Market Darwinism vs. Market Creationism: Adaptability and Fairness in the Design of Greenhouse Gas Trading Mechanisms

International rule-making and compliance routines with respect to the Kyoto Protocol are evolving rapidly. This paper examines potential designs of emissions-trading programs by comparing the emissions credit trading (ECT) and cap-and-trade models for achieving cost-effective reductions in atmospheric greenhouse-gas (GHG) loading in terms of their adaptability and fairness. Adaptability is a valuable attribute when markets and their governing institutions are evolving rapidly or when regulated entities do not yet have well-established and predictable compliance routines. Fairness in both procedures and outcomes is central to efforts to establish and maintain institutions of international governance. The key difference concerns the awarding of tradable emission rights, which occurs at the launch of a cap-and-trade program but following when firms reduce emissions below baselines in an ECT scheme. Implications of this difference are explored in terms of institutional adaptability and fairness during program-design stages. By not locking in emission rights at the outset, and by being amenable to incremental roll-out, ECT appears to have superior adaptive and fairness qualities during periods of rapid institutional evolution.     

绿色奥运与北京环境法律实施对策研究

绿色奥运,是2008年北京奥运会的重要指导方针,是北京奥运三大理念之一,环境保护已是奥运计划中一个不可缺少的主要部分.本文从分析北京市有关环境保护方面的法律实施中的问题入手,结合环境保护法律制度及奥运规则的要求,结合北京目前的环境现状,探讨解决环境问题的对策.主要就环境保护中的大气污染和水资源问题进行初步探讨.     

International environmental agreements between developing countries only: learning from the Brazil–Uruguay case over the suspicion of acid rain

This article is about the process of negotiation and implementation of a bilateral environmental agreement between two developing countries. It analyzes the case of the Act of Jaguarão between Brazil and Uruguay on assessing the risk of transboundary air pollution by the President Medici (UTPM) coal-powered thermo-electrical facility in the Candiota region of southern Brazil. The article adds to the scarce literature on international environmental conflict resolution and negotiations between developing countries, especially in Latin America. First, it explains that even with the asymmetry of power between Brazil and Uruguay, negotiation was possible due to a series of factors, such as the interest of Brazilian environmental agencies in improving the monitoring of emissions from UTPM and the international scrutiny of Brazil prior to the upcoming Rio-92 Earth Summit. Both states obtained mutual gains from the agreement by developing ‘joint fact finding’ research and monitoring. Second, different from most of the mainstream literature, the research reveals that weaknesses in institutional agreements, such as a lack of sanctions or deadlines, were not an implementation impediment. In fact, the very weaknesses of the agreement actually enabled authorities in both countries to cooperate in the development of an acid rain monitoring program in the Candiota region, and as a result, to improve air monitoring capacities in both countries. Third, this research shows that the implementation process (1991–2003) produced different results and impacts: it helped to develop technical capacities of environmental agencies in both countries, increased the political power of Brazilian environmental agencies to control UTPM, and pushed for behavioral changes to enable UTPM to respond to the demands of both governments.     

环境污染刑罚的立法缺陷及完善建议

刑法第338条应修改补充为两款,对两种不同罪过形式的行为在罪名和量刑上加以区分,以充分体现刑法罪刑相适应原则的要求,更好地保护人类赖以生存的自然环境。     

Perceived justice of ecological policy and proenvironmental commitments

A model was outlined (i) to explain readiness to proenvironmental commitments and decisions in everyday life by six categories of predictor variables, including justice appraisals of pollution control, basic rights, appraisals of pollution, of pollution causation, of the efficacy of pollution control measures, and of ecological responsibility, and (ii) to generate hypotheses on the relationships between the predictor variables. Model variables were assessed by a questionnaire study (N=518) referring to the problem of air pollution. Proenvironmental commitments and decisions could be well predicted by morally relevant appraisals, especially by justice appraisals (e.g., approving proenvirommental laws, taxes, and subsidies, rejecting the justice of the current environmental policy and of mere appeals), whereas predictors representing self-protective motivations remained insignificant. Justice appraisals are in line with the “causation principle of justice”: Those who caused the pollution are made responsible for its reduction and should pay the costs for the pollution control. Results demonstrate that justice appraisals are essential determinants of people's ecologically relevant emotions, cognitions, and engagements. Moreover, they reveal that the responsibility for pollution control is not left with state and economy but is also regarded as a matter that concerns the citizens.     

