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This section briefly describes the significant political initiatives and acts of legislation in the environmental field adopted in the period from May 2021 until February 2022.

Diane Wilson, a fourth-generation shrimper, had a life-changing experience in 1989 after she read a newspaper story about her native Calhoun County, Texas. The article reported on a study that Calhoun was one of the most polluted areas in the country due to the illegal practices of Formosa Plastics, a major multinational corporation.1 With this information, Wilson decided to act in order to protect her community; she founded the Calhoun County Resource Watch (CCRW) to stop Formosa from discharging toxins into the Gulf of Mexico.

In the context of green finance, whether listed companies in heavily polluting industries can convert the external pressure of environmental information disclosure into internal motivation is critical to achieving environmental governance goals. This paper selects 946 listed companies of 16 heavily polluting industries in the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets as samples to explore whether environmental information disclosure can help companies increase bank credit support and reduce debt financing costs to transform their external pressures into internal motivation. The empirical results show that there is a significant positive correlation between environmental information disclosure and bank credit decisions. From the perspective of financing scale, heavily polluting companies have the inherent motivation to disclose environmental information actively and proactively to obtain more credit support. There is no significant relationship between the corporate debt financing cost and environmental information disclosure. This paper puts forward some critical policy suggestions for government decision makers, heavily polluting enterprises and financial institutions.

The Great Lakes contain most of the United States’ surface freshwater and provide deep personal and economic connections for the residents of the region. These connections create an opportunity for bipartisanship in environmental policies with the potential to permeate energy policies. To explore that possibility, this paper examines how party affiliation affects support for water policy and energy policy in the Great Lakes region of the United States. Data from the Great Lakes Region Public Opinion Survey asked 696 Republicans, Independents, and Democrats from the Great Lakes region to respond to a range of environmental policy prompts. Responses to the policy prompts are grouped into four components: Water Quality, Water Diversions, Traditional Fuels, and Renewables. The results find that there is bipartisan support for the Water Quality and Water Diversions components. Energy policies do not receive the same bipartisan support, with Democrats and Independents having more support for the Renewables component while Republicans have more support for the Traditional Fuels component. However, when the fuel source is tied to its pollutants of the Great Lakes, then reactions to that fuel source receive a bipartisan response. The results of this research suggest that embedding water policy in energy policy may allow those policies to receive more bipartisan support. Combining water policy and energy policy can depolarize some of the politics surrounding environmental policy broadly.

Food system is a powerful concept for understanding and responding to nutrition and sustainability challenges. Food systems integrate social, economic, environmental and health aspects of food production through to consumption. Aquatic foods are an essential part of food systems providing an accessible source of nutrition for millions of people. Yet, it is unclear to what degree research across diverse disciplines concerning aquatic foods has engaged food systems, and the value this concept has added. We conducted a systematic review of fisheries, aquaculture and aquatic food literature (2017–2019) to determine the following: the characteristics of this research; the food systems components and interrelations with which research engaged; and the insights generated on nutrition, justice, sustainability and climate change. Sixty five of the 88 reviewed articles focussed on production and supply chains, with 23 considering human nutrition. Only 13% of studies examined low- and middle-income countries that are most vulnerable to undernutrition. One third of articles looked beyond finfish to other aquatic foods, which illuminated values of local knowledge systems and diverse foods for nutrition. When aggregated, reviewed articles examined the full range of food system drivers—biophysical and environmental (34%), demographic (24%) and socio-cultural (27%)—but rarely examined interactions between drivers. Future research that examines a diversity of species in diets, system-wide flows of nutrients, trade-offs amongst objectives, and the nutritional needs of vulnerable social groups would be nudging closer to the ambitions of the food systems concept, which is necessary to address the global challenges of equity, nutrition and sustainability.

Global agriculture consumes substantial resources and produces significant pollution. By shifting its production to new locations, and inducing changes in technology and input use, trade has a substantial impact on environmental sustainability of the world's food systems, but due to suboptimal environmental policy, the exact nature of these impacts is in dispute. We review the literature on agricultural trade and environmental sustainability, highlighting the different approaches taken in ecology versus economics. While useful in identifying environmental costs, much of the ecological literature does not compare these costs to a trade-free counterfactual and can therefore be misleading. Further, by moving production to places with more resources and increasing production efficiency, trade can reduce the environmental impact of food production. On the other hand, trade can also limit the effectiveness of domestic environmental policy because production can be shifted to countries with less stringent regulations. However, recently, consumers are leveraging trade policy to induce exporters to improve environmental sustainability. While such policies are gaining traction in wealthy countries, evidence suggests that such measures will not reach their potential without buy-in from decision makers in the countries where the environmental damages are occurring.

