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This article articulates the historical entanglement of Ireland's big tech ecosystem with earlier forms of economic development and state-sanctioned polluting practices, particularly focusing on strategies for attracting multinational companies since the 1960s. The outsourcing of polluting multinational industries to Ireland's rural regions has a long history, one tied into fault-lines of the country's postcolonial condition and developmental economy in the 1970s and 1980s. During this era of economic liberalisation, Ireland's environmental politics were frequently organised against the outsourcing of toxic chemical, pharmaceutical, and technological industries to rural Ireland. Ireland's position as a western European nation-state undoubtedly means that wealth accumulated via these industries merits complicity in the global supply chains sustaining "green" extractivism in the Global South. But rural Ireland also bears an uneven share of responsibility for these industries, whose destructive externalities are often imposed on these places through large-scale infrastructures. Historical struggles for environmental justice in these rural sites foreground access to land, livelihoods, health, and cultures of place. Contributing to recent debates on the colonial endurances of contemporary "green" development, we argue that these rural movements should be a starting point for a "just" transition attuned to anti-imperialist goals in Ireland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the strategic background of implementing the new development concept, there is an important question to be answered about whether the' responsibility to people' water pollution control policy can promote corporate green innovation while improving the environment. Based on the panel data of Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies from 2009 to 2019, this paper empirically tested the impact of the implementation of the river chief system on corporate green innovation using the multi-period DID method. This research concluded that the river chief system could significantly improve corporate green innovation. After a series of necessary tests, such as the parallel trend test and placebo test, the conclusion remained robust. The mechanism analysis showed that the policy effect of the river chief system was mainly realized through two channels, namely, internal incentive and external pressure, and that the effect of external pressure was stronger than that of internal incentive. Further research showed that the governance power of local river chiefs had a lax effect at the boundaries of prefecture-level cities, and the promotion incentives of officials also affected the policy effect to a certain extent. More importantly, under the policy background of the river chief system, local officials were more active in water pollution control and could also monitor enterprises far away from the rivers. In addition, the results of the heterogeneity analysis showed that: ① Compared with small enterprises, large enterprises received more attention from policymakers, and the river chief system had a stronger regulatory impact on large enterprises, whose green innovation level had a more significant improvement. ② Compared with private enterprises, state-owned enterprises responded more positively to the river chief system policy, and the green innovation output stimulated by the policy was higher. ③ Compared with other industries, enterprises in the water pollution industry were less affected by the river chief system policy. This paper found that these enterprises mainly dealt with environmental governance pressure by reducing production rather than focusing on green innovation. This study provides a policy basis for implementing the environmental regulation policy of' responsibility to people' and for realizing the dual goals of environmental protection and economic development. It also provides theoretical support and practical inspiration for the refined implementation of environmental regulation policies from multiple perspectives, such as internal incentives, external media supervision, and enterprise heterogeneity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Using the data of micro industrial enterprises and the quasi-natural experiment of the PNTR authorisation from the U.S. after China's accession to the WTO to investigate the impact of TPU decline on enterprise environmental performance. • Enterprises' SO2 emissions of enterprises in an industry with a large reduction in TPU after China obtained the PNTR authorisation from the U.S. will be reduced more than those of enterprises in an industry with less TPU reduction. • The decline in TPU helps reduce SO2 generation and strengthens enterprises' pollutants removal ability, thereby improving enterprises' front and terminal environmental performance. • The decline in TPU is conducive to improving enterprises' environmental performance under strong environmental regulation by local governments. Using the data of micro industrial enterprises and the quasi-natural experiment of the permanent normal trade relationship (PNTR) authorisation from the United States after China's accession to the World Trade Organization, this study investigates the impact of trade policy uncertainty (TPU) on enterprise environmental performance employing the difference-in-differences model. We found that the sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions of enterprises in an industry with a large reduction in TPU after China obtained the PNTR authorisation will be reduced more than those of enterprises in an industry with less TPU reduction. The decline in TPU helps reduce SO2 generation and strengthen enterprises' pollutants removal, thereby improving enterprises' front and terminal environment performance. Under strong environmental regulation by local governments, the decline in TPU is conducive to improving enterprises' environmental performance. The impact of TPU decline mainly exists in the enterprises of high pollution