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This article presents a systematic review of studies of the River Chief System (RCS). It utilizes a dataset comprising 363 high-quality papers published between 2009 and 2022, sourced from the Web of Science and the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), as the foundation for analysis. The primary research method employed is a literature review. Additionally, CiteSpace bibliometric software (v6.2.R2) is used to perform keyword analysis of RCS research. The key research findings include the following points. Firstly, research into RCS has undergone two phases. Secondly, the review presents several points emergent in the literature that have been the focus of much study, including governance logics, theoretical foundations, operational mechanisms, policy effects, and current challenges. Furthermore, the author identifies key trends in the evolution of RCS, such as public participation, the utilization of information technology, and the implementation of the Lake Chief System, Forestry Chief System, and Field Chief System, as well as the construction of a rule of law. Finally, the author suggests that international comparative studies and an inquiry into long-term mechanisms for the implementation of the RCS are needed. This paper provides the first systematic review of the growing literature on RCS, based on papers written in both Chinese and English. It maps out key research points, identifies research trends, and provides a deeper understanding to guide future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the implementation of deep-market-oriented reforms in China, an accurate interpretation of the effect and transmission mechanism of the marketization of industrial land transfer on carbon emission reduction can provide references for further elevating the role of land policy in China's low-carbon economic transition. Based on the balanced panel data of China's provincial level from 2009 to 2020, this paper uses carbon emission intensity to quantify emission reduction targets, and studies the effects of the marketization of industrial land transfer on regional carbon emission intensity, as well as its internal mechanism, by describing the typical characteristics. Moreover, this paper analyzes the moderating role of environmental governance and conducts area heterogeneity analysis. The main results show that (1) the marketization of industrial land transfer can significantly reduce regional carbon emission intensity, and the negative effect is stronger in the mid-west compared with the effect in the east. (2) Environmental governance can play a positive moderating role in the relationship between the marketization of industrial land transfer and the carbon emission intensity. (3) Industry selection is the internal mechanism by which the effect of the marketization of industrial land transfer on regional carbon emission intensity operates, and the mechanism is represented more prominently in the mid-west. The main conclusions provide inspiration for land policy regulation in relation to carbon emission reduction. China's local governments should implement specific strategies to improve the market-based operation mechanism of land, attracting industries with high energy efficiency and low carbon emissions, and strengthening the intensity of environmental governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document is an editorial published in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Science. It discusses the governance of carbon emissions in the context of urban-rural interaction. The editorial highlights the importance of managing carbon emissions and related environmental issues in urban-rural dynamics and proposes strategies for carbon emission reduction and sustainable development. The editorial provides an overview of four papers published in the research topic, which explore topics such as the correlation between environmental governance attention and environmental quality, regional disparities in urban-rural carbon emissions, carbon emissions inequality between urban and rural residents, and carbon emissions from building operations. The papers contribute to the academic community and offer guidance for policy development in carbon emission management. The editors hope that this research will inspire further exploration and collaborative initiatives to mitigate regional carbon emissions and create an environmentally sustainable and socially just future. [Extracted from the article]

This special issue examines environmental governance, conceptualized as environmental protections, support for sustainable development, and the regulation of large-scale development projects. Through analysis of dynamics during the commodities super-cycle of the 2000s–2010s, contributors explore the multifaceted ways that societal actors interact with the state to support, oppose, or modify environmental governance, with a focus on communities impacted by export activities and economic elites who favor their expansion. Several papers seek to understand the governance of sectors—mining, oil, and soy. Others begin with natural areas threatened by development—urban wetlands and forests. As a collection, the papers reveal three commonalities that affect the extent to which environmental governance institutions address demands of impacted communities: (1) the question of whether a policymaking process takes place in reaction to mobilizing, or whether it proactively engages environmental questions as they pertain to local populations; (2) strategies by civil society, and above all impacted residents, to ensure the implementation of environmental policies; and (3) debates over knowledge, including community efforts to harness expertise and information to counter paradigms advanced