Governments around the world are seeking to achieve socially just transitions to environmentally sustainable modes of agricultural production. Policy makers have increasingly sought to engage an array of societal actors in the collaborative design and implementation of associated policies, which we refer to as Agri-Environmental Policy (AEP) initiatives. Yet, the existing literature includes little context specific exploration of the motivations of those who engage with such initiatives. This paper addresses this gap by exploring the motivations of a small group of actors who established and coordinated a collaborative group to apply to one AEP initiative in Ireland – the European Innovation Partnership for Agricultural Productivity and Sustainability (EIP-AGRI). This group included three farmers, an agri-environmental policy advocate, and a research scientist. Drawing on assemblage literature, we illustrate how each of these actors' motivations emerged 1) based on the specific relationships in which they operated and 2) based on their imagining of potential future scenarios, which they sought to actualise through EIP-AGRI. This paper thus provides a qualitative account of how motivations emerge as different actors creatively navigate complex sets of relationships. We illustrate the utility of an assemblage approach to explore such motivations in ways that account for specific contexts and the capacity of each actor to engage with possible futures. We conclude that the capacity of collaborative approaches to AEP to appeal to actors from different backgrounds relies heavily on such actors’ ability to envisage and anticipate new possibilities. This line of exploration helps us to better understand the extent to which collaborative AEP may align the multiple goals associated with transitioning to environmentally sustainable and socially just food production systems.

Jointly with the Global North, the rise of the Global South has come at a high cost to the environment. Driven by its high energy intensity and the use of fossil fuels, the South has contributed a significant portion of global emissions during the last 30 years, and is now contributing some 63% of today's total GHG emissions (including land-use change and forestry). Similar to the Global North, the Global South's emissions are heavily concentrated: India and China alone account for some 60% and the top 10 countries for some 78% of the group's emissions, while some 120 countries account for only 22%. Without highlighting such differences, it makes little sense to use the term 'Global South'. Its members are affected differently, and contribute differently to global climate change. They neither share a common view, nor do they pursue joint interests when it comes to international climate negotiations. Instead, they are organised into more than a dozen subgroups of the global climate regime. There is no single climate strategy for the Global South, and climate action will differ enormously from country to country. Furthermore, just and equitable transitions may be particularly challenging for some countries.

With increasing global pressure on transition to carbon neutrality, various technical and policy efforts such as emission trading scheme and carbon tax are being made to improve energy productivity. Yet, there are not many literatures that analyze determinants of firm-level energy productivity, which is an important issue as energy use in industry accounts for one fourth of global carbon emission. This study investigates factors affecting energy productivity such as technology innovation, environmental policy and energy price based on firm-level data from the Korean Emission Trading Scheme (KETS). The total factor energy productivity is estimated by industry based on stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) and panel data analysis is performed to identify determinants of firm-level energy productivity. The results show that energy productivity in Korea has been improved since 2016, and technical progress and environmental policy play an important role in promoting energy productivity. In addition, analysis identifying industry-specific characteristics is performed as their production process and energy consumptions structures vary. The result shows that innovation activity does not significantly affect energy productivity in process industries, but it does in the assembling and high technology industries. This paper implies that policy design reflecting industry-specific characteristics is important to improve energy efficiency more effectively.

One of the most critical problems of today is the environmental policies with the focus on economy. Despite the many efforts of global organizations, environmental pollution is the subject of human beings. For this, the most polluting countries attract the attention of researchers. Many studies produce economy-centered environmental policies for the USA. However, the asymmetric effect of natural resources on environmental pollution has been neglected in the literature. In this paper, the effects of economic growth, renewable energy, biocapacity, and natural resources on the ecological footprint are addressed within the framework of the Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis over the period 1980-2017. Empirical findings confirm that economic growth and biocapacity increase environmental degradation, while renewable energy consumption helps reduce environmental damage. More specifically, when the results are analyzed in terms of natural resources, positive shocks in natural resources contribute to reducing environmental damage, while negative shocks in it negatively affect the environmental quality. The paper presents important policy implications for economy-centered environmental issues.

As the digital economy develops rapidly and the network information technology advances, new development models represented by the network economy have emerged, which have a crucial impact on green economic growth. However, the relevant previous studies lacked the role of analyzing the direct and indirect effects of internet development on green economic growth at the prefecture-level city level. For this purpose, this paper aims to examine the intrinsic mechanism of the impact of internet development on green economic growth and provide empirical support for cities and regions in China to increase internet construction. Furthermore, the mixed model (EBM), which includes both radial and non-radial distance functions, is applied to calculate the green economic growth index. Fixed effect model and mediation effect model are also employed to test influence mechanisms of the internet development on green economic growth using panel data of 269 prefecture-level cities in China from 2004 to 2019. The statistical results reveal that internet development has contributed significantly to green economic growth. When the internet development level increases by 1 unit, the green economic growth level increases by an average of 5.0372 units. However, regional heterogeneity is evident between internet development and green economic growth, that is, the promoting effect of internet development on green economic growth is gradually enhanced from the eastern region to the western region. We also find that internet development guides industrial structure upgrading improves environmental quality and accelerates enterprise innovation, which indirectly contributes to green economic growth. And internet development mainly achieves green economic growth through enterprise innovation. Based on the above findings, we concluded that policymakers should not only strengthen the guiding role of social actors to promote the stable development of the internet industry, but also foster the construction of the three models of "internet+industry integration," "internet+environmental governance," and "internet+enterprise innovation" to promote green economic growth.