《海诉法》中的直诉保险人制度

针对目前《海诉法》第97条的适用范围,从三个方面进行分析:在实体法中未规定保险人直接向受损害人支付保险赔款的义务时,受损害人直接向保险人提出的赔偿请求因没有实体法支持而无法实现;责任保险中,除法律的规定和保险合同的约定外,责任保险的保险人无义务直接向被保险人以外的第三人履行保险合同项下支付赔款的义务;中国目前的法律中对于直接诉讼保险人是设有条件的,尚无受损害人可以不受任何条件制约就可直接向保险人提出索赔的法律规定,并得出结论:《海诉法》第97条目前仅应适用于《1992年民事责任公约》规定适用的油污责任保险。     

Trends in suicide by carbon monoxide inhalation in King County, Washington: 1996-2009

Carbon monoxide (CO) inhalation is one of the leading methods of suicide in the United States. A sharp increase in suicide by inhaling the CO produced from burning charcoal has been reported in parts of Asia; however, the incidence of this method has not been determined in a U.S. population. Thus, we determined trends of CO suicide in the ethnically diverse population of King County, Washington, U.S.A. During the period 1996-2009, we identified 158 cases of suicide by CO poisoning, with 125 because of automotive exhaust, 26 because of charcoal burning, and seven from other CO sources. While historical U.S. data indicate >99% of CO suicides in the United States occurring by automobile exhaust inhalation, in the most recent years analyzed, c. 40% of CO-related suicides in King County, Washington, were because of charcoal burning, indicating a possible shift in suicide trends that warrants further scrutiny in additional populations.     

Upset over Air Pollution: Analyzing Upset Event Emissions at Petroleum Refineries

The Clean Air Act (CAA) controls routine emissions at petroleum refineries, by creating limits and penalties for excess emissions. The CAA offers provisions for upset events, air emissions released because of unforeseen or unavoidable circumstances, if companies report the emissions and take corrective action. States enforce upset event rules and many states provide exemptions for a variety of circumstances, which may allow upset emissions to become a substantial, yet mostly unregulated source of emissions. We catalog the quantity and type of emissions generated during upset events at 18 Texas petroleum refineries from 2003 to 2008. We find that upset events occur frequently at these facilities and are collectively large in magnitude, emitting a combined total of 75 million lbs of emissions. In a select number of cases, single upset events exceeded annual emissions reported to the Toxics Release Inventory. Future research should assess the accuracy of upset event reporting and impact of upset events on environmental health.     

The New World Order: A Deconstruction of the Nation-State and a Disaggregation of the “Mixed Political Economy”

The structure of the New World Order and its corresponding functions are becoming apparent. First, there will be a deconstruction of the nation-state. It will be bisected as power shifts to higher “macro-regional” levels on the one hand and lower “micro-regional” levels on the other. Second, there will be a disaggregation of the mixed political economy. It will be bifurcated as socialism is used at upper levels of human aggregation to alleviate pollution and as capitalism is used at lower levels to alleviate poverty.     

外商投资企业环境污染问题若干思考

我国加入 WTO后 ,根据市场准入原则和国民待遇原则 ,将会有更多的跨国公司进入我国开办外商投资企业。与此同时 ,部分外商投资企业可能利用我国环境立法等方面的漏洞转移污染风险 ,对此 ,我国必须依照有关环境保护法律积极应对 ,并且加快我国环境立法与国际接轨的进程。