by business actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: In the current background of global economic slowdown, the traditional reliance on one regulatory instrument or the unilateral consideration of the effectiveness of one regulatory policy in policy formulation is no longer sufficient to cope with the increasingly complex contradictions between environmental protection and economic development. In the construction of a modernized environmental governance system, it has become an inevitable choice to achieve synergy between various environmental regulations. In China, the citizens' environmental supervision campaign that gradually emerged in 2006 and the local carbon trading pilots that started in 2013, as typical representatives of informal and formal environmental regulation respectively, provide vivid and realistic materials for our study. Methods: Using econometric models and microdata from listed Chinese firms from 2009 to 2020, we analyze the profound logic and internal mechanism by which this synergistic governance effect of environmental regulation affects the economic society and the development pattern of firms. Results and discussion: The study found that: (1) the synergistic effect of the carbon trading policy and citizens' environmental supervision can significantly promote the transition of enterprises to a sustainable development model, especially paying attention to the role of citizens' environmental supervision in this process. (2) The regional development level, cost transfer capability, and political connection can make the synergy of the two environmental regulations vary across firms. (3) The synergistic effect of environmental regulation promotes the behavior of enterprises in line with the requirements of sustainable development by influencing enterprises' R&D and innovation investment, resource allocation efficiency, and sustainable development awareness. (4) A favorable regional rule of law environment and moderate media attention can effectively increase the intensity of citizens' environmental supervision, and at the same time strengthen the effectiveness of synergistic governance of environmental regulation in the transformation and development of enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental and land resource degradation is a serious problem that poses significant challenges in Sudan and worldwide generally. Despite the fact that the physical environment components are the underlying economic resources and production assets in developing countries like Sudan, and they directly affect the nation's socioeconomic aspects of income, health, water availability, food security, and many others. The interventions and protective measures were insufficient to meet the magnitude and extent of the ongoing degradation and resource wastage. Based on the analysis of the indicators and trends of the environmental and natural resources management 'status quo', this paper is an attempt to overview and investigate the state of environmental and natural resources management and governance in Sudan. Further discussion delves into the utilization of geo-information systems in Sudan's environmental and resource management by analyzing and reviewing "some previous case studies" where GIS approaches and techniques were deployed. The paper further strives to explore and highlight the opportunities and potential contributions of GIS in the context of Sudan's environmental and resource management. Lessons learned from the previous experiences were considered, and the recommendations for the future use of a tailored geoinformation system in Sudan context were highlighted and suggested to support better practices and sustainability insights for environmental governance and resources management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This pair of papers examines and describes the state action necessary to make markets function as environmental policy instruments and as strategies of governance. We do this through a detailed look at the mechanics of environmental credit compliance markets in the US states of Oregon, Ohio, and North Carolina in which stream credits are privately created and sold to developers who have impacted protected stream systems. In this paper, we observe that the governance of streams as water resources requires the state to create a scalar hierarchy that fixes certain characteristics of streams at certain scales of state action. These fixes attempt to resolve, bracket, or ignore the temporal and spatial variability of streams that can confound governance; however, these variabilities are essential to the scientific study of streams. At each of the four distinct scales, four different operations crucial to market function were observed; at each scale, elements of natural variability were fixed or confined to be expressed only within the given scale. These observations reveal principles of how scale functions within environmental governance, as well as failures where gaps and resistances appear that create unforeseen outcomes in market-led policy. In three different state settings, the establishment of a fixed scale of governance is made in different ways that depend on the local institutional and social context. However, they all act to render an unruly set of temporal and spatial flows as instead occurring within certain fixed scalar boundaries, and thus amenable to governance with markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scientifically measuring the level of environmental governance (EGL) and understanding its spatial convergence has important reference value for ecological governance. In this paper, the global entropy method is applied to measure the EGL of 284 prefecture-level cities in China from 2007 to 2019, which are divided into three major river basins, including