The first step, but by no means the last, in the process of improving the environmental performance of manufacturing plants, firms, and industries in East Asia requires the building and strengthening of traditional environmental regulatory systems. Without this, policy integration is not likely to work and without effective policy integration, governments in East Asia are not likely to be able to link environmental intensities reduction policies to the technological capabilities policies of economic and industrial development agencies. Because most governments in East Asia pursued ‘grow first, clean up later’ environmental strategies and because traditional economic and industrial development agencies are so closely linked to their counterparts in private industry, many (Lee and So 1999; Lohani 1998; Smil 1997; Eder 1996; Bello and Rosenfeld 1992) are skeptical of the ability of governments in this region to build and sustain traditional environmental regulatory agencies. But there is growing evidence that numerous governments in this region, including in Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia in Southeast Asia and Taiwan Province of China, China, and Korea in Northeast Asia have made significant progress in building traditional command and control regulatory agencies (Rock 2002a; Aden et al. 1999). Everywhere in East Asia, this was and is a lengthy, costly, difficult, contentious, and time-consuming process. The speed and alacrity with which governments succeed depends on an intricate interplay of international pressures, the nature of domestic politics, the capacity and capabilities of the state, and the rapidity with which new ideas about the environment spread (Rock 2002a). Sometimes, as in Taiwan Province of China, international pressures associated with the loss of diplomatic recognition and citizen pressures associated with democratization have exerted powerful influences on the ruling party, the KMT, to build a strong and capable environmental regulatory agency as a way of demonstrating to the world and Taiwan’s citizens that the government was environmentally responsible (Rock 2002a). Other times, as in Singapore, a benevolent despot committed to creating a clean and green Singapore used the powers of government and a highly capable bureaucracy to create a credible environmental agency (Rock 2002a).
Effects of green bonds on bioenergy development under climate change: A case study in Taiwan province, China
