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This paper empirically investigates how the state-enterprise relation and local government's economic priority affect corporate environmental responsibility in a sample of Chinese polluting enterprises during 2009-2013. We find that firms appointing politically connected directors fail to fulfil their obligations in environmental responsibility, characterized by a poor enforcement of discharge fees. Besides, firms contributing a large share of industrial output to the local economy are with a smaller magnitude of discharge levies. In addition, the enforcement of discharge fees is poorer in the most polluted regions, while tourism activity and the local government's incentive to disclose environmental information increase discharge fees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper clarifies the competing discourses of sustainability and climate change and examines the manifestation of these discourses in local government planning. Despite the increasingly significant role of sustainability and climate change response in urban governance, it is unclear whether local governments are constructing different discourses that may result in conflicting approaches to policy-making. Using a governmentality approach, this paper dissects the contents of 15 Canadian local governments' sustainability plans. The findings show that there are synergies and tensions between discourses of sustainability and climate change. Both share discursive space and shape local governance rationalities, though climate change response logics are not necessarily highlighted even where the action could result in greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions. In some cases, existing GHG intensive practices are being rebranded as 'sustainable'. This suggests a tension between discourses of sustainability and climate change that may complicate attempts to address climate change through local sustainability planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local waste management has so far been characterised by end-of-pipe solutions, landfilling, incineration, and recycling. End-of-pipe solutions build on a different mind-set than life cycle-based approaches, and for this reason, local waste managers are reluctant to consider strategies for waste prevention. To accelerate the transition of waste and resource management towards a more integrated management, waste prevention needs to play a larger role in the local waste management. In this review article, we collect knowledge from the scientific community on waste prevention of relevance to local waste management. We analyse the trends in the waste prevention literature by organising the literature into four categories. The results indicate an increasing interest in waste prevention, but not much literature specifically concerns the integration of prevention into the local waste management. However, evidence from the literature can inform local waste management on the prevention potential; the environmental and social effects of prevention; how individuals in households can be motivated to reduce waste; and how the effects of prevention measures can be monitored. Nevertheless, knowledge is still lacking on local waste prevention, especially regarding the methods for monitoring and how local waste management systems can be designed to encourage waste reduction in the households. We end the article with recommendations for future research. The literature review can be useful for both practitioners in the waste sector and for academics seeking an overview of previous research on waste prevention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic metaphors – including natural capital, natural assets, ecosystem services, and ecological debt – are becoming commonplace in environmental policy discourse. Proponents consider such terms provide a clearer idea of the ‘value’ of nature, and are useful for ensuring the environment is given due attention in decision making. Critical discourse analysis highlights the ideological work language does; the way in which we think, write, and talk about the environment has important implications for how it is governed. Consequently, the widespread use of economic metaphors is politically significant. This article discusses how metaphors have been analysed in environmental policy research, surveys the use of prominent economic metaphors in environmental policy, and considers the politics associated with such terms. The uptake of various economic metaphors represents a form of reverse discourse, varies in politically significant ways, and narrows the terms of environmental debate. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Although in recent years great emphasis has been placed on global agreements and national commitments on climate change, ultimately action on mitigation and adaptation must take place at the local level. Many local authorities have to face questions of whether they should develop policies on climate change, and if so, on what evidence should policies be designed and delivered. This paper describes how academic research on the economics of low carbon cities (the 'mini-Stern review') helped create such an evidence base for the Leeds City Region and its constituent local authorities. We describe how the response to the evidence and the pathways to impact were different in the individual local authorities and what this means for our understanding of evidence in local policy making. In terms of Weiss' (Social sciences and modern states: national experiences and theoretical crossroads. Advances in political science, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, ) classification, the study was mainly useful as an argument and idea rather than being used instrumentally. We find that the policy and political context in each authority determines to a large extent whether such an academic study is useable as evidence. The contents and timing of the study need to align with existing policy and/or political agendas: is climate change on the agenda at all, with what priority and how is it framed. We find confirmation of a relationship between the policy problem type and the role of evidence as argument, idea or data. The mini-Stern study itself was just one contribution to wide-ranging processes of informing, convincing, pressurising, etc., not just within the different councils but also within the wider communities. Other contextual factors include composition, agenda and activities of local civil society and the local business community. Finally, it depends on the expertise of policy officers in the councils what use is made of evidence. Making policy takes (much) time, translation and negotiation across levels and sectors. Policy work describes how policy officers bring their diverse forms of knowledge to bear on policy questions; how this work is done is something that is learned from practice rather than from the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local governments can encourage proactive action on climate change by incorporating adaptation measures into long-term planning documents. The authors undertook action-oriented, case study research by participating (as adaptation experts) in the process to create a sustainability and land use policy plan for the City of Prince George, Canada. A range of adaptation measures was incorporated into both documents. Factors enabling the incorporation of adaptation included a high