industries, non-state-owned and the eastern area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China' s goal of achieving peak carbon emissions by 2030 is the fundamental foundation for its scheduled achievement of carbon neutrality by 2060. Taking 280 prefectural-level cities in China from 2006 to 2019 as the research object and the achievement of the carbon peak goal by 2030 as the rigid constraint, this study proposed the logic of 'symbiosis-co-governance-sharing' and focused on the characteristics of symbiosis on carbon emissions and air pollution. On the basis of the quantitative decomposition of the annual goal of reaching peak carbon emissions and the identification of the profit and loss deviation on both carbon emissions and air pollution, this study examined the co-governance synergistic effects of carbon and air pollution and the sharing paths. The results showed that: (1) The goal of reaching peak carbon emissions played a significant synergistic role in reducing pollution and carbon emissions, which could promote the development of cities from deviation to balance and optimization and promote the urban function of making ' bad to good, good to better, and better to best, (2) The synergistic effects of the carbon peak goal on reducing pollution and carbon emissions showed a significant heterogeneous selection effect. In China' s western cities, resource-based cities, environmental protection key cities, and first-mover cities, these effects played a more important role and had a stronger influence. (3) The sharing paths of the synergistic effects lay in the dual perspectives of 'internal' and 'external' source management-process control-end-of-pipe blocking and the dynamic matching of external environmental policy uncertainty. In the continuous promotion of the ' dual carbon' goals, close attention should be paid to carbon reduction and the optimization of the design of multiple sharing paths to enhance the synergistic effects of carbon and pollution reduction. In specific, we should: (1) strengthen source management, control total fossil energy consumption at the source, adjust industrial structure, and focus on energy saving and consumption reduction; (2) strictly control process management, investigate the pollution transfer phenomenon caused by differences in environmental regulation levels and the consequences of profit and loss deviation, and promote the construction of green transportation system through multi-wheel drive; (3) highlight end-of-pipe blocking, implement the whole process of governance, monitoring, and emission reduction, enhance green innovation and fully utilize carbon reduction and sink increase; (4) use dynamic adjustment to achieve internal and external matching and timely implement environmental policies according to local conditions so as to achieve adjustment and precise regulations on time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Passively waiting for the natural appearance of a turning point in the Environmental Kuznets Curve is no longer the appropriate attitude for coping with the increasing environmental pressures. The present study selected the provincial legislation regarding environmental protection as the current measurements of environmental policies. Then, tests were conducted in order to determine whether or not the current environmental policies were empirically conducive for reducing industrial pollution emission intensities using the provincial panel data for the period ranging from 2005 to 2014. The results indicated that the introduction and implementation of environmental policies could significantly reduce industrial pollution emission levels. However, such obvious inhibitions caused by the environmental policies regarding pollution emission reductions were found to be highly dependent on the marketization processes and environmental behaviors of the government. Furthermore, it was revealed in this research investigation that the effectiveness of the environmental policies for pollution reduction was related to regional environmental quality. The findings of this study bear important policy implications in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the increasingly serious problem of environmental pollution, environmental governance in various countries is constantly improving. To open the black box of environmental governance, this study assesses whether and how environmental target constraints affect pollution emissions from the perspective of firms' behavior. Based on the exogenous impact of including environmental performance in officials' evaluations, the continuous difference-in-differences (DID) method was used. Benchmark analysis showed that the environmental target constraint policy effectively reduced the SO 2 emissions of firms, especially polluting firms, and inhibited the emission of other air pollutants, exerting a collaborative governance effect on multiple pollutants. Expansion analysis showed that the environmental target constraint policy was beneficial for optimizing the energy structure and strengthening the pollution control of firms. However, the environmental target constraint policy did not effectively promote the green technology innovation of Chinese industrial firms. In addition, as a result of environmental target constraints, the distribution of the SO 2 emission intensity of firms in each region tended to be uniform through an asymmetric impact on the entry and exit behavior of firms with different pollution levels. This study presents an objective foundation for developing an effective pollution control policy framework for other countries, especially developing countries. [Display omitted] • The black box of environmental governance is opened based on firms' behavior. • Environmental policy optimizes energy input and strengthens end treatment. • Environmental policy has an asymmetric impact on different firms. • The continuous difference-in-differences method is used in the policy analysis. • An effective pollution control policy framework is developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]