the Yellow River, Yangtze River, and Pearl River, to observe the spatial–temporal evolutionary characterization through a standard deviation ellipse model. The coefficient of variation and the spatial econometric model are the tools used to conduct the spatial convergence test. The results are as follows: (1) China's EGL is low overall, though it is fluctuating upward at low magnitude, and the three major river basins follow the ranking: The Pearl River Basin > The Yangtze River Basin > The Yellow River Basin. (2) Spatially, the distribution pattern of China's EGL changes from "scattered and sporadic" to "multipolar core". (3) The center of China's environmental governance was concentrated in the east from 2007 to 2019, and the EGL in the midstream and downstream regions of the three major river basins increased rapidly. (4) Environmental governance in China has significant absolute and conditional β-convergence characteristics, as do the three major basins, while the ranking of convergence speed remains "Yangtze River Basin > Yellow River Basin > Pearl River Basin". Of these, economic development accelerated the convergence rate of environmental governance in China and its three major river basins; financial pressure significantly inhibited the convergence of the EGL of the Yellow River Basin. The improvement of the EGL in the Pearl River Basin was also negatively influenced by the industrial structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Arboriculture & Urban Forestry is the property of International Society of Arboriculture and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Climate change will present new challenges for transboundary governance of international river basins, many of which will experience increasing levels of environmental variability in the coming decades. Failure to adequately respond to these challenges will increase vulnerability for people across the globe who rely on these river systems for their livelihoods. To be effective, governance systems will need to embrace uncertainty, increase international cooperation, and authentically engage local actors in decision-making. This paper considers the potential for transnational governance that accounts for local livelihoods by presenting findings from qualitative research in Namibia and Botswana, two of the three countries located in the Cubango-Okavango River Basin of Southern Africa. Findings show the importance of local livelihoods for communities in the basin, which have been historically overlooked by governance systems, and which now face increasing threats from development and climate change. The paper illustrates how these livelihoods are governed by a complex institutional arrangement that includes national governments inclined to protect their own interests and a transnational governance body whose mission is to coordinate decision-making across the basin to support sustainable development. The paper concludes with a call for increased attention to the impacts of governance decisions on the livelihoods of river basin communities, with insights for the Cubango-Okavango River Basin specifically, as well as for international river basins more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Haze is a product of in‐situ biomass fires that becomes mobile as it moves across state boundaries in Southeast Asia. The literature on the governance of transboundary air commons has largely been fixed at the national or supranational scalar of reference. Hence, successes and failures tend to be evaluated based on policy and diplomatic (non)progress. This paper contributes to recent literature that argues that haze should be treated as a challenge and opportunity for transboundary governance and not merely transnational governance. Transboundary governance does not restrict the study of cross‐border relations to national scales of analysis but encompasses resource connections that traverse borders at all scales of governance. This paper focuses on Singapore, a state where biomass fires do not occur but where the effects of haze are acutely felt. Among ASEAN member states, Singapore has been viewed as a particularly active player in region‐wide governance on haze. However, the role of non‐state environmental stewardship initiatives in pathfinding, nudging, and signalling state, corporate and regional actors towards emergent transboundary governance arrangements have been underplayed. By focusing on the efforts of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs (SIIA), Singapore Environment Council (SEC), and People's Movement to Stop Haze (PM Haze), this paper explores how transboundary publics can fill policy gaps in transnational haze governance regimes. As a highly depoliticised city‐state, Singapore's experience serves as a microcosm for ways forward within the broader ASEAN geopolitical culture favouring depoliticised 'engaged non‐indifference'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few studies explored the interaction effect between policy instruments and the policy environment on environmental governance. Based on policy instrument theory, this paper conducts fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to explore the combined effect of policy instruments and the policy environment on the environmental governance efficiency of local governance. This study found four effective configurations of local government environmental governance, which can be summarized as the mandatory mode and the cooperative mode, and three inefficient configurations that can be summarized as the out-of-control mode. The results show that the regions adopting the mandatory mode are economically underdeveloped, while the regions using the cooperative mode are developed. Besides, local government competition leads to the softening of policy instruments, while