2030. Scientists and civil society organisations consider it an opportunity to set in train the political leadership and public engagement needed to address the urgent global biodiversity crisis. Impacts China has an opportunity to show leadership on global environmental governance and to showcase its biodiversity conservation achievements. The BRI will face criticism for the biodiversity impacts of its infrastructure projects overseas. Financing arrangements for implementing any agreements will be crucial, and difficult to agree.


2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 483-494 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jing Sun ◽  
Jing Wang ◽  
Tao Wang ◽  
Tao Zhang

PurposeGiven the recent rapid economic development, the processes of industrialization and urbanization are accelerating. At the same time, the contradiction between environmental quality and economic development has become increasingly prominent and is likely to restrict the normal pace of China’s economic development and environmental protection. As such, the purpose of this paper is to incorporate the urbanization factor into an analytic framework to discuss the relationship among urbanization, economic development, and environmental pollution.Design/methodology/approachA panel data of 31 Chinese provinces from 2004 to 2015 is selected for this research. A spatial correlation test is first conducted on the environmental pollution status, then the spatial Durbin model is used to carry out spatial econometric testing of the relationship among the above three factors.FindingsInterprovincial environmental pollution in China has significant positive spatial correlation, environmental pollution discharge in most provinces is significantly stable, discharge of environmental pollutants is transitioning from coastal to inland provinces, and urbanization and economic growth can both aggravate environmental pollution, but economic growth can relieve environmental pollution in neighboring provinces.Originality/valueThe relationship between economic growth, urbanization, and environmental quality has always been an important issue for sustainable development. As such, China’s urbanization leads to economic development, while rapid economic growth and environmental pollution are coordinated. This paper focuses on the specific relationship between them. To this end, local governments make concerted efforts to formulate sound environmental regulation policies based on local environmental conditions, where economic development is an effective means of alleviating the contradictory relationship between economic development and environmental protection.


Author(s):  
Alexander Ovodenko

Climate change, tropical deforestation, biodiversity loss, ozone depletion, hazardous wastes, and ocean pollution are among the environmental issues that have bought national governments together in a common purpose. As they have worked to mitigate these global problems, national governments have developed a wide variety of environmental regime designs. They have created complex systems of global rules and institutions to enable and incentivize private and public actors to meet the challenges posed by global pollution. Why have national governments created different international rules and institutions to address global environmental issues? This book demonstrates that national governments have developed different institutional responses to global issues because the markets producing environmental pollution impose varying constraints and create varying opportunities for change. The nature and scale of those constraints and opportunities depend on the capital resources and industrial concentrations of producers and the demand characteristics of consumers in the markets that governments seek to regulate. Global institutions are designed to match the basic elements of the markets producing global environmental pollution. In global governance, not only are oligopolistic businesses politically influential in shaping policy outcomes, but they are also efficient implementers of environmental regulation. They face a double-edged sword arising from their wealth and market concentrations. Although they are able to shape regulatory policy, these powerful businesses are targeted for stringent global regulation. The sources of their political influence make them the best options for mitigating global pollution.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 1409
Author(s):  
Shengyun Wang ◽  
Yaxin Zhang ◽  
Huwei Wen

This study adopted the two-stage super-efficiency network slack-based model (SBM) to measure the green development performance index (GDPI) of 30 provinces in China. The Dagum Gini coefficient decomposition was used to analyze the regional differences and their sources in China’s green development performance. The results are as follows: first, the green development performance showed a declining trend from 1997 to 2017. The improvement of environmental governance efficiency was the key to achieving green development progress. The green development levels of coastal areas were significantly higher than those of inland provinces. Second, the regional imbalance in China’s green development performance was gradually worsening. The inter-regional differences were the primary source of the overall differences. The intra-regional difference of green development within the northwest was the largest. Third, among the eight regions, only the southwest region had σ convergence in green development performance; in addition, absolute β convergence and conditional β convergence were divergent, thereby confirming the regional imbalance of the widening regional differences in China’s green development performance. This study aimed to provide a scientific basis and effective reference for further advancing China’s regional coordinated development strategy.


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