level of local awareness, an existing adaptation strategy to draw upon and the flexible process used to create the plans. Challenges such as a lack of priority, limited policy direction and perceptions of climate change as solely an environmental challenge persist as barriers to incorporating adaptation into local plans, particularly in smaller centres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using an analytical framework based on current implementation theory, this research examines the transposition of the EU Waste Framework Directive into UK law and local government development control procedures. The study which forms the basis of this paper was commissioned by the UK Government to evaluate the effectiveness of the construction Waste Management Plans introduced as a legal requirement in 2008. It was found that its implementation had largely failed and that these new laws had been ineffective. Subsequently, in March 2012 the UK Government announced its intention to withdraw these Regulations. In the context of current deregulatory pressures, but with the continuing need to minimise construction waste, this research concludes that more attention should be paid by central government to their current ‘top-down’ implementation procedures in order to better roll-out new environmental legislation in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] Urban planning was found to be a key driver of adaptation to sea-level rise in Lakes Entrance, Australia. [•] The processes by which adaptation actions have transpired have not guaranteed sustainable adaptation. [•] We find that to be sustainable, adaptation policy must progress carefully, deliberatively, flexibly, fairly, and patiently. [•] Urban planning has the capacity to facilitate sustainable adaptation. [•] However, modifications to urban planning institutions and processes are required in order to facilitate sustainable adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local strategies for adaptation to climate change in Denmark and Norway are discussed. In both countries, the national impetus for local adaptation is weak; it is largely left to local actors to take the initiative. The dynamics of the different approaches to climate-change adaptation at the local level are illuminated. Using decision-making and learning theory, we present an analytical framework to examine four cases, two in Norway and two in Denmark, which represent two different responses, i.e. anticipatory actions and obligatory actions. We find that, by bringing in knowledge and resources and engaging in persuasive communication across sectors, the presence of institutional entrepreneurs in the adaptation process plays a key role in building legitimacy for anticipatory action in the municipal organisation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

‘Water in The Landscape’, a community cultural development programme, focused on urban water management in Western Sydney (Australia). This case study was influenced by research which found provision of expert information alone increases community resistance to engagement, and called for methods using visual–practical elements to provoke people to question their values and attitudes, thus preparing them to absorb new information. Our programme used strategies, at a large scale (15 cultural projects), over two years, supported by local deliberative forums, and online information and dialogue facilities. We present outcomes of the cultural projects’ component of the programme, assessed in partnership between local government and University of Western Sydney. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper reports an analysis of municipal policies through a population health-promotion lens; its purpose is to identify potential grounds for intersectoral collaboration. Template analysis methods based on widely accepted determinants of health (DOH) and health-promotion strategies were used to study policies from six Western Canadian municipalities: Vancouver, Victoria, Surrey, Edmonton, Calgary and Strathcona County. To illustrate overlapping concepts, findings regarding rich descriptions of social environments (one determinant of health) are highlighted. Similarly, social inclusion as a desired goal and community capacity building (as both process and outcome), appear to be concepts around which health promotion and social sustainability frames converge. These findings identify potentially fertile partnership opportunities: health promoters can deepen their understanding of DOH such as social inclusion and municipal leaders can learn from the evidence of effectiveness in health-promotion strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The delivery of downscaled climate information is increasingly seen as a vehicle of climate services, a driver for impacts studies and adaptation decisions, and for informing policy development. Empirical-statistical downscaling (ESD) is widely used; however, the accompanying responsibility is significant, and predicated on effective understanding of the limitations and capabilities of ESD methods. There remain substantial contradictions, uncertainties, and sensitivity to assumptions between the different methods commonly used. Yet providing decision-relevant downscaled climate projections to help support national and local adaptation is core to the growing global momentum seeking to operationalize what is, in effect, still foundational research. We argue that any downscaled climate information must address the criteria of being plausible, defensible and actionable. Climate scientists cannot absolve themselves of their ethical responsibility when informing adaptation and must, therefore, be diligent in ensuring any information provided adequately addresses these three criteria. Frameworks for supporting such assessment are not well developed. We interrogate the conceptual foundations of statistical downscaling methodologies and their assumptions, and articulate a framework for evaluating and integrating downscaling output into the wider landscape of climate information. For ESD there are key criteria that need to be satisfied to underpin the credibility of the derived product. Assessing these criteria requires the use of appropriate metrics to test the comprehensive treatment of local climate response to large-scale forcing, and to compare across methods. We illustrate the potential consequences of methodological choices on the interpretation of downscaling results and explore the purposes, benefits and limitations of using statistical downscaling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In China, rural chemical SMEs are often believed to still largely operate below the sustainability radar. This paper investigates to what extent and how chemical SMEs are already experiencing pressure to improve their environmental performance, using an in-depth case study in Jasmine County, Hebei province. The results show that local residents had rather low trust in the environmental improvement promises made by the enterprises and the local government, and disagreed with the proposed improvement plans. Although the power of local residents to influence decision making remained limited, the chemical SMEs started to feel increasing pressures to clean up their business, from governments, local communities and civil society, and international value chain stakeholders. Notwithstanding these mounting pressures chemical SME's environmental behavior and performance has