The Impacts of Shanghai’s July 2019 Municipal Domestic Waste Management Regulations on Energy Production

Cities all over the world are trying to divert municipal waste away from landfill and fossil fuel-assisted incineration and toward circular economies where waste is converted into new resources. Residential food waste is the most challenging sub-stream, as it is the worst culprit in producing greenhouse gases in landfill and incineration, and it is almost impossible to have residents separate it cleanly at source. Here we investigate the outstanding diversion results of Shanghai Municipality since the introduction of the July 2019 Municipal Regulations, of over 9600 tons per day of clean food waste, still maintained two years later. In particular, we question why they might have increased so sharply after July 2019 and examine historic policies to determine broad policy intentions, their implementations, and officially reported tonnages of different resulting waste streams. It was found that many prior steps included infrastructure building and piloting different behavioral approaches. However, the July 2019 policy brought in legal responsibilities to very clearly defined roles for each stakeholder—including for the residents to sort and for local governances to support them—and this pulled all the operational elements together. The immediate and sustained jumps in clean food waste collection fed biogas production (0.1–1.0 GWh/day) and energy-from-waste (less wet) (5.4–8.6 GWh/day).

10. An Introduction to EU Competition Policy and Law

The idea of competition lies at the heart of the capitalist system and at the heart of European Union (EU) economic law. The broad policy objective remains to maintain and encourage competition for the benefit of the EU and its citizens. This chapter discusses EU competition law and covers the basic outline of EU competition policy; Art 101 TFEU; Art 101(2) TFEU and the consequence of a breach; Art 101(3) TFEU exemptions; Art 102 TFEU and the abuse of a dominant position; the relationship between Arts 101 and 102 TFEU; the enforcement of EU competition law; conflict of EU and national law, state aid; and EU merger control.

RURAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMMS: A TOOL FOR ALLEVIATION OF RURAL POVERTY

This paper examines the progress of Indias rural development programmes and reviews the countrys rural development programmes. Over the years, Indias rural development has undergone several changes in terms of emphasis, approaches, strategies, and programmes. As a result, it has acquired a new dimension and provided new opportunities. Indias rural economy is a vital component of the countrys overall economy. Poverty eradication remains a significant obstacle to planned economic development. Its difficult to make broad policy recommendations because different states experiences with economic growth and poverty reduction have been so varied. Rural development programmes (RDP) have significant implications for India in terms of poverty alleviation.

Overcoming COVID-19 vaccination resistance when alternative policies affect the dynamics of conformism, social norms, and crowding out

What is an effective vaccination policy to end the COVID-19 pandemic? We address this question in a model of the dynamics of policy effectiveness drawing upon the results of a large panel survey implemented in Germany during the first and second waves of the pandemic. We observe increased opposition to vaccinations were they to be legally required. In contrast, for voluntary vaccinations, there was higher and undiminished support. We find that public distrust undermines vaccine acceptance, and is associated with a belief that the vaccine is ineffective and, if enforced, compromises individual freedom. We model how the willingness to be vaccinated may vary over time in response to the fraction of the population already vaccinated and whether vaccination has occurred voluntarily or not. A negative effect of enforcement on vaccine acceptance (of the magnitude observed in our panel or even considerably smaller) could result in a large increase in the numbers that would have to be vaccinated unwillingly in order to reach a herd-immunity target. Costly errors may be avoided if policy makers understand that citizens’ preferences are not fixed but will be affected both by the crowding-out effect of enforcement and by conformism. Our findings have broad policy applicability beyond COVID-19 to cases in which voluntary citizen compliance is essential because state capacities are limited and because effectiveness may depend on the ways that the policies themselves alter citizens’ beliefs and preferences.

Progress towards Achieving the Recommendations of the Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity: A Comprehensive Review and Analysis of Current Policies, Actions and Implementation Gaps in Thailand

Despite a significant commitment to tackling childhood overweight and obesity, questions remain about the progress the Thai Government has made in implementing childhood obesity prevention policies and actions. This study aimed to review and assess the implementation of the government’s policies and actions for childhood obesity prevention in Thailand compared with the recommendations of the Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity and to identify the implementation gaps. Policy data were collected from governmental and NGO websites and publications and via direct contact with government officials. Stakeholder meetings were held to seek further information and advice on implementation gaps and to give recommendations. The analysis of each policy was conducted against pre-determined criteria formulated from literature assessments and stakeholder consultations. The policies and actions that were implemented by the Government were consistent with 33 broad policy actions and 55 specific policy actions. Preconception and pregnancy care was the policy area that was most implemented. Six broad policy actions were assessed as ‘high’ performance, these were: sugar-sweetened beverage taxation, nutrient labeling, nutrition guidance for preconception and pregnancy care, the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes, regulatory measures for supporting maternal breastfeeding, and regulations on the marketing of complementary foods and beverages. Policy coherence and monitoring and evaluation (M&E) were identified as major implementation gaps. Increasing the effectiveness of childhood obesity prevention in Thailand will require national immediate attention towards building infrastructure to enhance coherence among the policies and to put in place M&E mechanisms for each policy.