government-enterprise collusion exacerbates the failure of environmental policy instruments. This paper summarizes the effective modes and reveals the reasons for the low efficiency of local government environmental governance in China. The conclusions provide not only empirical evidence for the study of policy instrument theory but also beneficial insights for the selection of environmental policy instruments and environmental governance practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As biodiversity continues to decline, environmental relationships and governance require transformation to be effective. A core part of this transformation will be how we decide to communicate, engage, and express political ideas and aspirations. Amplifying the voices and practices of communities who have historically been ignored or left out of decision-making will be important in transforming environmental relationships and governance. This paper explores how Indigenous communication landscapes have the potential to provide more creative and inclusive communication and political engagement processes. Using the short film competition Future visions for te taiao as a case study, this paper reveals how Kaupapa Māori filmmaking can contribute to Indigenous communication landscapes in Aotearoa New Zealand. Future visions for te taiao therefore provides an alternative avenue for political communication on environmental governance that centres an Indigenous communication and environmental ethic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concerns for the ongoing and increasing degradation of the natural environment worldwide have increased the impetus for action, and development of governance arrangements to support natural resource management. Despite this, several issues around governance still remain as challenges to the success of natural resource management. This study reports the findings of a systematic literature review of 240 papers to better understand how governance challenges manifest spatially, and how they change over time. Also the paper identifies key priority areas for strategic governance reform. This paper reveals that the capacity of natural resource management governance systems internationally is most limited by factors that limit connectivity and collaboration between stakeholders in decision-making processes, and the alignment of vision and objectives across institutions. The paper also reveals clear spatial disparities and temporal changes in the number of studies and governance challenges identified in natural resource management in developing and developed countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This pair of papers examines and describes the state action necessary to make markets function as environmental policy instruments and as strategies of governance. They do this through a detailed look at the mechanics of environmental credit compliance markets in the US states of Oregon, Ohio, and North Carolina in which stream credits are privately created and sold to developers who have impacted protected stream systems. In this paper, we examine the tools, techniques, and people involved in the creation of a value-bearing stream credit out of a physical stream or river site. These observations reveal important principles of how science functions within governance, as well as where gaps and resistances appear that create unforeseen outcomes in market-led policy. We examine the construction and use of instruments that define natural processes as objects with value; these techniques and tools include databases and spreadsheets, algorithms, and field scoring tools that have been scavenged from a wide range of scientific and governance practices and are not themselves inherently capitalist or developed for capitalist purposes. In three different state settings, the move from measure to value is made in different ways that depend on the local institutional and social context. However, they all act to render a network of interacting ecological forces as a field of discrete ecosystem objects amenable to governance with markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River basin in China have become a major national strategy, reducing carbon emissions has become pivotal. Therefore, based on the relevant data of 53 cities from 2008 to 2021 in seven urban agglomerations in the Yellow River basin, this paper explores the overall situation and spatio-temporal evolution of environmental governance and carbon emissions in the urban agglomerations in the Yellow River basin using the entropy method, ArcGIS, slacks-based measurement models (SBM models), etc. Additionally, this paper quantitatively analyzes the pathways by which environmental governance affects carbon emissions in the urban agglomerations in the Yellow River basin. The results show that carbon emissions increased year on year from 2008 to 2021, the growth rate slowed down gradually and exhibited a downward trend, and the largest amount of carbon was emitted in 2019, at 3495 million tons. Before 2017, the growth rate of carbon emissions showed a trend of increasing year by year, with the largest increase rate being 11.17% in 2010. After that, the growth rate of carbon emissions continued to decrease and entered a stage of fluctuation. The growth rate of carbon emissions in 2020 was the lowest, reaching −5.66%. The environmental governance effect of urban agglomerations in the Yellow River basin exhibits a large gap; the regional difference is obvious, and the overall trend is rising. Environmental governance has a significant negative effect on carbon emissions in urban agglomerations in the Yellow River basin. The cross-terms of environmental governance, the energy consumption structure, industrial structure upgrading, green technological innovation, and