Global Environmental Regulation Research Articles

Dynamic Relationship Between Environmental Policy and Technological Innovation: Evidence from Firms in Korean Emission Trading Scheme

To cope with radical global environmental regulation, it is necessary to find efficient ways to decrease carbon emissions with a low burden on firms and to design valid policies for a sustainable economy. This study investigates the link between the carbon emissions market and firms’ innovation activities and examines the impact of R&D investment caused by the carbon emissions market on the financial performance of firms participating in the Korean Emission Trading Scheme (KETS). This study assumes that a well-designed carbon emissions market can amplify the effect of R&D investment on improving the financial performance of firms and tests the efficiency of this market based on the KETS data. The results show that the indirect R&D elasticity that affects financial performance is simultaneously negative in the short and long run, except in Phase 1 (2015–2018). From this result, this study concludes that the carbon emissions market cannot induce technological innovation to increase financial performance in Korea, and the dynamic efficiency of the market is low. The industry comparison results confirm that the emissions market has a statistically significant effect on financial performance only in carbon-intensive industries. This study thus shows that the impact of technological innovation induced by the carbon emissions market varies depending on industrial characteristics.

Market-Oriented Mechanisms of Environmental Responsibility and Global Environmental Regulation

Market-Oriented Mechanisms of Environmental Responsibility and Global Environmental Regulation

A Study on Global EV shift and the Strategy of Japanese Automobile Industry

Purpose: The influence of EV shift spreading around the world on Japanese automobile industry due to CASE technical innovation and environmental regulation is examined in this study. In the past, the background of high international competitiveness of Japanese automobile companies has been supported by high technology in Hybrid Vehicle (HV) in addition to highly accumulated technology in the internal combustion engine. However, considerable change and supply chain reorganization is expected in the Japanese automobile industry because CASE and EV shift spreads rapidly. The expansion factor of global EV market, current status of Japanese EV market, the reason to hesitate in EV shift, the strategy of Japanese automobile companies, and the assignment of Japanese automobile industry according to EV shift are analyzed and examined in this study. Research design, data, and methodology: This study is based on the literature research, expert interview and the data published by each company. A survey on EV market which is expanding due to global CASE and environmental regulation was conducted through the literature research. And then, a research on the strategy of Japanese automobile company for EV shift was conducted through an interview with a supply chain official along with a university researcher in Aichi Prefecture where Toyota Motor Corporation is located. A result discovering the characteristic of EV strategy on each company has been achieved. Results: At this moment, the EV market in Japan is very small. Expensive vehicle price, inconvenience of charging and mileage problem, etc. are mentioned as the cause of it. Accordingly, Japanese automobile companies have been pursued the global product strategy centered on the HV. HV has been recognized as an eco-friendly vehicle prior to moving to future FCV and EV. The time Japanese automobile companies announced their EV strategy was Year 2021. However, the strategy of each company is very much different. Toyota is pursing an all round strategy which plans bold investment in PHV, FCV, etc. in addition to EV. Nissan is devoting all their energy to develop all-solid-state battery expanding global EV market based on the result which they early focused on EV. At this moment, Nissan is considered as most advanced in the development of all-solid-state battery in Japan. Honda is concentrating on the development of EV and FCV cooperating with GM in US. Implications: EV has a simple structure unlike traditional gasoline and diesel vehicles. Therefore, the expansion of EV is expected to give inevitable significant influence on the Japanese automobile industry. First, huge EV development and production facility reorganization will cause huge amount of cost. As a next, it is expected the industrial structure to be reorganized with the bankruptcy of existing companies and the entry of new companies based on the reorganization of the supply chain due to the decrease in the number of parts. Accordingly, employment problem also will be emerged seriously. Finally, the change in the Japanese automobile industry will be an important subject for research in the future because it is expected there also will be change in traditional Sryawase type Monozukuri method which has been evaluated as a strength of Japanese manufacturing industry.

Synthesis of Alloyed ZnSeTe Quantum Dots as Bright, Color-Pure Blue Emitters.