The Multiple Waves of the African Academic Diaspora’s Engagement with African Universities

This article analyses the various historical phases in the evolution of theAfrican academic diaspora’s engagement to support the development ofhigher education in Africa. It examines the drivers and motivation for suchengagement and its implications for higher education development onthe continent. The data were derived from a critical review of secondarysources, supplemented by primary observations by one of the authors whois engaged in a programme that supports diaspora academics to travel toAfrican universities for engagement, as part of the third wave. The analysisof the secondary material shows that while the first wave of engagement wasdriven by a strong sense of Pan-Africanism at the global level and laid thefoundation for the establishment of universities across the continent, thesecond wave became trapped in Cold War rivalries that limited engagementand drove more academics from African universities into exile, mainly inEurope and North America, thus swelling the ranks of diaspora academics.The third wave has been caught up in a similar situation. While the forcesof globalisation and internationalisation that are driving this wave ofdiaspora engagement have the potential to support African universities toachieve international standards, they can equally undermine and mute thedesire for higher education decolonisation. The article recommends thatAfrican countries and higher education institutions should play a centralrole in designing the broad policy context that drives engagement and thatthe activities undertaken by African diaspora academics should align withnational higher education priorities.

Determinants of Energy Intensity Trends in Indian Metallic Industry: A Firm-level Analysis

Though the demand for industrial energy by manufacturing firms has witnessed substantial growth, not enough evidence exists regarding the energy intensity trends of such firms. Furthermore, empirical evidence on the determinants of energy intensity trends or even the energy intensity levels per se remains limited. Given this gap, the present article analyses the determinants of energy intensity trends (and also the energy intensity levels) of Indian manufacturing firms over the period 2007–2017. This study has been undertaken with special reference to the metallic industry. A sample of 41 firms is analysed by grouping them into 3 categories, namely firms with increasing energy intensity trends (IEITs), decreasing energy intensity trends (DEITs) and relatively constant energy intensity trends (CEITs) over the stated period. Multinomial logistic model (MLM) is employed to examine the determinants of energy intensity trends for the three categories. Our pertinent findings are as follows: firms with higher labour intensity and also older firms have a greater probability of belonging to the category of DEIT firms vis-à-vis the reference category of IEIT firms. Furthermore, size per se does not significantly impact the probability of a firm belonging to any specific category of energy intensity trend; nevertheless, evidence shows that large-sized firms, though old, have a greater probability of belonging to the DEIT category. Rather surprisingly, R&D intensity has been estimated to have a non-significant impact on the probability of belonging to the DEIT group of firms. However, although R&D-intensive firms have a higher profitability, their impacts remain both favourable and significant. Evidence also suggests that an increase in capital intensity and profitability lowers the probability of a firm to belong to the DEIT category. Additionally, a pooled (panel) econometric analysis has also been undertaken wherein the ‘level’ of energy intensity is considered as the dependent variable and not the ‘trend’ in energy intensity. Important findings also emerge from this analysis. Finally, we conclude from a broad policy perspective.

Massive Institutional Structures in Global Governance

Global governance consists of elementary regimes that form regime complexes, which in turn give rise to what we call superclusters around broad policy domains. In recent years, scholars have explored what these macroscopic structures look like and how they evolve over time. Yet the complex ways in which entire governance superclusters interact and coevolve, and what might emerge through this process, have not received much attention. In this article, we expand the ontological frontier of global governance research by offering a first bird’s-eye view on supercluster-level institutional interaction with an empirical focus on trade and environment. We constructed and analyzed a dynamic network-of-networks model, revealing a supercluster complex, a massive institutional structure in global governance consisting of two or more interlocking superclusters that exert a measurable influence on each other’s course of development. We theorize that the supercluster complex serves as an institutional fabric that enables the degree of self-organized coordination observed between the trade and environment policy domains. Our preliminary findings warrant more research on supercluster complexes as an important but little-noticed phenomenon in global governance.

Policy Responses to the Addiction Crisis

The COVID-19 pandemic is just one of two public health crises the new Biden administration will confront. The addiction crisis is the other. The opioid epidemic has already killed more Americans than World Wars I and II combined. And it is but the most visible sign of a broader population health challenge that includes methamphetamine, cocaine, benzodiazepines, and alcohol. This essay presents practical legislative and executive actions required to address these challenges. We focus on two broad policy challenges: (1) improving financing and delivery of treatment for substance use disorders (SUDs) and (2) reducing population exposure to addictive and lethal substances. Through both of these channels, a portfolio of well-implemented, evidence-informed policies can save many thousands of lives every year.