foreign direct investment (FDI) have significant negative impacts on carbon emissions, while the indirect impacts on urban agglomerations have shown regional heterogeneity. The goal of reducing carbon emissions in urban agglomerations in the Yellow River basin is being realized gradually. Based on research conclusions, policy suggestions are put forward, hoping to provide ideas for environmental protection and high-quality development of urban agglomerations in the Yellow River basin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Jurnal Jurisprudence is the property of Jurnal Jurisprudence and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Fire is a highly relevant governance challenge in the tropics: altered fire regimes, among other phenomena, threaten the persistence of various ecosystems. Fire is also widely used by smallholders. Yet, wildfires can put people's livelihoods in danger through direct damages and by impoverishing ecosystem services. Conventional approaches have sought to suppress any type of fire in the landscape. However, since the late twentieth century, researchers and practitioners have recognized the benefits of strategic fire use and, in some cases, of local fire use traditions. In many tropical areas, the coexistence and interaction of the conventional ('suppression‐only') approach, integrated approaches, and communities' traditional ways of using fire, create a complex network of actors with different interests and outlooks. The ways these actors make decisions and interact can be summed up under the notion of fire governance. There is a growing body of literature dealing with this kind of situations, although they do not always mention the term governance. This paper thematically analyses 38 studies in this field, showing that research has been scattered and often addresses the issue partially, leaving out key aspects of environmental governance. Based on this analysis, the paper proposes a more connected and holistic research agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental governance in China is a hybrid of mandatory and voluntary regulations in both implementation and enforcement. This paper aims to explore how voluntary environmental regulations (VERs) affect corporate green innovation (CGI) and the role of mandatory environmental regulations (MERs). The study uses panel data of 1,232 Chinese-listed manufacturing firms from 2004 to 2016 and the main findings are: first, VERs have a significant positive effect on CGI. Second, no significant effect has been found of MERs on firms' CGI. Third, in areas where mandatory environmental regulations are weak, voluntary environmental regulation can better serve as a supplement to promote firms' green innovation. The results are robust to a series of sensitivity checks. This study provides evidence that voluntary environmental regulation is more effective in encouraging enterprises to engage in green innovation activities, and it is an important supplement to mandatory environmental regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of achieving the goals of reaching peak carbon emissions and carbon neutrality, mandatory corporate environmental information disclosure has begun to be implemented. According to the theory of geographical economics, the closer the geographical distance between enterprises and ecological environmental regulatory authorities, the more likely it is to form a 'deterrence' (the 'distance attenuation effect' of supervision costs) or a 'reliance' (the 'distance attenuation effect' of rent-seeking costs) for enterprises. Based on the data of listed companies with major pollutants from 2015 to 2020, this study empirically tested the directions and paths of the impact of the geographical distance between enterprises and ecological environmental regulatory authorities on the quality of corporate environmental information disclosure using fixed effects model and mediating effects model. The study showed that: 1 The closer the geographical distance between enterprises and ecological environmental regulatory authorities, the higher the quality of corporate environmental information disclosure, which supported the 'distance attenuation effect' hypothesis of supervision costs. 2 The impact of geographical distance on the quality of corporate environmental information disclosure was realized through the intensity of supervision and monitoring at the provincial level and the intensity of law enforcement at the prefecture level. 3 The strengthening of environmental governance intensity, the improvement of regional digitalization level, and the increase in media attention suppressed the 'distance attenuation effect' of supervision costs. It is concluded that in order to achieve a balanced development of the quality of corporate environmental information disclosure in the whole region, it is necessary to strengthen environmental governance intensity, improve regional digitalization level, and increase media attention. From the perspective of geographical economics, this paper expands the influencing factors of corporate environmental information disclosure quality, enriches the theoretical practice of the 'distance attenuation effect' in geographical economics, and provides solutions and theoretical bases for promoting the balanced development of corporate environmental information disclosure quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forests are subject to a huge variety of often competing socio-economic demands and environmental change. This paper assesses the related conflicts that occur along what we label to be a "Global Forest Environmental Frontier". Assessing 11 contributions to a special issue on the same topic, it summarizes the main contents of these papers and concludes with an assessment of major trends. The contributions