At present, the state of the economy of the agricultural sector in many countries of the world, including in the countries of the European Union (EU), inherent in developed industry, has led to the transition to a new environmentally oriented agricultural policy. An important role is assigned to state support of agricultural producers, through subsidies, preferential credit policy, and in some countries, the complete abolition of taxation of entrepreneurial activity in rural areas, which confirms the relevance and national economic significance of the article. In domestic agroeconomic science and practice, there is no scientific concept of state participation in the process of bringing the agricultural sector out of the crisis. Research objectives – consider the development policy of the agricultural sector of the EU countries; study the level of state support for agricultural producers. The purpose of the work is to consider the degree of development of the agricultural policy of the EU countries in the context of ensuring food security. The methods and methodology of the research were general scientific, particular methods of cognition, including the historical and logical, the method of observation and comparison. Shows the main approaches to state regulation of the development of the agro-industrial sector at the level of the European Union as a whole and in the context of member countries; characteristic features and principles that determine the success and integrity of a unified agricultural policy; factors contributing to the productivity of agricultural land; agro-ecological requirements restricting the import of genetically modified products; the main tasks in the development of a new policy of the agrarian sector of the economy; priority directions of regulation of measures to support agricultural producers, integrated development of rural areas, increasing the competitiveness of the EU agricultural sector. The practical significance of the work lies in the fact that this study will allow the state bodies of Belarus to better understand how it is necessary to form an agricultural policy in the context of ensuring food security.

Made available in DSpace on 2022-04-28T19:42:34Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2021-10-01 The Tocantins-Araguaia Basin is one of the largest river systems in South America, located entirely within Brazilian territory. In the last decades, capital-concentrating activities such as agribusiness, mining, and hydropower promoted extensive changes in land cover, hydrology, and environmental conditions. These changes are jeopardizing the basin’s biodiversity and ecosystem services. Threats are escalating as poor environmental policies continue to be formulated, such as environmentally unsustainable hydropower plants, large-scale agriculture for commodity production, and aquaculture with non-native fish. If the current model persists, it will deepen the environmental crisis in the basin, compromising broad conservation goals and social development in the long term. Better policies will require thought and planning to minimize growing threats and ensure the basin’s sustainability for future generations. Núcleo de Estudos Ambientais Universidade Federal do Tocantins (UFT) Programa de Pós Graduação em Ecologia de Ambientes Aquaticos Continentais (PEA) Universidade Estadual de Maringá (UEM) Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi Grupo de Estudos em Leishmanioses Instituto René Rachou Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (FIOCRUZ) Universidade Estadual Paulista “Júlio de Mesquita Filho” Museu de Zoologia e Taxidermia José Hidasi Universidade Estadual do Tocantins (Unitins) Departamento de Ecologia Universidade Federal de Goiás (UFG) Laboratório de Ictiologia Departamento de Biologia Universidade Federal de Sergipe (UFS) Laboratório de Paleontologia e Evolução Curso de Geologia Universidade Federal de Goiás (UFG) Departamento de Ecologia Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) Universidade Federal de Goiás (UFG) Laboratório de Biogeografia e Ecologia Aquática Universidade Estadual de Goiás Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Herbário do Tocantins Núcleo de Estudos Ambientais Universidade Federal do Tocantins (UFT) Laboratório de Ictiologia Sistemática Núcleo de Estudos Ambientais Universidade Federal do Tocantins (UFT) Departamento de Zoologia Universidade de Brasília Researcher Departamento de Ecologia Universidade de Brasília (UnB) Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia (INPA) Laboratório de Ecologia de Peixes e Invasões Biológicas Universidade Estadual de Londrina (UEL) Laboratório de Entomologia Universidade Federal do Tocantins (UFT) Universidade Federal de Pelotas (UFPel) Environmental Sciences Program-CIAMB Universidade Federal de Goiás (UFG) Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso (UFMT) Campus Universitário do Araguaia Laboratório de Microbiologia Universidade Federal do Tocantins (UFT) Fundação Brasileira para o Desenvolvimento Sustentável (FBDS) & Universidade Federal de Goiás (UFG) Laboratório de Ecologia e Zoologia (LABECZ) Universidade Federal do Tocantins (UFT) Laboratório de Ecologia de Peixes Departamento de Ecologia Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (UERJ) Laboratório de Análise e Síntese em Biodiversidade Departamento de Botânica Universidade Federal do Paraná (UFPR) Secretaria de Estado da Educação de Goiás-(Seduc-GO) UNISANTA PPGECOMAR Universidade Federal do Tocantins (UFT) Laboratório de Paleobiologia Universidade Federal do Tocantins (UFT) Departamento de Ecologia e Conservação Universidade Federal de Lavras (UFLA) Laboratório de Caracterização de Impactos Ambientais (LCIA) Universidade Federal do Tocantins (UFT) Embrapa Cerrado Instituto de Biodiversidade e Sustentabilidade Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ecologia Universidade Federal do Pará (UFPA) Laboratório de Análises Geoambientais (LGA) Universidade Federal do Tocantins (UFT) Centro de Biologia Aquática Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Goiás Laboratório de Biodiversidade Universidade Evangélica de Goiás Escola de Ciências Agrárias e Biológicas Pontifícia Universidade Católica (PUC) Laboratório de Genética & Biodiversidade - ICB/UFG Núcleo de Pesquisas em Limnologia Ictiologia e Aquicultura (Nupelia) Universidade Estadual de Maringá (UEM) Departamento de Direito Universidade Federal do Tocantins (UFT) Núcleo de Estudos e Pesquisas Ambientais e Limnológicas (Nepal) Universidade de Brasília (UnB) Laboratório de Ecologia e Conservação (LEC) Universidade Federal do Paraná (UFPR) Coordenação de Biodiversidade Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia (INPA) Universidade Estadual Paulista “Júlio de Mesquita Filho”