not changed radically for the better. The strong economic ties between local county governments and chemical SMEs continue to be a major barrier for stringent environmental regulation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The implementation of primary functions of local development management, especially its planning, organising and controlling, cannot leave the financial aspects of these processes aside. This can be attributed to the fact that every decision taken in the commune concerning strategic or operational management is related to the necessity of making specific financial contributions or to the conscious resignation from obtaining income (tax relief s or exemptions). Moreover, the model of financial management adopted in a particular commune determines whether its financial methods and Instruments perform development or stagnation functions. The implementation of primary functions of local development management, its planning, organising and controlling in particular, cannot disregard the financial aspects of these processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last decade, hydraulic fracturing for natural gas has exploded on the Barnett Shale in Texas, now home to the most intensive hydraulic tracking and gas production activities ever undertaken in a densely urbanized area. Yet, the debate is ongoing as to whether the explosive growth of gas industry operations poses a serious risk to public health and the environment. Concerns include the possibility that chemicals injected, naturally occurring substances disrupted, or toxins spiffed at the surface may contaminate soil or make their way into drinking water supplies. Particularly problematic are the endocrine-disrupting chemicals, which are known to cause latent abnormalities at infinitesimally small levels of exposure. Health effects may not surface for decades and could affect future generations. Although the gas industry is quick to claim that there are no proven cases of groundwater contamination related to hydraulic fracturing, local concerns are far more complicated. Leaks, spills, illegal dumping, and the attendant risk of soil contamination, ground and surface water pollution cannot be denied. Yet, a close review of federal and state regulatory provisions related to chemical reporting, monitoring, disclosure, tracking ,and cleanup reveal a fundamental problem: quality monitoring data is scarce. Moreover, information is not available on the hazards, or even the identity of all the potentially problematic chemicals associated with gas industry operations. Texas has adopted chemical disclosure requirements, but they are very limited, and unless trade secret claims are challenged, they are largely optional. There arc exceptions requiring disclosure of trade secrets to emergency medical personnel but not to toxicologists or epidemiologists. There are no exceptions for incidents where hydraulic fracturing chemicals are spilled on properly that have not (yet) resulted in identifiable health effects. There are no provisions allowing disclosure of trade secrets for the purpose of conducting sampling, assessing hazards, designing protective measures or engineering controls, or conducting studies to determine health effects. Even where chemicals associated with gas industry operations have been disclosed, they may still slip by undetected given limited surface and drinking water quality monitoring systems that focus narrowly on short and dated chemical lists. There is no comprehensive or systematic monitoring for industrial chemicals in groundwater. Given the difficult burden of proof, common law is also unlikely to serve as a reliable vehicle to identify contamination and hold industry accountable. The difficulty of toxic tort litigation, the ad hoc nature of litigation, and the veil of secrecy following settlement agreements requiring confidentiality all argue in favor of strong regulations governing gas industry operations. Gas-industry exemptions from federal regulation and a weak state regulatory system that relies on vague standards reminiscent of the early days of environmental law leave Texas cities at the forefront of the regulatory effort. After evaluating the federal and state regulatory framework, this Article reviews local regulatory efforts and concludes by discussing reasonable regulatory approaches to further strengthen and address soil and water contamination concerns. These approaches include adopting significant setbacks from the floodplain, a manifest system for tracking waste, monitoring, and reporting requirements, and clear standards to govern cleanup operations based on planned and restricted future land use. This Article also explores the possibility that local governments could adopt additional chemical disclosure requirements and share in the cost of any subsequent trade-secret litigation. Finally this Article discusses constitutional takings issues and concludes that public health concerns may outweigh the burden on property rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how decentralization has created a "local political arena" and has been transforming governance in the environmental management sector in South Korea. Korea has been known as a developmental state where the strong central government and businesses have conspicuously dominated during most of its industrialization period. Yet, the deepened democracy, global competitiveness and fiscal austerity have pressured central political stakeholders to devolve highly centralized functions and authority to local bodies since the mid-1990s. The building of democratic institutions at the local level, including directly elected mayors and city councils, has created room for local politics and diminished central political leverage over local affairs. The national economic crisis has highlighted the inefficiency of the centralized system and encouraged further administrative and fiscal decentralization under the democratic governments. In this context, while the central government and big businesses continue to have a significant say in policy making, local executives, with their expanded decisional authority and resources, are trying to improve the images of their cities and to take responsibility for promoting urban economies and improving quality of life in the age of trans-border links and competition. This paper analyzes the case of Ulsan, where Hyundai and several other conglomerates are located and which has been a symbol of state-led industrialization during most of the development period. Despite the large role played by the centre in the development of Ulsan, the empowered mayor of the city has successfully turned citizens' attention to post-industrial aspects of governance for ensuring the future competitiveness of the city in global markets by orchestrating collaborative implementation of environmental policies. The paper explores how this governance shift in Ulsan has led successful collaborative environmental change by mobilizing local businesses, civic organizations and general citizens who might not have been interested in the making of an "environment-friendly city." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years within the UK, behaviour change as a policy tool has gained popularity. Concurrently, the role of local authorities in both tackling unsustainability and reducing carbon emissions has become more prominent. This paper describes a recent study in the UK that aims to understand how local authorities are working to tackle unsustainability and encourage pro-environmental behaviour change in the population. Through interviews with local authority sustainability officers from London, this paper reviews the extent of sustainability work currently being undertaken by local authorities to assist residents transition to a more sustainable lifestyle. The study discusses key findings from the interviews, drawing on the commonalities and factors that influence local authority sustainability programmes. The key finding from these interviews is that there is a need for more robust monitoring and evaluation of local authority sustainability programmes. Robust evaluation would improve understanding of the potential contribution that local authority sustainability work could make towards addressing unsustainability and meeting national emission reduction targets. In addition, it would assist the development of the evidence-base on behaviour change interventions and their effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper aims to identify key cross-scale challenges to planned adaptation within the context of local government in Australia, and suggest enabling actions to overcome such challenges. Many of the impacts of climate change and variability have or will be experienced at the local level. Local governments are embedded in a larger governance context that has the potential to limit the effectiveness of planned adaptation initiatives on the ground. This study argues that research on constraints and barriers to adaptation must place greater attention to understanding the broader multi-governance system and cross-scale constraints that shape adaptation at the local government scale. The study identified seven key enabling actions for overcoming cross-scale challenges faced by local governments in Australia when undertaking climate change adaptation planning and implementation. A central conclusion of this study is that a cooperative and collaborative approach is needed where joint recognition of the scale of the issue and its inherent cross-scale complexities are realised. Many of the barriers or constraints to adaptation planning are interlinked, requiring a whole government approach to adaptation planning. The research suggests a stronger role at the state and national level is required for adaptation to be facilitated and supported at the local level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reforming democratic political systems to handle environmental problems is one of the key political challenges of our time. Here, I analyse how local environmental officials in Sweden perceive the shortcomings of the current political system and what reforms they deem necessary to handle key environmental problems. While green political theory tends to focus on the need to deepen democracy through increased citizen participation, analysis of survey data shows that environmental officials, even though their perceptions of the current system's shortcomings are similar to those presented in the theoretical literature, are more likely to argue for increased expert influence than for direct citizen participation. This result is not easily explained as officials seeking to expand their power, as environmental officials have more complex perceptions of their roles in democracy. The different visions of green professionals and green theory highlight the importance of deliberation on green democratic reforms, including the potentially undemocratic consequences of empowering experts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development Rio+20 generated a wide range of mostly negative reactions. Even before the conference, there was widespread doubt about the possibility of success. As soon as the conference closed, analysts highlighted its failures and criticized the outcome document, The Future We Want. While it does not present a grand transformative vision, the outcome document does reaffirm past political commitments and addresses the multiple dimensions of sustainable development and the linkages among them. Indeed, Rio+20 had subtle, yet significant impacts. Three main areas stand out: reform of international institutions, sustainable development goals, and participation as principle and practice. The global decisions in these domains and the unprecedented local engagement provide critical junctures likely to shape global environmental governance for the next two decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the determinants of trust in governments have received significant attention in the literature on political trust, there has been no attention paid to whether environmental concerns affect governmental trust. Yet, if individuals are worried about local and global environmental degradation, they may think that the government has failed in providing them with the best living conditions. Hence, it is plausible to expect local and global environmental concerns and trust in government to be inversely correlated. Using 2005 data from 24 countries, this hypothesis is tested against competing theories of civic participation, interpersonal trust, and economic considerations to explain individual trust in government. Multilevel models that specify the impact of individual- and national-level factors provide evidence that global environmental concerns do actually matter. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: Over the past ten years, China has implemented one of the largest reforestation projects in the developing world. However, the reforestation efficiency has been seriously compromised by the conflicts between the central and local governments in implementing policy. While the central government tries to maximize the project's ecological benefits, the local tends to minimize its administrative efforts due to limited budgets. This paper creates a Stackelberg model to simulate central and local relationships and proposes three possible solutions: penalizing high mortality rates of trees, rewarding high survival rates, and a combination of them. It is shown that the ecologically optimal strategy for the central government is to recognize high survival rates with a reward rate quantitatively equal to the size of the reward base fund. Understanding and solving the conflicts between central and local governments in China's ecological projects is particularly important since its rising economy is being drained of natural resources, while exploiting other countries’ resources. Contrary to traditional wisdom that takes local agencies for granted as subordinate organs in the environmental governance system, this work indicates that environmental policy design needs improved mechanisms to motivate local agencies in working more effectively. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Based on the Chinese provincial panel data from 1995 to 2008, using the panel co-integration method, this paper presents an empirical study on the long-term equilibrium relationship between the fiscal decentralization, the local government competition and the farmland conversion. On this basis, establishing the dynamic panel data model, using the generalized method of moments (GMM) to analyze the dynamic impact of the fiscal decentralization and the local government competition on the farmland conversion from the view of three cross-regional groups and the mainland China. The results show that there is a long-run co-integration relationship between the fiscal decentralization, the farmland conversion and the local government competition, and also there is a positive significant influence of the fiscal decentralization and the local government competition on the farmland conversion, a 1% increase in the degree of fiscal decentralization will increase the area of farmland conversion by 0.3280%. In addition, there is a significant difference of the incentive effect of local government competition on the farmland conversion in different regions. Th e paper ends with policy suggestions for perfecting the system of the fiscal decentralization, taxation and the division of responsibility and authority, reforming the criterion of the political achievement assessment, strengthening the management of land revenue, reducing the reliance of the local government on land finance; at the same time, the farmers' land property rights should be perfected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental issues have been politically salient in Queensland throughout recent decades of Labor dominance. While in general Labor has benefited politically from being regarded as the ‘greener’ of the major parties, state Labor governments have also sometimes found environmental policy difficult to deal with. This is partly a reflection of the political passions that environmental and resource use conflicts can generate and is partly due to the pressures on environmental assets from population and economic growth in Queensland; primarily, however, it reflects the difficulty of reconciling environmental and sustainability policy goals with the historically dominant model of development in Queensland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local government has traditionally played only a minor role in regulating airborne toxic pollutants. However, from 2004 to 2009, the City of Houston implemented a novel, municipality-based air toxics reduction strategy to address what it considered unacceptable health risks and an insufficient regulatory response from state and federal agencies. The city's effort to exert local control over stationary sources of air toxics represents a unique opportunity to study the selection and performance of policy tools and to consider their ramifications for the design of future air pollution control strategies. The results of this case study demonstrate the potential for municipal government to use a combination of cooperative and confrontational policies to stimulate responses from private industry and state and federal regulators as part of a strategy to address local air quality problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ecological footprint analysis has become a popular method for exposing excess appropriation of limited biophysical resources on a global scale. Here we test the thesis that these discrepancies are both among countries and within the sub-regions of a country. We use U.S. county-level human footprint estimates, consumer expenditure information, and local air emissions estimates from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to explore the patterns of ecological inequality occurring domestically. We do so using a spatially weighted structural equations approach, aimed at accounting for both the spatial dependence of the units of analysis and the specified causal relationships among the determinants of both ecological footprint estimates and carbon emissions. At this smaller spatial scale, findings may be more easily incorporated into policy and planning decisions, as well as practical efforts to achieve improved sustainability, especially since a significant element of environmental politics is local (O'Neill and Hymel 1994). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The voluntary sector is value driven, issue focused and considered economically efficient due to volunteer engagement and low administrative overheads in meeting conservation objectives. Independence and flexibility make it an intermediary between stakeholders and government and it is proving an effective vehicle for public engagement. NGOs are emerging as a key player in environmental action, making them a partial replacement for ‘big government action’ and may be heralding a ‘Big Green Society’. The sector ranges in scale from small, local conservation charities to nationally important organisations. This article focuses on functionality because resource issues relate to funding, competences of personnel, continuity of mission and access to expertise, and all are affected during times of austerity. NGOs were largely task-oriented, yet they rapidly developed a campaigning role encapsulating an ever deeper role in both planning and policy formulation. Subsequently, they have developed community inclusion at the core of their function. While the portents remain good, potential problems relate to economic resources, task allocation, impacts on labour markets, interactions with the statutory sector, operational independence and to relations with local democracy. Outlined in this paper are historic functions, operation and development of the sector and perceived issues for the future. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This study will examine the state of local capacity building for local climate adaptation in Japan. Climate mitigation needs to be led by both global strategies and national mandates in an integrated way, but climate change impacts are manifested locally and adaptive capacity is determined by local conditions. The article first lays out the basic components of local capacity for decentralized policy making and assesses the current local capacity in view of Japan's climate policy. The bulk of data employed in the study is derived from existing up-to-date government databases. It found that only the largest municipalities as well as prefectures have governing capacities to develop a comprehensive approach to climate adaptation, while medium-sized municipalities have a potential to take a participatory approach to climate policy. It argues that some pioneering localities realize their potentials to take initiatives under political leadership but most localities act in a piecemeal fashion according to clear national-level guidance on climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article studies the nature of current policy and management practice in Thailand on vegetation burnings and haze pollution and examines how these take into account heterogeneity and complexity of local conditions and causal factors on the ground. Chang Mai province's recent haze episodes are used as case study. The country's policy regime on vegetation burning and haze pollution is characterized as command-and-control and highly regulatory. Authors argue that haze problem is framed by the central and provincial government as a purely an administrative task of control and penalizing perpetrators of fire. This fails to take into account the heterogeneity and complexity of local conditions and drivers of burning occurrences, which in Chang Mai involves a variety of widely diffused forest and farming-based livelihood activities, such as hunting and forest product gathering, swidden farming, and burning of agricultural residues in rice cultivation. This state simplification in policy combines well with and is further reinforced by a centralized, top-down, and institutional landscape and functioning of government in decision-making, enabling the policy to cascade down to the province, districts, and sub-districts basically