Investments in Global Warming Mitigation: The Case of “Activities Implemented Jointly”

This paper examines bilateral cooperation between developed countries (home country) and developing countries (host country) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to enhance carbon dioxide sinks. With the home-host country pair as the unit of analysis, our logistic regression model examines 158 Activities Implemented Jointly (AIJ) investment projects from 1993 until 2002 across 2541 country-pairs. Because the marginal costs of reducing emissions may be lower in developing countries, the AIJ projects served as a policy laboratory to assess whether such investments might be advantageous to both countries in the event future regimes allowed emission credits from such bilateral projects. Instead of investing in home countries where maximum pollution reductions (or carbon sequestration) might be possible, home countries invest in locations where they can conduct their policy experiments at low transaction costs. Prior trade and aid relationships were used as a proxy. Regarding energy projects, location decisions are driven by home countries’ desire to reduce air pollution that they receive from abroad. Geography – proximity of a host country to a home country – in interaction with host country's coal production, is a very important driver of location decision in AIJ energy sector projects. Location of sequestration projects is impacted by the host country's potential for avoiding deforestation as well as by previous aid and trade patterns between a home and a host country. Proximity is not important in this case.     

我国公务员考核制度存在的问题及对策

《中华人民共和国公务员法》中公务员的考核制度存在诸多问题:比如考核标准过于笼统;没有解决考核内容,缺乏针对性;激励不显著;考核打乱了组织中的权责配置关系等。只有加强平时考核的力度,建立以绩效为核心的定期考核指标体系,加强考核工作的监督,公务员考核制度才可能得到进一步完善。     

论电子证据

电子证据是存储于特殊介质上用于证明案件真实情况的数据信息。它不同于传统的任何一种证据形式 ,具有高度精确性、复合性、脆弱性的特征。从学理和比较法的角度出发 ,在对电子证据的证据能力和证明力进行深入分析的基础上 ,我国应将电子证据列为证据法中的独立的证据形式。     

Regulatory Commitment to Negotiated Agreements: Evidence from the United States, Germany, The Netherlands, and France

Negotiated Agreements (NAs) are arrangements between firms and regulators in which firms voluntarily agree to reduce their pollution. This article analyzes the institutional features that facilitate or hamper the implementation of NAs. We illustrate the analysis with case studies on the implementation of NAs in the United States, Germany, the Netherlands, and France. We find that NAs are implemented when regulators are able to commit credibly to the objectives of NAs. Institutional environments marked by fragmentation of power and open access in policymaking reduce regulatory credibility and thus hamper the implementation of NAs.     

Commonwealth Small States,Education and Environmental Uncertainty: Learning from the Sharp End

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the Commonwealth’s inclusive role in engaging with the distinctive challenges of education provision in small states, an agenda that is often neglected elsewhere. We examine the origins of Commonwealth work on education in small states, the nature of its comparative advantage, its role in facilitating small states’ engagement with international education dialogue and regional co-operation, and the demand and potential for ongoing Commonwealth support for education. Particular attention is given to experience within the Caribbean region and to the potential for the Commonwealth and the wider international community to learn from small states in the light of their distinctive educational challenges, achievements and priorities – and, most notably, their experience at the ‘sharp end’ of environmental uncertainty and climate change.     

加快农业结构调整步伐促进贵州民族地区经济跨越式发展

党的十六大报告高举邓小平理论伟大旗帜,全面贯彻"三个代表"重要思想,确立了经济、政治、文化等各项建设任务,把农业结构调整放在优先位置.这是今后贵州农村工作特别是贵州少数民族地区农村工作的重要指导方针和行动纲领,是贵州民族地区经济跨越式发展的必由之路.     

The Evolving Structure of the Environmental Justice Movement in the United States: New Models for Democratic Decision-Making

Over the last two decades in the United States, mainstream environmental organizations have reduced, rather than increased, democratic participation by citizens in environmental problem-solving. The environmental justice movement, on the other hand, has served to enlarge the constituency of the environmental movement by incorporating poorer communities and oppressed people of color into environmental decision making process; build community capacity by developing campaigns and projects that address the common links between various social and environmental problems; and facilitate community empowerment by emphasizing grassroots organizing over advocacy. This paper outlines the different components in the environmental justice movement. It is our contention that if researchers and policymakers continue to conceive of the ecological crisis as a collection of unrelated problems, then it is possible that some combination of regulations, incentives, and technical innovations can keep pollution and resource destruction at tolerable levels for more affluent socioeconomic populations. However, poor working class communities and people of color which lack the political–economic resources to defend themselves will continue to suffer the worst abuses. However, if the interdependency of issues is emphasized as advocated by the environmental justice movement, then a transformative environmental politics can be invented.     

环境社会系统发展学发轫

叶文虎教授在研究可持续发展基本理论的基础上,于1999年提出了"环境社会系统发展学"的思想和概念[1],并指出这将是一门划时代的新学科.本文论述了环境社会系统发展学创立的学术和时代背景,以及这门学科的现状,提出了它的基本问题、基本内容和研究方法.