BACKGROUND: Many heavy industrial clusters have become the largest emission source of air pollutants in China, and the excessive overflow of pollutants occurs sometimes. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to explore the relationship between the changes in ambient air quality and the health risk of residents under the joint action of industrial agglomeration and environmental policies, and analyze the impact of industrial clusters and environmental policies on air quality. METHODS: Shanghai is taken as an example, and the industrial structure, economic changes, and environmental policies are discussed, the impact of air quality change on the health of residents in Shanghai is analyzed, and the exposure risk and health risk of Shanghai residents are evaluated. RESULTS: Among the 16 districts of Shanghai, Minhang district has the densest population, and there are many industrial areas in Qingpu district, Songjiang district, and Baoshan district. Among the four areas, the Minhang area has the highest exposure risk. Qingpu area has the highest total exposure intensity, and the Baoshan area has the lowest exposure intensity. Air pollution slowly affects human health that when air quality is improved, health risks still exist. The impact of PM2.5 on the life expectancy of residents in Shanghai is compared with that of Guangzhou, and it is found that the life expectancy loss of residents in Shanghai is greater than that in Guangzhou. CONCLUSIONS: Comprehensive analysis of industrial clusters and environmental policies combined with ambient air quality data plays an important role in understanding residents’ health risks, optimizing industrial structure adjustment, and improving ambient air quality.

Policy processes traditionally dominated by government increasingly are open to participation by diverse non-governmental actors. This can result in more inclusive policy making, but undue influenc...

This paper contributes to the understanding of how the environment, ethics, values, and historical contingencies shape public policy. It explains the accomplishment of petroleum resource management in the small open economy of Norway. The study is conducted by mapping policy decisions and the arguments behind them regarding environmental and ethical issues. This is done by studying available governmental and parliamentary papers along with statements from politicians and central governmental officials. The paper also seeks to illuminate some of the decisions by quantitative measures. The paper firstly describes a model of Ricardian resource rent. Secondly, it investigates the set of values that were in place before the petroleum production started in the 1970s, as described in public documents. An important argument was to build a “qualitatively better society” for the benefit of the people. Thirdly, it traces the historical roots of these values by examining historical sources.The main findings are that success lies in understanding the ethics behind the environmental resource rent harvesting of this non-renewable natural resource. The paper concludes that the focus on the natural environment and resource rent management can be attributed to popular values built on historical traditions. According to them, the state and the trust between the state and its citizens played key roles in shaping the policy. The careful policy can be illustrated by the fact that Norway has managed to build one of the largest sovereign funds in the world worth USD 1,200 billion for use by future generations. Only 3% of its value, significantly less than its historical net profit, should be used annually.

The unequal cost and benefit led by environmental changes may potentially set China's rural areas a "Poverty Trap." Therefore, clarifying the relationship between environmental changes and rural income distribution is of great significance to realize the organic integration of environmental improvement and poverty governance. Based on the panel data of China's coastal areas, this paper explores the mutual influence between environmental changes and fishermen's income distribution, thus testing the hypothesis of the poverty-environment trap. The results show that environmental degradation has a significant negative impact on fishermen's income. To be specific, compared with the middle- and high-income groups, the impact of environmental degradation on people with less income is more noticeable; as for the low-income groups represented by fishermen, the marginal effects of their income reduction on environmental degradation are more prominent; continuous decrease of their income together with environmental deterioration will form a vicious circle, bringing the risk of falling into the poverty-environment trap. In the follow-up environmental governance, authorities need to impose targeted measures and adopt tax or subsidy policies that are inclusive and preferential, so as to address the income gaps between fishermen and further relative poverty.

The fact of the Japanese economic miracle is rarely associated with the environmental crisis. Getting out of this crisis might be considered as another Japanese miracle – the ecological one, which turned the country into an area of a harmony between man and nature. This unique phenomenon is usually associated with traditions of Shinto, but this is only one part of the national realities. Another part is connected with the beneficial effects of the eco-cultural revolution of recent decades. Development of environmental education was the most important component. This article presents the results of a study of higher environmental education in Japan, which has acquired a nationwide scale and has become an important link in the state environmental policy. This is precisely the mission of environmental education – to be the most important tool for ensuring the ecological culture of environmental professionals and the entire population of the country in a whole. The empirical basis of the study is provided by thematic publications in Japanese, English and Russian, materials from targeted surveys and interviews of Japanese universities’ teachers within the framework of the project of the Russian Geographical Society, as well as a diverse authors’ experience of communication with employees and students of Japanese universities over the past 10 years. The aim of the study is to identify the features of the development of higher environmental education in Japan and the specifics of its current stage. The most important of these features are the development of universal environmental education in the country; systematic “greening” of higher education; a synthesis of national cultural traditions and scientifically based innovations; creation of an attractive image of environmental specialties; using environmental education as a platform for the paradigm of an education for sustainable development. The revealed features convince that Japanese society is aware of the high price of environmental costs, while considering environmental education as a decisive factor in its optimization. In this regard, the original Japanese practice of higher environmental education is of undoubted interest for other countries of the world including Russia.