unaltered. Further, traditional administrative separatism between ministries and their provincial counterparts undermines the possibility of area-wide planning and integration of responses. The authors' recommend a major policy shift, among others, including components of using local research on causal factors as tool for planning and policy, instituting incentives and reward systems for would-be fire igniters, area-wide local-transboundary approach, and strengthening autonomy of local government bodies. Authors have used documents review, secondary sources, and key informant interviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT The ethnographic study of Western environmental activism opens up the prospect of studying subjectivities formed in opposition to dominant Western ideas and values, and yet encapsulated within Western societies and democratic polities. One of the directions in which it points the anthropologist, which is pursued in this article, is towards the study of the political lifeworlds of activists, their self-identity as citizens and their embeddedness in the wider society. Environmental politics can be an emergent activity in citizens' lives, as expressed in John Dewey's concept of 'the public' as citizens who organise themselves to address the adverse consequences of situations that they experience in common (Dewey 1991[1927]). This paper focuses on a middle ground of social action between habitual daily practice, and the domain of institutional politics: groups of people in small voluntary organisations in the heavily coal-mined Hunter Valley, Southeast Australia, who are moved to collective action to address the threatening aspects of anthropogenic climate change. Action group members variously articulate their reflexive understandings of the structural contradictions of environmentalism in corporate capitalist societies where values of consumerism and processes of individualization corrode collective concerns of citizenship-based politics. These understandings inform activists' personal motivations, values and ideals for a 'climate movement', diverse modes of political action and striving for wider political intelligibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Only democratic political systems can ensure a reliable and continuous inclusion of the interests of citizens and a commitment to addressing their needs. This contribution focuses on how citizens can engage in developing answers in fighting climate change and adapting to its impacts. Employing the function model of civil society developed by Merkel and Lauth, it draws on practical experience revealed by concrete examples and offers a systematization of the roles and functions that civil society can play in combating climate change. Examples of successful civic engagement on the community and national levels cover different perspectives and entry points, such as human rights, environmental and energy issues, and consumer protection. Transitions to stable democracy have become the object of significant international democracy support, so the account concludes that democracy's international supporters must understand the complexity that climate change brings to livelihoods at the community level and the potential benefits of pursuing greater interaction with civic engagement at the local and national levels. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Conventional energy strategy defines an energy system vision (the goal), energy scenarios with technical choices and an implementation mechanism (such as economic incentives). Due to the lead of a generic vision, when applied in a specific regional context, such a strategy can deviate from the optimal one with, for instance, the lowest environmental impacts. This paper proposes an approach for developing energy strategies by simultaneously, rather than sequentially, combining multiple energy system visions and technically feasible, cost-effective energy scenarios that meet environmental constraints at a given place. The approach is illustrated by developing a residential heat supply strategy for a Swiss region. In the analyzed case, urban municipalities should focus on reducing heat demand, and rural municipalities should focus on harvesting local energy sources, primarily wood. Solar thermal units are cost-competitive in all municipalities, and their deployment should be fostered by information campaigns. Heat pumps and building refurbishment are not competitive; thus, economic incentives are essential, especially for urban municipalities. In rural municipalities, wood is cost-competitive, and community-based initiatives are likely to be most successful. Thus, the paper shows that energy strategies should be spatially differentiated. The suggested approach can be transferred to other regions and spatial scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A decade after the passage of Republic Act 9003, otherwise known as the Philippine Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000, an in-depth and year-long analysis of its successes and remaining gaps is undertaken. The National Solid Waste Management Commission (NSWMC) has gathered experts and practitioners to document the status of compliance to the law by local government units and diagnose the issues and barriers affecting its implementation. With support from Solid Waste Management for Local Government Units (SWM4LGUs) Project being implemented by AHT GROUP AG on behalf of the German International Cooperation Agency (GIZ), the NSWMC has developed the National Solid Waste Management Strategy for the years 2012 to 2016.The Strategy consists of ten (10) components, namely: Bridging policy gaps and harmonizing policies, Capacity development, social marketing and advocacy, Sustainable financing, Creating economic opportunities, Knowledge management on technologies and innovation, Organizational development and enhancing inter-agency cooperation, Compliance monitoring, enforcement and recognition, Good governance, Caring for vulnerable groups, and Reducing disaster and climate change risks. Each is defined by key initiatives, which are further elaborated with objectives, indicative actions, justifications, responsible entities, time frame, target groups and resource requirements. This paper describes the processes involved in strategy development, including the review of policies, situational analysis, issue categorization, validation of strategic issue statements, elaboration of strategic components, and prioritization of key initiatives through factor analysis and stakeholder management tools. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Nepal’s conservation areas and community forests are generally considered as successful community-based conservation models. The paper’s goal is to investigate the factors that consistently predict the level of trust local governing bodies have on administering agencies in these models. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected through field research in the Annapurna Conservation Area (ACA) in the summer of 2007 and adjacent community forests in the fall of 2008. The Conservation Area Management Committee (CAMC) and the Community Forest User Committee (CFUC) are the functional decision-making entities at the local level in ACA and the community forests, respectively. I conducted one-on-one semi-structured interviews with 66 executive members of 10 CAMCs and 67 members of 9 CFUCs. In multiple regression models relating the levels of trust committee members had for administering staff and agencies to a set of 7 theoretically informed covariates, 4 were statistically significant in ACA and 3 in the community forests. In ACA, committee members’ overall assessment of the agency’s performance, perceptions regarding the agency staff’s understanding of local culture, perceptions regarding the equitable distribution of conservation benefits, and perceptions regarding the dependence upon the agency were statistically significant variables that influenced trust. In the community forests, committee members’ overall assessment of the agency’s performance, perceptions regarding the agency staff’s understanding of local culture, and rational assessments of the benefits and costs associated with being a member explained significant variations in the levels of trust. The most consistent predictors of agency trust in both the models were committee members’ overall assessment of the agency’s performance, and perceptions regarding the agency staff’s understanding of local culture. These findings suggest that natural resource management agencies can devise strategies for building trust with local governing bodies by a combination of above average performance and deeper understanding of local culture. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This study, holding as background the conflicts that involve the environment, analyzes the fraternity principle, from the perspective of the theory proposed by Baggio, concluding that the official pattern of environmental litigations composition that exist in Brazil --solidified by the obsolete monopoly of Judiciary-- consolidated on a Law's positivism and on a competitive point of view of the society, does not contemplates the fraternity as a legal value. In other hands, the paper starts to focus the mediation, making clear that this alternative way of contest's solution not only disposes with justness to the environmental conflicted issue but --remarkably by its communicative characteristic acting and shared true-- deeply excited by the fraternity idea. The subject has been researched in the specialized literature, making sure about the precarious systematization of the mediation as management way of environmental conflicts, as well as a lack on the approach of the fraternity as juridical category of potential incidence at the environmental field. In the end, the analysis concludes that the eco mediation may appease the insertion of the fraternity component on arguing related to environmental estates, generally ruled by the radicalization and a vision of world's representationalism, contributing perhaps to the co-operation construction of a new paradigmatical systemic epistemology for conflicts solutions, that insures the emphasized roll to fraternal as imperative of conduct. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Regardless of its intent and purposes, the first decade of the Local Air Quality Management (LAQM) framework had little or no effect in reducing traffic-related air pollution in the UK. Apart from the impact of increased traffic volumes, the major factor attributed to this failure is that of policy disconnect between the process of diagnosing air pollution and its management, thereby limiting the capability of local authorities to control traffic-related sources of air pollution. Integrating air quality management into the Local Transport Plan (LTP) process therefore presents opportunities for enabling political will, funding and joined-up policy approach to reduce this limitation. However, despite the increased access to resources for air quality measures within the LTP process, there are local institutional, political and funding constraints which reduce the impact of these policy interventions on air quality management. This paper illustrate the policy implementation gaps between central government policy intentions and the local government process by providing evidence of the deprioritisation of air quality management compared to the other shared priorities in the LTP process. We draw conclusions on the policy and practice of integrating air quality management into transport planning. The evidence thereby indicate the need for a policy shift from a solely localised hotspot management approach, in which the LAQM framework operates, to a more holistic management of vehicular emissions within wider spatial administrative areas. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In Cambodia there is an urgent need to ensure the livelihood of the forest-dependent rural poor while at the same time sustaining valuable forest resources. As past centralized forest management regimes have failed, international scholars and development practitioners increasingly recommend the decentralization of power in favor of granting authority over forest management to commune councils. Drawing on experience from community forestry and commune councils, this article argues that in Cambodia democratic decentralization, understood as a transfer of significant domains of discretionary power and authority to downwards accountable local institutions, is unlikely to work unless: (a) the communities get access to substantial benefits from the forests, and (b) they are enabled to deal with strong external and internal actors and conflicting interests. This requires support from the state, but the national government in Cambodia is weak and represents a major constraint in itself. Hence, this article calls for increased focus on the role of the state in theory about decentralized forest management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented that discusses ecoplanning and environmental reform in Sant Sadurní D'Anoia, Catalonia, Spain as an aspect of local urban planning. Other topics include the role of environmental audits, the involvement of the local government in plans for sustainability, and environmental policies for rural areas of the municipality.

Long-term policy issues are a particularly vexing class of environmental policy issues which merit increasing attention due to the long-time horizons involved, the incongruity with political cycles, and the challenges for collective action. Following the definition of long-term environmental policy challenges, I pose three questions as challenges for future research, namely 1. Are present democracies well suited to cope with long-term policy challenges? 2. Are top-down or bottom-up solutions to long-term environmental policy challenges advisable? 3. Will mitigation and adaptation of environmental challenges suffice? In concluding, the contribution raises the issue of credible commitment for long-term policy issues and potential design options. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we describe local decision maker attitudes towards vernal pools to inform science communication and enhance vernal pool conservation efforts. We conducted interviews with town planning board and conservation commission members (n = 9) from two towns in the State of Maine in the northeastern United States. We then mailed a questionnaire to a stratified random sample of planning board members in August and September 2007 with a response rate of 48.4% (n = 320). The majority of survey respondents favored the protection and conservation of vernal pools in their towns. Decision makers were familiar with the term “vernal pool” and demonstrated positive attitudes to vernal pools in general. General appreciation and willingness to conserve vernal pools predicted support for the 2006 revisions to the Natural Resource Protection Act regulating Significant Vernal Pools. However, 48% of respondents were unaware of this law and neither prior knowledge of the law nor workshop attendance predicted support for the vernal pool law. Further, concerns about private property rights and development restrictions predicted disagreement with the vernal pool law. We conclude that science communication must rely on specific frames of reference, be sensitive to cultural values, and occur in an iterative system to link knowledge and action in support of vernal pool conservation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Using both qualitative and quantitative approaches, this article investigates the under-researched demand-side of locally-financed Payments for Environmental Services (PES). It assesses downstream users'' willingness to pay (WTP) for improved tap water quality in a setting where upstream landowners are clearing watersheds. The research findings are indicative of a considerable WTP for improved drinking water services and a definite local awareness of upstream–downstream interdependencies, suggesting potential for successful PES. Contingent Valuation (CV), however, found a substantially lower WTP under a PES scenario than under an alternative scenario involving infrastructure investments. The qualitative research angle indicates that the feasibility of a locally-financed PES system may have been negatively affected by the prevailing discursive framing of agricultural externalities and entitlements, raising issues about the fairness of such payments. Moreover, low levels of mutual trust were found to undermine the credibility of the PES framework. These results confirm that institutional failures contribute to environmental degradation and that PES should not be viewed as a market panacea transcending the local institutional context, but rather as a potentially complementary instrument within a broader rearrangement of environmental governance. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

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From its nadir ten years ago, when it only recycled 11.2 per cent of its waste, the UK's situation has gradually improved, driven by greater environmental awareness and ever tightening regulations to this year's zenith when 41.2 per cent of household waste was recycled. Recycling is not a new development, in fact many would argue that it is returning to mankind's early days when everything was repaired or reused. It was because the greater affluence of the previous century, driven by the consumer and marketing revolution that has turned the global market into a disposable society, that waste has increased. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beginning in 1998, an innovation in water rights policy took place in Colorado. This paper analyses the diffusion of the recreational in-channel water right policy innovation among Colorado communities. This research involved in-depth case studies in 12 Colorado communities. Data include interviews, legal and legislative documents, and mass media coverage. These new water rights spread among Colorado communities through two processes. First, experts acted as information entrepreneurs providing both technical and policy information to other communities. Through repetitive journalistic sourcing, media coverage spread the influence and reputation of certain experts who then influenced internal policy decisions in subsequent communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local authorities, particularly coastal municipalities are gradually incorporating sustainability as one of the core values to drive the tourism industry forward, in an attempt to be more responsive to current market, environmental and community requirements. Central to this process is the adoption of voluntary initiatives such as environmental guidelines and certification schemes that encourage commitment to change. The Blue Flag Programme, run by the independent non-profit organization Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE), brings a reliable guarantee to tourists regarding the environmental quality of beaches and marinas. Therefore it serves to encourage local authorities and other tourism stakeholders to constantly enhance the environmental quality of their destinations as a whole. The Blue Flag works towards sustainable development through strict criteria dealing with water quality, environmental education and information, environmental management, safety and other services at the beach. This study presents the results of work undertaken for a pilot project contracted by ENEA and the University of Bologna, under the patronage of the Foundation for Environmental Education, which had the central aim of conducting research on the role that the Blue Flag award can play, working together with local authorities to build a common conscience, and providing guidance towards sustainable tourism development. The research was performed through a questionnaire, which was sent to all the Blue Flag awarded municipalities across Italy. In future, this method could be extended to all the Blue Flag beaches/marinas around the world. Results confirmed the validity of the Blue Flag Programme as a tool for improving coastal zone management in a holistic way, promoting the incorporation of environmental issues in the decision-making processes of local authorities and their partners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: National outlooks of emission levels are important components of international environmental policymaking and associated national policy development. This is the case for both greenhouse gas emissions and transboundary air pollutants. However, there is uncertainty inherent in the production of forecasts. In the climate context, IPCC guidelines have been established to support national teams in quantifying uncertainty within national inventory reporting of historic emissions. These are presented to indicate the potential range of deviation from reported values and to offer added evidence for policy decisions. However, the method and practice of accounting for uncertainty amongst emission forecasts is both less clear and less common. This paper posits that the role of forecasts in setting international targets and planning policy action renders the management of ‘forecast’ uncertainty as important as addressing uncertainty in the context of inventory and compliance work. Failure to explicitly present uncertainty in forecasting delivers an implicit and misplaced confidence in a given future scenario, irrespective of parallel work on other scenarios and sensitivities. However, it is acknowledged that approaches to uncertainty analyses within the literature are often highly technical and the models used are both computationally demanding and time-intensive. This can limit broader adoption where national capacities are limited and scenario development is frequent. This paper describes an approach to presenting uncertainty, where the aim is to balance the technical and temporal demands of uncertainty estimation against a means of delivering regular and practical estimation and presentation of uncertainty for any given scenario. In turn this methodology should help formalise the recognition of the uncertainty dimension in emissions forecasts, for all stakeholders engaged. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]