Environmental Policy Framework Research Articles

Environmental Policy and Regulatory Framework for Managing Mangroves as a Carbon Sink in Cuba

Carbon stored in mangroves is valuable for climate change mitigation. Managing the carbon stored in the mangrove requires an adequate legal framework and an environmental policy. In Cuba, there is little research on the capacity of mangroves to retain carbon and its articulation in environmental policy and management. In the present study, the following research question is raised: Is there a favorable context in the environmental policy to manage the mangrove as a carbon reservoir in Cuba? The aim of this research is to identify aspects of environmental policy, legal and administrative frameworks related to managing mangroves as a carbon sink in Cuba. The qualitative method of social research, the content analysis technique, and the modified Ibero-American Network for Integrated Coastal Management (IBERMAR) decalogue were used to compile, understand, and discuss the potential for effective management of mangroves for carbon storage. One hundred and twenty-one articles published in WOS and Scopus databases between 2019 and 2022, as well as books and material reviewed on the official websites, were checked. Present policy in Cuba manages mangroves for coastal protection and other ecosystem services but lacks a developed plan for considering the role of this marine forest system as a carbon sink. Managing mangroves as a carbon reservoir will require vigorous efforts to measure and monitor the system. It is necessary to build a robust national political agenda and strengthen institutional and regulatory capacities. This research provides a systematization of environmental policy as a baseline for the management of carbon reservoirs in mangroves in Cuba.

Spatial-temporal evolution of "Production-Living-Ecologica" function and layout optimization Strategy in China: a case study of Liaoning Province, China.

Based on the land remote sensing monitoring data from 2000 to 2020, this paper quantitatively analyzed the spatio-temporal evolution of "production-living-ecological" functions and the geographical dominance degree of Liaoning Province using a geospatial model, and put forward some policy suggestions. The results showed that the living function area increased by 2957 km2, the ecological function area increased by 2011 km2, and the production function area was reduced by 4968 km2. The spatial distribution of production function was higher in the middle part, lower in the east and west, and the functional index was between 0.01 and 0.21. The living function level is distributed from east to west, and the function index decreases gradually from plain to surrounding mountains. There was a significant correlation between the level of ecological function and topography, and the functional index ranged from 0.01 to 0.65. The advantageous areas of production function are located in the central plain of Liaoning and Dalian, the advantageous areas of living function are located in the central part of Liaoning, and the advantageous areas of ecological function are located in the eastern and western parts of Liaoning. Social and economic level, natural ecological environment, and regional development policy are the important factors that affect the layout of "production-production-production" function. It is suggested that the provincial government should build a comprehensive management system across administrative regions, design the ecological and environmental protection policy framework of "production-living-ecological" function, and improve the ecological protection coordination mechanism.

Financial Incentives for Promotion of Electric Vehicles in India- An Analysis Using the Environmental Policy Framework

India has seen some of the most damaging social and environmental effects of air pollution in recent times. It has also committed at the COP 21 in Paris to help reduce global warming. Following this voluntary agreement, India plans to increase the share of electric vehicles to 30% of total vehicles sold by 2030 to reduce air pollution. This paper studies the major financial incentives and policy measures undertaken since 2015 as part of the EV policy and views it through the lens of the Environmental Policy Framework, which considers five major types of instruments: Regulations and Standards, Green Taxes, Incentives, and Subsidies, Carbon Credits and Voluntary Negotiations. Another instrument called ‘Information Dissemination Measures’ is added to this framework to help evaluate the current EV policy. We find that while there are good financial incentives, to begin with, charging infrastructure and research in battery technology needs to be increased in India. There is also an urgent need to improve communication and awareness about EVs and their role in the reduction of pollution to help overcome the hesitancy in adopting this new technology.