This paper measures the effects on carbon emissions of production scale, composition, technological use, and environmental policy to elucidate the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis, synthesising the propositions of Grossman and Krueger, Q J Econ, 110(2), 353-377 (1995) and Brock and Taylor (2005) for the case of seventy-seven regions of the Russian Federation from 1999 to 2015. To this end, we apply dynamic threshold regression due to its robustness in addressing non-linear asymmetry and unobserved individual heterogeneity issues. Our empirical investigation demonstrates that the gross regional products (GRP) per capita play a threshold role in supporting the EKC hypothesis and non-monotonic scale effect. Modern technologies used in production appear to be the driving factor in explaining the declining portion of EKC and corroborating the technology effect proposition. Our finding also affirms the effect of composition, as the impacts of energy and technology vary with regional economic growth orientations (e.g. among manufacturing, agricultural, mining, and trade zones). Environmental policy stringency is found to be effective in curbing regional carbon emissions. We provide several policy implications based on the results.

As a new and cost-effective renewable energy power generation technology, offshore wind power is getting more and more attention. The development of offshore wind power industry is affected by policy-making, technology management, resources and environment, market supply and demand, and the relationship among the influencing factors is complex. This paper analyzes the factors that affect offshore wind power industry from a unique and comprehensive perspective. Fourteen factors are selected and interpretative structural model (ISM) is established to study the relationship between the influencing factors of offshore wind power industry. The results show that 14 influencing factors can be divided into five levels: the first level is the surface factors, including the economic incentive policy, operation mechanism, industrial chain, energy market mechanism, investment, and financing mechanism; the second and third levels are the intermediate factors, including generation cost, operation management, and offshore wind power technology; the fourth and fifth levels are deep-seated factors, including development planning and grid price, site selection, R&D investment, environmental protection policy, and offshore wind power supply. Deep-seated factors have a direct impact on the intermediate factors, the intermediate factors have an important impact on the surface factors, and the surface factors directly affect the development of offshore wind power industry. The influence of the 14 factors selected in this paper on offshore wind power industry is from bottom to top, from deep to shallow.

For a long time, fishery-independent surveys were only carried out by scientists. On-going criticism by Dutch fishers on the North Sea beam trawl survey prompted scientists to invite fishers on board. Since 2007, fishers have annually joined the survey as observers. Observing all steps in the survey like rigging the gear, the selection of fishing locations, catch sorting, and data registration enables fishers to provide feedback based on their experience instead of preconceptions. Where possible, their suggestions for improvements are incorporated. Since fishers joined, the nature of discussions about the survey has changed to being constructive. The fishing industry's trust in survey methods, results, and the scientific crew increased. Scientists gained a better understanding of the importance of the survey for fishers' livelihoods. The observers also inspired continuous scientific scrutiny of the survey, its setup, and objectives. We describe the process of incorporating fishers in a fishery-independent survey, its benefits, and challenges. We show how perceptions about the survey changed. Allowing stakeholders behind the scenes of a survey and taking their expertise into account contributes to a more reciprocal relation in the co-production of knowledge through collaborative research and increases legitimacy. We propose guidelines for involving stakeholders without compromising the survey's and professional credibility.

Annual emissions from commercial aviation are forecast to reach 1820 MtCO2 by mid-century, where carbon-neutral growth would demand near full substitution of petroleum-based aviation fuels with alt...

The visibility of young people in climate change debates has risen significantly since the inception of the Fridays for Future movement, but little is known about the diversity of positions, perspectives and experiences of young people in Ireland, especially with respect to climate change adaptation planning. To close this knowledge gap, this article first interrogates key emergent spaces of public participation within the arena of climate action in Ireland in order to identify the extent of young people’s participation and whether any specific consideration is given to disadvantaged groups. It then tests the impacts of workshops specifically designed to support disadvantaged young people’s engagement with climate change adaptation which were rolled out with a designated Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools school in inner-city Dublin, Ireland. We found limited attention to public participation in climate change adaptation planning generally, with even less consideration given to engaging young people from disadvantaged communities. However, positive impacts with respect to enhanced knowledge of climate change science and policy processes emerged following participation in the workshops, providing the bedrock for a greater sense of self-efficacy around future engagement with climate action amongst the young people involved. We conclude that what is needed to help ensure procedural justice around climate action in Ireland are specific, relevant and interactive educational interventions on the issue of climate change adaptation; interventions which are sensitive to matters of place and difference.

Chile’s Northern Patagonia attracts thousands of tourists, who every summer venture to undertake a range of outdoor activities. In this article, we explore the local production of outdoor activities, by conceptualizing small-scale nature-based tours as a social practice. The study is based on empirical research, taking as a case study the development of the Marble Caves tour, an iconic destination in Northern Patagonia, Chile. The touring practice is analyzed based on the interplay of its material components, required competences and symbolic meanings. Our findings demonstrate that the persistence of the practice is particularly reliant on the competences of the tour operators, and on the abiotic nature of the tourist attraction. Fostering tour guide competences therefore contributes to the sustainability and performance of the practice. We contend that tourism policy interventions that aim to harmonize local development and environmental protection need to carefully analyze and take into account existing social practices.

Environmental policy in the European Union is a hot topic for both practitioners and researchers. Their interests are attracted mainly by the main tool of this policy—emissions trading within the E...