to the special issue take both a regional and topic-related approach, assessing forest environmental conflicts on all five forested continents and investigating issues such as forest biodiversity conservation, climate change adaptation and mitigation, environmental justice and equity, development, and forest management and conservation discourses. Taken together, they provide an overview on the multiple facets of the Global Forest Environmental Frontier, but also identify some shared patterns and trajectories, which are outlined at the end of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses machine learning tools to construct local government environmental concern indicators and empirically examines the impact of local government environmental concern on corporate environmental investment. From the resource endowment perspective, corporate resources' moderating role is also verified. The major findings are as follows: (1) local government environmental concern has a significant positive effect on the environmental investment of corporations in their jurisdictions; (2) corporations with fewer financial and political resources will pay more attention to the local government's intention when making environmental investment decisions, and the promotion effect of local government environmental concern on the environmental investment of such corporations is more prominent. Further analysis shows that this promotion effect is more significant in regions with a high intensity of environmental regulation and high levels of economic development, and is more effective for key regulated corporations. This paper verifies the effect of local government on micro-corporations in environmental governance from the perspective of environmental concern, broadens the boundary of research on the relationship between government and corporate environmental responsibility fulfillment, and enriches the study of factors influencing corporate environmental investment behavior. It also provides important empirical evidence for central and local governments to implement green development and build a government–business collaborative environmental governance system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global environmental governance (GEG) forums, such as those convened through the United Nations, result in the development of monumental guiding frameworks such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Conference of Parties (COPs) Aichi and post-2020 targets. The ratification of policy frameworks by member and/or signatory states can result in major shifts in environmental policy and decision-making and has major implications for Indigenous communities. In this article, we present systematic review of the peer-reviewed literature on Indigenous participation in GEG forums, and focus on the specific questions: (1) what GEG forums include Indigenous participation and (2) how do Indigenous peoples participate in GEG forums, including how their perspectives and knowledges are framed and/or included/excluded within governance discussions, decisions, and negotiations. We provide a bibliometric analysis of the articles and derive seven inductively determined themes from our review: (1) Critical governance forums and decisions; (2) inclusion and exclusion of Indigenous voices and knowledge in GEG forums; (3) capacity barriers; (4) knowledge hierarchies: inclusion, integration, and bridging; (5) representation and grouping of Indigenous peoples in GEG; (6) need for networks among and between Indigenous peoples and other governance actors; and (7) Indigenous peoples influence on GEG decisions and processes. Our findings can be used to improve GEG forums by contributing to the development strategies that address the barriers and inequities to meaningful and beneficial Indigenous participation and can contribute to future research that is focused on understanding the experiences of Indigenous peoples within GEG forums. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Finance is a precondition for many of the activities that harm ecosystems, but how to address this underlying driver of biodiversity loss remains a topic of debate. This paper reviews the Task Force on Nature‐Related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), a corporate‐led effort that aims to identify how changes to biodiversity may create financial risks for companies and investors. This approach is also promoted as a strategy for managing the impact of business on biodiversity, with the assumption that risk disclosure will more effectively price biodiversity‐harming activities. We assess the potential of the TNFD toward this end, and invite conservation scientists, practitioners, and policymakers to engage critically with its theory of change. We find that the relationship between disclosing biodiversity risk and redirecting finance away from environmental degradation is tenuous and unproven, making this mechanism insufficient for addressing the impact of the financial sector on nature. We question the embrace of another industry‐led mechanism that implies that a lack of information is the greatest barrier to stopping biodiversity loss. Further, there are risks that this financial sector approach to biodiversity will reinforce the highly unequal concentration of power and wealth, which is itself inimical to transformative change, as called for by the Intergovernmental Science–Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon accretion in the atmosphere is having widespread climatic impacts on Pakistan like reduced agricultural productivity, water shortage, and coastal erosion, etc. Tormented with a poor economy, any abrupt scarcity of livelihood resources can breed violence, crime, communal tensions, and a threat to national security. Encumbered by the financial and