Developing environmental policy framework for sustainable development in Next-11 countries: the impacts of information and communication technology and urbanization on the ecological footprint

Developing environmental policy framework for sustainable development in Next-11 countries: the impacts of information and communication technology and urbanization on the ecological footprint

Restricted Anthropogenic Activities and Improved Urban Air Quality in China: Evidence from Real-Time and Remotely Sensed Datasets Using Air Quality Zonal Modeling

The study aims to examine the major atmospheric air pollutants such as NO2, CO, O3, PM2.5, PM10, and SO2 to assess the overall air quality using air quality zonal modeling of 15 major cities of China before and after the COVID-19 pandemic period. The spatio-temporal changes in NO2 and other atmospheric pollutants exhibited enormous reduction due to the imposition of a nationwide lockdown. The present study used a 10-day as well as 60-day tropospheric column time-average map of NO2 with spatial resolution 0.25 × 0.25° obtained from the Global Modeling and Assimilation Office, NASA. The air quality zonal model was employed to assess the total NO2 load and its change during the pandemic period for each specific region. Ground surface monitoring data for CO, NO2, O3, PM10, PM2.5, and SO2 including Air Quality Index (AQI) were collected from the Ministry of Environmental Protection of China (MEPC). The results from both datasets demonstrated that NO2 has drastically dropped in all the major cities across China. The concentration of CO, PM10, PM2.5, and SO2 demonstrated a decreasing trend whereas the concentration of O3 increased substantially in all cities after the lockdown effect as observed from real-time monitoring data. Because of the complete shutdown of all industrial activities and vehicular movements, the atmosphere experienced a lower concentration of major pollutants that improves the overall air quality. The regulation of anthropogenic activities due to the COVID-19 pandemic has not only contained the spread of the virus but also facilitated the improvement of the overall air quality. Guangzhou (43%), Harbin (42%), Jinan (33%), and Chengdu (32%) have experienced maximum air quality improving rates, whereas Anshan (7%), Lanzhou (17%), and Xian (25%) exhibited less improved AQI among 15 cities of China during the study period. The government needs to establish an environmental policy framework involving central, provincial, and local governments with stringent laws for environmental protection.

Market-based Environmental Policy Instrument Mixes and Firms’ Environmental Innovation: A Fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis

ABSTRACT This study analyzed the antecedents of firms’ environmental innovation considering policy instrument mixes. Selecting 209 firms as the research sample and employing the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis method, we examined the effect of five types of market-based environmental policy instruments on firms’ environmental innovation. We found that environmental innovation was not contingent on any individual condition, but resulted from the mix of the five market-based environmental policy instruments, which formed four paths and three models, namely, incentives-punishment, financial support, and subsidies-demand. The study has implications in improving the applicability of policies and formulating an effective environmental policy framework.

The Sustainable Environment in Uruguay: The Roles of Financial Development, Natural Resources, and Trade Globalization

As the world continues to be a globalized society, there have been variations in environmental quality, but studies including trade globalization into the environmental policy framework remain inconclusive. Therefore, employing the time series dataset of Uruguay over the period between 1980 and 2018, the main objective of this current study is to investigate the effect of trade globalization, natural resources rents, economic growth, and financial development on carbon emissions. By employing the bounds testing procedures in combination with the critical approximation p-values of Kripfganz and Schneider (2018), the Autoregressive Distributed Lag estimator, and spectral causality test to achieve the goal of this research. The outcomes of the bounds test confirm a long-run connection between carbon emissions and these determinants. Moreover, from the outcome of the Autoregressive Distributed Lag estimator, we observed that trade liberalization is found to exert CO2 emissions in the long and short run. The economic expansion in Uruguay imposes significant pressure on the quality of the environment in the long and short run. The abundance of natural resources significantly increases environmental deterioration in the long and short run. Furthermore, we uncover that financial development does not impact environmental deterioration in Uruguay. Finally, the outcome of the spectral causality test detected that trade globalization, economic growth, and natural resources forecast carbon emissions with the exclusion of financial development. Based on the outcome, this study suggests that policies should be tailored towards international trade must be reassessed, and the restrictions placed on the exportation of polluting-intensive commodities must be reinforced.