Product-as-a-service business models have been strongly promoted to support a transition to a circular economy. Prams for babies are an ideal product for this type of business model since they are widely used, are mature products, have established design cycles, and are very durable. A cradle-to-grave life cycle assessment was conducted to compare the environmental impacts of the pram rental business model and the traditional pram ownership business model to serve all children born in Singapore over a period of 5 years. The results revealed that the total environmental impacts of the rental business model were lower than the ownership business model by 29–46%, depending on the impact category. However, the impacts of the pram rental business model were shown to be higher than the ownership business model if rental prams undergo heavy cleaning more than 10 times per year. It is generally recommended that pram users rent a pram if the alternative choice is to own a pram, use it for only 3 years, and then dispose of it. This study provides policy recommendations focused on partnerships between government agencies and pram rental companies to facilitate greater collection, refurbishment, and recirculation of used prams in the market.

Ongoing and future hydroclimatic changes have large environmental and societal impacts. In terrestrial ecosystems, these changes are usually described with the terms ‘wetter’ and ‘drier’, which refer to the change in the quantity and/or presence of water, either as water fluxes or stocks. We conducted a literature review of almost 500 recent climate change studies to quantitatively investigate the consistency of the use of these terms across disciplines, regarding the hydroclimatic variables they are related to. We found that although precipitation is prevalently used to describe ‘wetter’ and ‘drier’ conditions, many other variables are also used to refer to changes in water availability between research fields, pointing to a varied perspective on the use of these terms. Some studies do not define the terms at all. In order to facilitate meta-analyses across disciplines, we therefore highlight the need to explicitly state which hydroclimatic variables authors are referring to. In this way, we hope that the terms ‘wetter’ and ‘drier’ used in scientific studies are easier to relate to hydroclimatic processes, which should facilitate the application by authorities and policy makers.

India's textile industry is among the largest in the world and contributes significantly to India's GDP and economic growth. As the second largest total exporter globally after China with more than...

When the process of urbanization has brought economic benefits in the Yangtze River Delta of China, environmental pollution becomes increasingly prominent. In order to achieve integrated sustainable green development and reduce the gap in environmental governance performance between regions, this study analyzed the environmental issues of provincial cities in Anhui Province from 2013 to 2017 in the urban agglomeration of Yangtze River Delta. Governance performance is analyzed and the evaluation index system framework is determined using the "pressure-state-response" model with the panel and spatial data. Based on the global principal component analysis method and spatial autocorrelation analysis, the environmental governance performance of Anhui Province has generally increased steadily from 2013 to 2017. The situation in northern Anhui is still developing in a good state. Southern Anhui is in a trend of rising first and then stabilizing, whereas central Anhui has a downward trend after a rapid rise; in terms of the spatial pattern, the overall situation is central Anhui > northern Anhui > southern Anhui. The urban spatial distribution pattern of the region shows a positive spatial correlation. Particularly, the performance levels of Maanshan City and Huainan City have been at a poor level for a long time, whereas Hefei and Huangshan have strong comprehensive environmental governance capabilities with average efficiency values of 0.55 and 0.47, respectively. Corresponding countermeasures have been proposed to rectify polluting enterprises and optimize structure of industries, increase scientific and technological investment and infrastructure construction, strengthen the radiation driving effects, and establish a pollution monitoring system. Based on all the analyses and resulted findings, we concluded the study with corresponding policy implications/suggestions and recommended countermeasures.

This paper reports on an exploratory case study to help facilitate a culture of dialogue in Japan. There is an emphasis on proposing methods for polyphonic dialogue among citizens, and between citizens and experts, to effectively manage the environment. This paper argues that a culture of dialogue is essential to pluralistic participatory environmental governance. A random sampling-based citizen dialogue-involving experts and citizens-regarding radioactive waste disposal was held in Japanese cities. Three proposed methods-politeness-based facilitation dialogue, evidence-based and position-explicit presentations by experts with differing views and experts reflecting in tandem with citizens engaged in dialogue-might lead to enhanced positive attitudes toward dialogue with others holding different views, as well as better internal self-deliberation. Attitudes for dialogue were measured empirically. The current research suggests that explicit treatment of pluralistic positions and views among citizens and experts would be a key factor for quality social learning and resilience for uncertainty.

Does environmental policy aiming to reduce deforestation induce displacement of existing agricultural activities? To shed light on this question, we exploit a difference-in-differences strategy with a distance-based treatment to examine whether two policies in the Brazilian Amazon, the Soy Moratorium and the Zero-Deforestation Cattle Agreements, have displaced production or deforestation into neighboring regions. Our results show evidence that the Soy Moratorium induced soy spillovers onto previously cleared land—mainly pasture—in the less regulated ecosystem. The spillovers from the Cattle Agreements, three years after the Soy Moratorium, resulted in increased deforestation.

Rationale: Lung function impairment is reportedly associated with elevated exposure to ambient fine particles (particulate matter ≤2.5 μm in aerodynamic diameter [PM2.5]). However, whether improvem...

This study aims to investigate the impact of economic growth, renewable energy consumption, nonrenewable energy consumption, industrialization, and environmental policy stringency on the ecological footprint in the BRICS countries over the period of 1995-2016. Series of the advanced econometric method, such as the novel dynamic seemingly unrelated regression (DSUR) method and the Dumitrescu and Hurlin panel causality tests, are employed for scrutinizing the estimations of the long-run and causal relationships among variables. The results suggested that the economic growth, renewable energy consumption, nonrenewable energy consumption, and industry have a positive relationship to the ecological footprint, while environmental policy stringency has been described in the BRICS countries as having a negative relationship with the ecological footprint. In addition, the bidirectional relationship is found between (i) the ecological footprint and economic growth and (ii) the ecological footprint and renewable energy consumption.