technical deficit, Pakistan is facing considerable challenges for crafting a pragmatic climate security regime. Significant divergence in the public and academic opinion on the nature of this threat have attributed to a sluggish policy response so far. This paper, therefore, focuses on Pakistan's Carbon dilemma and critically examines its treatment in national climate policies. It calls for an integrated approach across multiple sectors and mainstreaming of a national security policy with climate-smart infrastructure that assimilates core national security resources. It further calls for political discourses that encompass food, energy, agriculture, health, and even diplomacy to overcome this national threat. Towards the end, this paper proffers some recommendations to mitigate threats to our climate security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For a generation, governments around the world have been committed to sustainable development as a policy goal. This has been supported by an array of new policies ranging from international agreements, to national strategies, environmental laws at many levels of government, regional programs, and local plans. Despite these efforts, decades of scientific monitoring indicate that the world is no closer to environmental sustainability and in many respects the situation is getting worse. This paper argues that a significant contributing factor to this situation is policy implementation failure. A systematic review of the literature reveals that the failure to achieve the intended outcomes of environmental policies is due to economic, political and communication factors. Conflict between the objectives of environmental policies and those focused on economic development, a lack of incentives to implement environmental policies, and a failure to communicate objectives to key stakeholders are all key factors that contribute to the inability to attain environmental sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International environmental advisory bodies are tasked with the daunting challenge of collecting and synthesizing knowledge about a specific issue-area by speaking in one 'global scientific voice'. However, the 'type of knowledge' issuing from these bodies can hardly meet the expectations of 'getting the science right', as scientific issues inevitably end up being framed in different ways. Although accounts of contestation between various knowledge claims are abundant in the literature focusing on international advisory bodies, the implications of these tensions for science–policy interplay remain poorly understood. In particular, analyses of and reflections on the relationship between knowledge outputs and particular institutional arrangements are underdeveloped. This paper attempts to address this gap, postulating a link between knowledge outcomes and institutional design. By introducing the concept of 'epistemic framings', it explores the different ways in which soil and land degradation issues are framed by scientific advisory bodies at the global level. The analysis, conducted through the Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA) method, suggests that international scientific advisory bodies may frame epistemic issues in ways that are influenced by the policy setting to which they are institutionally bound. Further research on the dynamics of science–policy interaction at the global level could test the assumptions made in this paper and shed light on the structural (including institutional design) and agential factors influencing advisory bodies' epistemic framings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The quality of the ecological environment is related to people's health and quality of life, and is a prerequisite for happiness. This paper uses data from the 2019 Chinese Social Survey(CSS) and matches it with green tax data of 30 provinces and autonomous regions in China in 2019 using the mediation effect model to empirically analyze the influence mechanism and internal logic of the environmental governance on happiness. The results show that: (1) environmental governance can significantly improve happiness and indirectly affect happiness through green tax; (2) green tax can significantly enhance happiness; (3) income, regional, and education heterogeneity exists in the direct and mediating effects of environmental governance on happiness. Based on these results, in the context of the new era, we should solidly promote environmental governance and ecological civilization construction, promote the reform of the green tax system, and improve happiness. We should also consider the coordinated development of urban and rural areas and regions and focus on equity and efficiency. In addition, it is necessary to continue to deepen education reform, improve the quality of education, increase people's income, and improve people's happiness. This paper identifies the causal relationship between environmental governance and happiness and helps to clarify the influence mechanism and internal logic of environmental governance on happiness; it also discusses how to address the relationship between governance and development, promote green development, and improve happiness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In cities nature is taking on a new role as infrastructure, providing essential services in terms of temperature regulation and water management, as well as the provision of habitat for biodiversity conservation. With this turn to green infrastructure have come new challenges to maintenance. Plants are lively things and if they are to perform their infrastructural roles they must be routinely tended to in particular ways. In the context of neoliberal governance, much of this labor falls to volunteer humans. Framed as stewardship, this volunteerism for