Ecotourism, Peasants, Selva and Residuals of War in the Colombian Amazon: A Look Through Affective Ecology

Ecotourism became one of the most important sectors on Guaviare's government agenda since the 2000s. Through its trainings, it would seek to turn coca growers into environmental-entrepreneurial subjects, and the Amazon into an untransformed resource that generates value. With the concept of affective ecologies, I explore the relations that took place between the ecotourism, peasants, the forest, and the residuals of war in Guaviare between 2005 and 2018. In doing so, I argue that, although peasants reproduced the types of subjectivity and nature of institutional ecotourism that operate in the society-nature divide, they also exceeded them. In this way, I reflect on the capacities that the concept of affective ecologies can have to trace and think alternative ways of life without capturing them within the modern conceptual framework of environmental policies and of what some refer as the properly political.

Natural resources, population aging, and environmental quality: analyzing the role of green technologies.

Depletion of natural resources and population aging are the two most critical challenges for environmental sustainability. However, the research that integrates natural resources and population aging in the same environmental policy framework is still scant. Therefore, this study investigates the linkage between natural resources, population aging, green technologies, and ecological footprint (EF) of G7 countries. In addition, this study also explores the moderating effects of green technologies on the relationship between natural resources and EF. Drawing on the panel times series data from 1970 to 2017, we employ a cross-sectional autoregressive distributed lags (CS-ARDL) model for short- and long-run empirical estimation. Our empirical analysis indicates that natural resource use exacerbates ecological degradation by increasing EF. By contrast, population aging and green technologies present positive ameliorative effects on EF. Interestingly, the interaction effect of green technologies and natural resources indicates that the damage to ecological quality from natural resources can be effectively improved by means of green technologies, thus maintaining environmental sustainability. Furthermore, the results of panel quantile regression show that the effects of population aging and green technologies on the overall ecological footprint distribution in G7 countries are heterogeneous, while the effects of natural resources on the distribution of all conditions of the ecological footprint are positive. In addition, this paper verifies the causal relationship between the variables using the Dumitrescu and Hurlin test. The findings reveal that the relevant changes in all explanatory variables are bilaterally causally associated with EF. Based on these results, this paper provides some feasible policy recommendations.

Market-oriented environmental policies, environmental innovation, and firms’ performance: a grounded theory study and framework

The use of market-oriented environmental policies to achieve a win-win situation for the economy and the environment has become the focus in many countries, and environmental innovation is an important way for firms to achieve dual benefits. However, the overall framework for market-based environmental policies, environmental innovation, and firms’ performance remains unclear. In order to reveal this relationship, this study selected 113 articles from the Zhejiang Daily as the research sample and adopted the grounded theory method to construct the theoretical framework. The results revealed that market-oriented environmental policies that were composed of incentive-based policy tools and constraint-based policy tools had a promotional effect on environmental innovation. Resource redundancy and government action, as internal and external contextual factors, moderated the relationship between market-oriented environmental policies and environmental innovation, and environmental innovation can promote improvements in a firm’s performance. This study provides a useful reference for how governments can better promote the construction of an ecological civilization and how firms can utilize policy opportunities to promote their green development, thus providing empirical evidence for future studies.

Essential earth observation variables for high-level multi-scale indicators and policies