This article explores the reconfigurations of fish consumption practices in Myanmar in a context of rapid urbanization and changing availability of wild and farmed fish. Using a social practice lens, we analyze how everyday fish consumption practices change as people move from the rural Ayeyarwady Delta to Yangon city. We show how these reconfigurations are shaped by new routines in urban areas and the transition from capture fisheries to aquaculture. Our analysis reveals a growing detachment of consumers from production processes but, at the same time, a continuity in their everyday food routines through the upholding of “mother’s traditional cuisine”, and a general drive to preserve commensality. We demonstrate the value of using a social practices lens integrating micro- and meso-scale socio-cultural processes to understand dietary change by examining how rural-urban migration influence the sourcing, cooking, and eating of wild and farmed fish. These insights have implications for the everyday geography of consumption, including the persistence of socio-culturally appropriate food practices and the hybridisation of rural-urban food environments. As such, social practice approaches to the study of food consumption open up a means of understanding and even steering complex food system transitions in dynamically changing regions such as Southeast Asia.

Food systems analysis is increasingly being applied to understand relations between production, distribution, and consumption of food products, the drivers that influence the system, and the outcomes that show how well the food system performs on health and nutrition, on environmental sustainability, and on income and inclusiveness. Little attention has gone to the position of global export commodities, where production and consumption are far apart. Banana in Costa Rica and cocoa in Cote d’Ivoire were the subject of this study to find out what major drivers determine the functioning of these systems. Next to identifying drivers such as population growth and increased plant disease pressure, it was found that the typical far-away setting and different living conditions between producer and consumer countries required a special eye on governance as a tripartite arena (government, private sector, civil society) with their power relations, and on certification schemes as a driver that follows from corporate social responsibility. The certification schemes addressed cover all food system outcomes, although health and nutrition in a less conspicuous way. The descriptions of the functioning of the schemes were also linked to living wages and incomes for banana plantation workers in Costa Rica and cocoa smallholder farmers in Côte d’Ivoire. Although very meaningful, certification schemes so far do not prove to be a silver bullet, but they do have the potential, in combination with other measures, to help positive food system transformations.

The present study aims to address a disconnect between science and the public in the form of a potential misalignment in the supply and demand of information known as the usability gap. In this case, we explore the salience of marine meteorological (metocean) information as perceived by users in two Southern Hemisphere countries: South Africa and New Zealand. Here, the focus is not only on the perceptions, usability and uptake of extreme event forecasts but rather focused on general, routine forecast engagement. The research was conducted by means of a survey, designed around three research questions. The research questions covered topics ranging from forecasting tool ergonomics, accuracy and consistency, usability, institutional reputation, and uncertainties related to climate change (to name but a few). The online questionnaire was widely distributed to include both recreational and commercial users. The study focused on identifying potential decision-making cultures that uniquely impact coastal ocean users' information needs. Cultural consensus analysis (CCA) was used to investigate shared understandings and variations in perceptions within the total group of respondents as well as in sectoral and country-based subgroups. We found varying degrees of consensus in the whole group (participants from both countries and all sectors combined) versus different subgroups of users. All participants taken together exhibited an overall moderate cultural consensus regarding the issues presented but with some variations in perspectives at the country-level, suggesting potential subcultures. Analysing national and sectoral subgroups separately, we found the most coherent cultural consensus in the South African users' cohort, with strong agreement regardless of sectoral affiliation. New Zealand's commercial users' cohort had the weakest agreement with all other subgroups. We discuss the implications from our findings on important factors in service uptake and therefore on the production of salient forecasts. Several priorities for science-based forecasts in the future are also reflected on, considering anticipated climate change impacts. We conclude by proposing a conceptual diagram to highlight the important interplay between forecast product co-development and scientific accuracy/consistency.

The application of the green practice in hospitality is becoming more widespread and the awareness of its importance is growing every day. As hospitality belongs to the industry that uses different materials, energy sources and generates different types of waste, the concept of green restaurants is a good sustainable solution for this type of problem that affects the environment. Green restaurants have a great opportunity and chance to create a competitive advantage and thus improves the corporate image, through a more efficient environmental policy and reducing operating costs. The subject of this paper is the importance and application of the concept of the green practice in restaurant facilities. The task of the paper is to examine the employees of hospitality facilities on the territory of Novi Sad with the aim of researching the awareness among the employees about the importance of green restaurants and knowledge about them and the advantages they can achieve.

In the last decade, vegetable safety issues have received growing attention from both consumers and public authorities in China, as vegetable safety hazards pose a serious threat to public health. In 2017, the Industry &amp, Trade Bureau in China implemented a “Market Renovation Program”. This program includes the renovation of wholesale and wet markets, the formal registration of all stallholders in these markets and the introduction of a rapid test for pesticides residues. We apply the co-regulation framework to assess the implementation and results of the renovation program on the safety of vegetables. A mixed methods approach is used to investigate the effects of the renovation program. The qualitative study elaborates on the implementation of the renovation program and the behavioural changes of stakeholders in handling vegetables through interviews and field observations. The quantitative results confirm that the renovation program has a positive impact on vegetable safety. In conclusion, this study shows that the key factor for the success of the renovation program is the transition of authority from the local, public authority to the market management.