plant-city thriving is posited as a way to meet maintenance needs while promoting human health and well-being and creating support for nature-based solutions through a sense of ownership and responsibility. While it is thus possible to read stewardship as an enrollment of people and plants into the reproduction of neoliberal urban political ecologies, in this paper I argue that such an analysis overlooks the involution of plants and people that occurs during acts of stewardship. Drawing on ethnographic research with street tree stewards in New York City I explore how vegetal agency draws people into affective, embodied relations. During acts of stewardship, trees act on people and reconfigure their relations in ways that potentially exceed the strictures of stewardship. Rather than allowing stewardship discourses and critiques thereof to be our sole frame for understanding these people-plant relations, we should also consider them from the perspective of vegetal agency and what human-tree involutions do within, around, and to human practices of stewardship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Along with the implementation of reform and opening up in the 1970s, China’s economy entered a period of rapid development. During this period, the economic structure of our country has gradually changed from the primary industry to the secondary industry. Even today, the industrial industry still plays a very important role in the economic structure of our country. The industrial chain such as the real estate industry, chemical industry, and manufacturing industry is still the main industrial structure that promotes our economic growth for a long time. However, as the energy of industrial development is obtained by massive consumption of fossil fuels, the economic development brought by industrial development is behind the serious environmental pollution problem. We gradually realize that economic development cannot be based on environmental damage, but although our country has been committed to reversing the situation of environmental sacrifice for economic development at the beginning of the discovery of problems, the effect is very little. Therefore, how to maximize environmental protection under the current economic structure is the issue to be discussed in this paper. This paper mainly summarizes relevant experience through domestic and foreign literature, and clarifies the macro relationship between environmental governance and economic structure, and then discusses it from three dimensions: technological innovation, consumer demand, and international trade. The final results show that different types of environmental regulations have different effects on industrial structure, and the effectiveness of policy incentive regulation is about 23% higher than that of command control regulation. At the same time, according to the analysis results of economic structure upgrading in the Pearl River Delta region, the effect of environmental regulation on the regional industrial structure is also different, and the average effect can improve the overall industrial structure optimization rate by about 36%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper explores the growing significance of sustainable development evident in recent global concerns for the worsening conditions of environmental degradation and natural disasters. Despite the massive proliferation of international conventions, regional agreements, and national–local initiatives and the creation of numerous institutions at all levels, there are relatively disappointing outcomes regarding environmental sustainability. Next, the paper examines the main causes of such environmental underperformance, highlights the needs for making appropriate institutional choices, and emphasizes the central role of the state as the leading stakeholder in dealing with environmental governance. Finally, among the major formations of the state, it draws attention to the comparative advantages of the developmental state in terms of its composition, autonomy, embeddedness, and capacity and highlights its potential for more effective performance to achieve sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Private enterprise governance is influenced by how status is perceived by business owners. In this essay, the role of business owners' subjective statuses on their decisions on pollution control is discussed, along with social-psychology-based justifications. This study distinguishes front-end pollution treatment from back-end pollution treatment and finds the following: (1) A higher subjective status increases the front-end pollution control input but has no discernible impact on the back-end pollution control input. (2) Both the front-end and back-end control inputs are significantly influenced positively by a subjective economic status (ability motive). (3) A subjective social status only increases the front-end pollution control input (altruistic motive). (4) A subjective political standing (prestige motivation) significantly lowers environmental violations of businesses more than it does front-end or back-end inputs. (5) A subjective status can also boost owner expectations and business confidence, as well as help businesses to make the best pollution control measures. The optimum of private firms' pollution control strategies depends heavily on their subjective status when the government's pollution regulations are lax. The importance of subjective status is also influenced by how well capitalized private businesses are. This paper offers a novel perspective on the value of social governance from the viewpoint of maximizing the pollution management of private firms. It argues that raising the subjective status of private entrepreneurs has value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]