Several holistic approaches are based on the description of socio-ecological systems to address the sustainability challenge. Essential Variables (EVs) have the potential to support these approaches by describing the status of the Earth system through monitoring and modeling. The different classes of EVs can be organized along the environmental policy framework of Drivers, Pressures, States, Impacts and Responses. The EV concept represents an opportunity to strengthen monitoring systems by providing observations to seize the fundamental dimensions of the Earth systemThe Group on Earth Observation (GEO) is a partnership of 113 nations and 134 participating organizations in 2021 that are dedicated to making Earth Observation (EO) data available globally to inform about the state of the environment and enable data-driven decision processes. GEO is building the Global Earth Observation System of Systems, a set of coordinated and independent EO, information and processing systems that interoperate to provide access to EO for users in the public and private sectors. The progresses made in the development of various classes of EVs are described with their main policy targets, Internet links and key referencesThe paper reviews the literature on EVs and describes the main contributions of the EU GEOEssential project to integrate EVs within the work plan of GEO in order to better address selected environmental policies and the SDGs. A new GEO-EVs community has been set to discuss about the current status of the EVs, exchange knowledge, experiences and assess the gaps to be solved in their communities of providers and users. A set of four traits characterizing an EV was put forward to describe the entire socio-ecological system of planet Earth: Essentiality, Evolvability, Unambiguity, and Feasibility. A workflow from the identification of EO data sources to the final visualization of SDG 15.3.1 indicators on land degradation is demonstrated, spanning through the use of different EVs, the definition of the knowledge base on this indicator, the implementation of the workflow in the VLab (a cloud-based processing infrastructure), the presentation of the outputs on a dedicated dashboard and the corresponding narrative through a story map.The concept of EV started in the climate sphere and spread to other domains of the earth system but less so in socio-economic activities. More work is therefore needed to converge on a common definition and criteria in order to complete the implementation of EVs in all GEO focus areas. EVs should screen the entire Earth's social-ecological system, providing a trusted and long-term foundation for interdisciplinary approaches such as ecological footprinting, planetary boundaries, disaster risk reduction, and nexus frameworks, as well as many other policy frameworks such as the SDGs

Leveraging Indigenous Knowledge for Effective Environmental Governance in West Africa

Effective environmental governance is key to achieving Sustainable Development Goals. Environmental sustainability programs in developing countries across West Africa are anchored on western scientific knowledge. This has led to a tendency to marginalize the application of indigenous knowledge in environmental protection in West Africa. Yet, no knowledge system develops in isolation as they cross-fertilize and benefit from each other. Indigenous knowledge systems are as old as the traditional societies having been passed from one generation to another. They are those voluminous, diverse, and highly localized sources of wisdom that are neither specific nor universal. Indigenous knowledge systems such as using animal dung as manure, sighting of the new moon before planting, rain-making rituals, and planting of trees to serve as shades have helped to conserve the wetlands and the forests of most societies in West Africa and are effective in promoting environmental sustainability. Hence, the reason they are considered as important as scientific knowledge which must be integrated through multiple evidence base approaches for effective environmental governance. This article using doctrinal research methodology aims at examining how traditional societies in West Africa can leverage indigenous knowledge to achieve effective environmental governance, mitigate climate change, and promote sustainable development. The article recommends that mainstreaming indigenous knowledge systems into environmental legislation, policy and institutional frameworks will not only help in mitigating environmental issues such as climate change but will help developing countries in West Africa meet the SDG goals and their commitments in the Paris Agreement. The article concludes that the integration of such unique knowledge systems into other evidence or scientific based knowledge systems could be one of the best ways to ensure effective and participatory environmental governance in West Africa.

The contribution of European structural and investment funds to the strategic planning of sustainable development in the national forest parks of Greece

Sustainable development represents a crucial environmental policy framework in order to provide multiple benefits for climate, biodiversity and people. The National Forest Parks (NFP) represent protected areas with important forest diversity that play a critical role, both in reversing biodiversity loss and contributing to socio-economic development. The European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) pursue the preservation and improvement of the environment in the context of sustainable development. To date in Greece, 16 operational projects have been approved through two ESIFs and concern six NFPs which are supervised by Management Bodies. Critical Assessment of the projects and SWOT analysis for the six Management Bodies has also been implemented. These results highlight the existence of common sustainability goals, which focus on the protection of Natura 2000 sites and on preserving biodiversity, to financial support the NFPs with vehicles and IT equipment, rather than promote sustainability.

Clean energy investment and financial development as determinants of environment and sustainable economic growth: evidence from China.

