Search

This study attempts to identify the different priorities of environmental policy integration under a multilevel governance background in China. The subjects for analysis included the four‐level hierarchies of China's central government, the Yangtze River Delta, Shanghai, and Chongming eco‐island. NVivo 12 Plus software aided the content analysis of regional and urban nested hierarchy planning documents. The results represent environmental policy integration (EPI) priorities in different hierarchical levels and sectors, as well as the sectoral elaboration on prioritized policy instruments. In addition, the implications of the results in the process toward co‐work in multilevel governance of EPI are discussed. Though inconsistencies exist in EPI priorities, it is advised to design the coordinative vertical framework and approach these policy instruments cooperatively across multilevel governance. In the strategic co‐work relations, the four levels follow the same blueprint in their EPI. Regarding the interactions among multilevel ranks, the results show an inclination of being fueled by the central authority. However, how the local governmental levels will embody and enforce higher levels' priorities could depend on the different natural and societal conditions at each level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Compares the implementation process of two mitigation policies in Shanghai, China, 2011-2015 • Examines factors to explain the policies' divergent output - extent to which companies met the policy requirements • Identifies local government's normative power and the policies' designed flexibility as two key factors • Highlights the challenges of enforcing mitigation policies Abstract China has stepped up its efforts on abating pollution, saving energy and reducing emissions. Local government involvement is crucial. In the 12th Five-Year Plan period (2011–2015), Shanghai municipality's two main mitigation policies were the carbon-market pilot (emissions-trading scheme, ETS) and the 10,000 Enterprises Energy-Saving and Low-Carbon Actions (10,000 Programme). The ETS pilot achieved full compliance, whereas 15–17% of the 10,000 Programme's target entities fell short each year. This article compares how the government implemented the policies, seeking factors that can explain the outputs. The structured and focused comparison employs a policy-implementation process model, using data from written sources and semi-structured interviews in Shanghai and Beijing, 2015–2017. The government's normative power emerged as a major factor: the local ownership of the ETS pilot sent strong normative signals to target entities that it was important to complete the tasks required of them. Further, policy requirements for determining output were more detailed and less flexible in the 10,000 Programme than the ETS pilot, making full compliance difficult. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shanghai and Singapore are two economically vibrant Asian cities that have recently adopted creative/cultural economy strategies. In this article I examine new spatial expressions of cultural and economic interests in the two cities: state-vaunted cultural edifices and organically evolved cultural spaces. I discuss the simultaneous precariousness and sustainability of these spaces, focusing on Shanghai's Grand Theatre and Moganshan Lu and on Singapore's Esplanade—Theatres by the Bay and Wessex Estate. Their cultural sustainability is understood as their ability to support the development of indigenous content and local idioms in artistic work. Their social sustainability is examined in terms of the social inclusion and community bonds they engender; environmental sustainability refers to the articulation with the language of existing urban forms and the preservation of or improvements to the landscape. Although both Shanghai and Singapore demonstrate simultaneous precariousness and sustainability, Singapore's city-state status places greater pressure on it to ensure sustainability than does Shanghai, within a much larger China in which Beijing serves as the cultural hearth while Shanghai remains essentially a commercial center. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ideas of approximately 700 Chinese high school students (aged 11 to 16) from the city of Shanghai and Zhejiang Province have been investigated using a closed questionnaire to find out the extent to which they believed that various actions might help reduce global warming. The results show that students appear to have some understanding of the issue, with certain correct ideas increasing with age, and various incorrect ideas decreasing. Amongst the most popular ideas, however, were a number of misconceptions, some of which, alarmingly, increased in popularity with age. In the affective domain, a high proportion of students felt that responsibility for taking action against global warming should be shared between government, industries and the individual, with a high degree of willingness for more education and legislation to help overcome the problem. There was less support for taxation, individual or corporate, to help alleviate the problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]