The Right to Use Environmental Capacity: Legislation for Energy Conservation and Emissions Reductions

Abstract

The theory that man is an integral part of nature, as advocated by Xun Zi an ancient Chinese philosopher, indicates that man and nature are dialectically united. As an integral part of nature, man must survive in certain natural environments. However, at different stages, the environment’s population carrying capacity has a certain equilibrium value. Violation of this value will result in the degradation of environmental quality and/or people’s living conditions. When energy and other resources flow into the economic system, the input-output ratio is an incentive index to measure economic development. After this, they flow back into nature in the form of pollutants. The emission of major pollutants is a binding index to assess economic growth and an index to evaluate the environment’s self-purification capacity.