Environmental sustainability has become one of the most common phrases in discussions about climate change. This study examines the impact of clean energy investment and financial development on environmental sustainability and China's economic growth, using manufacturing value-added and urbanization as moderator variables from 1970 to 2016. We used advanced econometric methodologies for empirical estimations, used structural break unit root tests, fully modified least square, dynamic least square, and robust least square multiple regressions for long-run estimates. Overall, the results determine that clean energy investment is negatively associated with CO2 emissions and ecological footprint while positively associated with China's economic growth. Financial development, manufacturing value-added, and urbanization are positively associated with CO2 emissions, ecological footprint, and China's economic growth. Moreover, clean energy investment improves environmental sustainability at the expense of economic growth. Financial development, manufacturing value-added, and urbanization encourage economic growth at the expense of environmental sustainability. We argued that the local governments play a critical role in lifting the outstanding barriers to cleaner energy investment, addressing disincentives, including pricing carbon dioxide emissions, reforming inefficient nonrenewable fossil fuel subsidies, and addressing regulatory and market rigidities that can undesirably affect the attractiveness of clean energy investment. Policymakers are suggested to encourage green finance strategy for the financial sector to broader sustainable development objectives. At the heart of green manufacturing, industrialization policies are needed to integrate diverse intentions, like inclusive growth, environmental protection, and productivity through a wider range of economic, social, and environmental policy frameworks suitable for decoupling growthfrom social and environmental unsustainability.

Pollution haven or halo effect? A comparative analysis of developing and developed countries

In an effort to improve air quality, developed countries are stepping up their environmental measures. On the other hand, the level of environmental measures remains low for developing countries. This difference can turn these regions into a pollution haven. The aim of this article is to study the direct and indirect impact of trade openness on environmental degradation in 31 developed countries and 100 developing countries over the 1980–2016 period. Using the system Generalized Moments Method (GMM), this study reveals that the pollution haven hypothesis (PHV) is considered only for developing countries, while the pollution halo hypothesis (PHL) is considered for developed countries. The empirical results do not valid the hypothesis of Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) in developing countries, but do valid it in developed countries. It can be said that an increase in trade and foreign direct investment increases the developed countries’ polluting projects which are destined for the developing countries, thus pushing the developed countries to achieve emission reductions at the expense of the developing countries. It is recommended to continue to attract such entries while putting in place mechanisms and instruments to reduce carbon dioxide emissions within the framework of rigorous environmental policies.

Landholders' perceptions on legal reserves and agricultural intensification: Diversity and implications for forest conservation in the eastern Brazilian Amazon

Forest conservation on privately owned lands is a cornerstone of the Brazilian environmental policy framework. Brazilian legislation requires that all farms in the country maintain and protect forest areas known as Legal Reserves. Since Legal Reserves have major implications for forest conservation and agricultural production, it is key that we understand landholders' perceptions towards Legal Reserves. We applied Q methodology to identify different perspectives of medium and large landholders on Legal Reserves and their relation to agricultural intensification in the municipality of Paragominas, eastern Amazon. We conducted 31 interviews in which landholders sorted 36 statements in a quasi-normal distribution array. Three groups of landholders were identified: 1) Land use planning enthusiasts (n = 16) were interested in zoning initiatives to explore alternative landscape designs and legislation that may deliver better conservation and production outcomes; 2) Agrochemical-based agriculture supporters (n = 7) held the most critical views against Legal Reserves and perceived their costs as higher than the potential environmental and life quality benefits; 3) Policy complacent-market responders (n = 4) showed no interest in Legal Reserves reforms and were the most market driven group.. While Paragominas has achieved notable successes in halting large-scale deforestation through a social “Green Municipality” pact, addressing persisting forest degradation and fragmentation in the region remains a key priority. Local governance initiatives that account for multi-stakeholder perceptions on forest conservation can foster dialogue and mutual understanding to effectively conserve and restore Legal Reserves. Insights on large landholders' perceptions on Legal Reserves can inform such governance processes to reconcile forest conservation and sustainable agricultural intensification in Paragominas.