The demand for transparency in the mining sector has increased since the 1980s. Our study focused on the public reporting of four South African mining corporations and their disclosures on mine closure. South Africa was identified based on its history of mine abandonment. We found that reporting on mainstream environmental and financial matters, companies disclose little about the social aspects of mine closure. External reporting norms have evolved, with a widening scope of reporting themes presented in strategically parsimonious language. Reporting themes speak to where companies, and transparency initiatives, receive greatest external interest and much of the content in company sustainability reports appear to service this demand. This pattern is manifestly challenging for the social aspects of mine closure, where reporting is minimal and reveals little about the timing of proposed changes to the mine lifecycle, the anticipated societal effects, and how the company will address these.

This paper examines the phenomenon of “paradi-plomacy” and its implementation in international environmental policy. The genesis of the studied concept is traced in the process of the academic discussion of three approaches: Soldatos/Duchacek, Der Derian, Hoking. The practical implementation of this phenomenon in the framework of the work of paradiplomatic organizations in the field of envi-ronmental policy is considered. A comparative anal-ysis of the history of development and practical ac-tivities of two international organizations: Regions4 and Northern Forum is carried out. In general, given the objective differences and unique features, one can note common challenges for such structures in the form of a lack of political opportunities and lack of financial independence. Overcoming these limita-tions seems realistic only through their evolutionary integration into the global complex system of envi-ronmental policy: cooperation of paradiplomatic organizations with the system of international insti-tutions (UN and its structures, EU, EAEU, etc.); greater subordination within the global hierarchical structure; strengthening bottom-up mechanisms so that regional representatives have the opportunity to speak out and be heard on issues of importance to them.

Environmental regulations play an essential role in managing firm behavior and providing a reference point for the minimum standards of corporate environmental performance, yet certain firms fail to ensure their environmental performance meets these standards. This research focuses on public firms that the US government has penalized for violating environmental regulations and investigates whether these firms subsequently improved their environmental performance. Surprisingly, neither the receipt of a penalty for an environmental violation nor the imposition of a greater penalty was associated with improvements in environmental performance. Instead, a penalty for environmental violation predicted further, albeit mild, deterioration in environmental performance. While the existing literature has established that financial penalties deter most firms from committing environmental violations, this research contributes to this literature by revealing that these penalties fail to motivate firms that have violated environmental regulations to improve their environmental performance.

The Indian aviation industry has grown by over 20% annually in the past two years. It is likely to grow at a double digit growth rate in the coming decade. The stupendous rise in its economic activity has raked up concerns about its environmental impact. India has signed up for Carbon Offset and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA) in 2016, which is to be mandated from 2026. This article discerns the possible implications that such an environmental policy can have on the Indian aviation sector by modelling the impact of a prospective carbon tax on the domestic aviation sector.

Efforts to involve consumers in the transition towards sustainable diets often presume a degree of reflexivity on the concepts of health and sustainability in the minds of consumers ‘doing healthy and sustainable food’. Departing from the hypothesis that people with type 2 diabetes have been confronted with a physical health issue which has spurred some reflexivity around food consumption, we study how this reflexivity subsequently relates to sustainability in food practices, through the process of de- and reroutinization of mundane food practices. We take a practice-theoretical approach to compare and contrast reflexivity and performance in food practices, combining in-depth interviews with observations during food shopping and cooking. Our findings illustrate a diversity in the extent to which food practices are disrupted after being diagnosed with diabetes. We conclude that reflexivity is not necessarily inspired only by being diagnosed with a major health issue, but that there are more factors determining whether or not lifestyle changes actually take place, such as experiencing bodily discomforts and broader societal attention to lifestyle change. In terms of sustainability, positive environmental effects could be identified ‘piggybacking’ onto changes in practices that were performed towards a healthier diet, such as diversifying protein intake and eating less processed foods.

Background: The link between environmental sustainability, climate change, and health outcomes makes environmental sustainability an important topic for educators to include in nursing curricula. Method: Students completed a sustainability in nursing learning module, over a 4-week period, during which students created blog posts based on the learning materials and clinical practice observations. The Sustainability Attitudes in Nursing Survey questionnaire was incorporated to measure changes in student attitudes regarding sustainability. Results: Descriptive statistics indicated that students had higher average scores on the posttest for all variables except one measurement. Paired t -test results revealed statistically significant differences in nine sustainability attitude items in the pretest and posttest scores. These findings suggest that the intervention likely contributed to improved attitudes about sustainability in the workplace. Conclusion: Results of this study are promising because the brief intervention had a significant effect on practicing nurses' attitudes about sustainability in their work environments. [ J Nurs Educ. 2020;59(11):637–641.]

To design effective national policies for action against climate change is one of the great challenges of our time. In federal and decentralized countries, there is an additional complexity: such policies must be accepted, adopted, and implemented by the provinces, which are sovereign over their natural resources. From the comparative study of two key national environmental laws in Argentina, the National Law of Native Forests (LNBN) and the National Law of Glaciers (LNG), we ask: what are the necessary conditions for a national environmental policy to be adopted and implemented by provincial jurisdictions? We argue that the LNBN, unlike the LNG, was adopted and implemented by the provinces because it follows a vision of sustainable development, establishes mechanisms for the distribution of competences between the national and provincial states and proposes concrete incentives that encourage provincial involvement.