Nature-Based Solutions and Sustainable Urban Planning in the European Environmental Policy Framework: Analysis of the State of the Art and Recommendations for Future Development

Sustainable urban planning (SUP) is crucial in the development of sustainable cities, as also underlined by the New Urban Agenda. Nature-based solutions (NBS) are increasingly being recognized for their potential to offer multiple benefits that are necessary in order to cope with present and future urban challenges. The European policy framework, including the recently released European Green Deal, could strongly boost the role and recognition of NBS and SUP as drivers of sustainable and inclusive urban transition. Through a content analysis of current environmental European policies, strategies and agreements, this paper provides (i) an overview of the state of the art of the environmental European policy framework and the recognized role of NBS and SUP in reaching defined objectives, and (ii) insights on where NBS and SUP could play a larger role within this framework. On this basis, the paper identifies gaps and develops recommendations for a better integration of such concepts into the current framework.

A Satisficing Framework for Environmental Policy Under Model Uncertainty

We propose a novel framework for the economic assessment of environmental policy. Our main point of departure from existing work is the adoption of a satisficing, as opposed to optimizing, modeling approach. Along these lines, we place primary emphasis on the extent to which different policies meet a set of goals at a specific future date instead of their performance vis-a-vis some intertemporal objective function. Consistent to the nature of environmental policymaking, our model takes explicit account of model uncertainty. To this end, the decision criterion we propose is an analog of the well-known success-probability criterion adapted to settings characterized by model uncertainty. We apply our criterion to the climate-change context and the probability distributions constructed by Drouet et al. (2015) linking carbon budgets to future consumption. Insights from computational geometry facilitate computations considerably and allow for the efficient application of the model in high-dimensional settings.

Теоретичні підходи до визначення поняття підтримання екологічної безпеки

The article is devoted to the study of theoretical approaches to the definition of «environmental safety» and «maintenance of environmental safety». It was found that the concept of «maintenance of environmental safety» is not clearly regulated, but the concept of «maintenance» is used in relation to various environmental conditions, natural phenomena, mechanisms for ensuring state measures to protect the environment. The opinions of foreign and domestic scientists on the concept of environmental safety and processes of its provision are studied. It is found out that the existing contradictions regarding the interpretation of these concepts exist due to a significant number of definitions and classifications. It is revealed that European scientists are more likely to use the definitions of «environmental safety», «environmental policy» and «environmental law», and are increasingly working towards the introduction of new methods to reduce anthropogenic impact on the environment within the framework of national environmental policies. The distinction between the concepts of «environmental safety» and «environmental safety» is proposed. It is proposed to provide a definition of «environmental safety» from a legal point of view, as a type of activity of authorized public authorities and officials, aimed at establishing and regulating legal, economic, political, technical and social measures to achieve and maintain environmental safety. The interpretation of "maintaining environmental safety" as a response system, a set of preventive measures aimed at minimizing the likelihood of natural and anthropogenic emergencies (which can bring the ecosystem out of balance), as well as adjusting the adopted environmental safety strategies to meet the challenges of our time, is proposed.

A review from environmental management to environmental governance: paradigm shift for sustainable mining practice in Ghana

Industries in Ghana, over the centuries and for the sake of developments, have degraded the environment by polluting the air, water, and land through agriculture, manufacturing, construction, and other processes such as exploration of natural resources. The environmental policies in Ghana have been more of state "regulation" or "management" than "environmental governance" overseen by state ministries and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Nevertheless, environmental degradation due to mining activities has been on the increase than ever. This article calls for the need of a change of the environmental policy framework in the mining sector in Ghana from state regulations to environmental governance. It presents "voluntary agreement" as one of the capable instruments in environmental governance for the mining industry. It also addresses the causes of the lack of application of the existing environmental policy framework in the mining industry and the future implications if the government continues with this framework. It also examines the possibility of the state and the mining industry to embrace the paradigm shift in environmental policies. Lastly, due to insufficient literature available on environmental sociology and environmental governance in Ghana, it serves as the literature for future research on other areas of environmental governance and environmental sociology in Ghana.