Considering a strict global environmental regulation, fluorescent quantum dots (QDs) as key visible emitters in the next-generation display field should be compositionally non-Cd. When compared to green and red emitters obtainable from size-controlled InP QDs, development of non-Cd blue QDs remains stagnant. Herein, we explore the synthesis of non-Cd, ZnSe-based QDs with binary and ternary compositions toward blue photoluminescence (PL). First, the size increment of binary ZnSe QDs is attempted by a multiply repeated growth until blue PL is attained. Although this approach offers a relevant blue color, excessively large-sized ZnSe QDs inevitably entail a low PL quantum yield. As an alternative strategy to the above size enlargement, the alloying of high-band gap ZnSe with lower-band gap ZnTe in QD synthesis is carried out. These alloyed ternary ZnSeTe QDs after ZnS shelling exhibit a systematically tunable PL of 422-500 nm as a function of Te/Se ratio. Analogous to the state-of-the-art heterostructure of InP QDs with a double-shelling scheme, an inner shell of ZnSe is newly inserted with different thicknesses prior to an outer shell of ZnS, where the effects of the thickness of ZnSe inner shell on PL properties are examined. Double-shelled ZnSeTe/ZnSe/ZnS QDs with an optimal thickness of the ZnSe inner shell are then employed for all-solution-processed fabrication of a blue QD light-emitting diode (QLED). The present blue QLED as the first ZnSeTe QD-based device yields a peak luminance of 1195 cd/m2, a current efficiency of 2.4 cd/A, and an external quantum efficiency of 4.2%, corresponding to the record values reported from non-Cd blue devices.

Global environmental regulation of offshore energy production: Searching for legal standards in ocean governance

The international environmental regulation of all types of energy generation activities at sea is first and foremost anchored to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). However, both at the global and regional levels, UNCLOS is complemented by an array of evolving environmental agreements. These normative developments can put flesh on the bare bones of the general (due diligence) obligation of States to protect the marine environment with regard to offshore energy activities. Parallel to binding obligations under environmental agreements, there are a variety of non‐binding instruments, which can also play a key role in enriching the content of prevention obligations. Depending on their source, their form and the procedure by which they are adopted, these non‐binding pronouncements may become legally relevant as interpretative guidance or standard of proof that a State has exercised due diligence. In this context, the article posits that synergies among environmental instruments and the interaction of non‐binding instruments with binding rules of international law can fill the current legal gaps and strengthen the international legal standards for the regulation of this environmentally sensitive sector.

Shifting between Public and Private: The Reconfiguration of Global Environmental Regulation

Over the past two centuries, public environmental regulation (PER) has been progressively supplemented by private transnational regulation (PTR), creating a hybrid environmental governance regime. A five-category typology is developed to describe the ways in which international and national PER interact with private forms of environmental regulation. We then analyze the policy considerations that are relevant to the design of such hybrid regimes and various forms of interaction. Next, we describe two case studies that demonstrate the diversity of interactions between PER and PTR in a single regime. The case of sustainability reporting illustrates how public law builds on the expertise developed by private organizations as gradually more reporting obligations are incorporated into public law. The case of sustainable forest management regulation is somewhat more mixed, reflecting a tendency for increased state intervention, which led to partial suppression of PTR.

Shifting Between Public and Private: The Reconfiguration of Global Environmental Regulation

Over the past two centuries, public environmental regulation (PER) has been progressively supplemented by private transnational regulation (PTR), creating a hybrid environmental governance regime. A five-category typology is developed to describe the ways in which international and national PER interact with private forms of environmental regulation. We then analyze the policy considerations that are relevant to the design of such hybrid regimes and various forms of interaction. Next, we describe two case studies that demonstrate the diversity of interactions between PER and PTR in a single regime. The case of sustainability reporting illustrates how public law builds on the expertise developed by private organizations as gradually more reporting obligations are incorporated into public law. The case of sustainable forest management regulation is somewhat more mixed, reflecting a tendency for increased state intervention, which led to partial suppression of PTR.

Freight Demand Forecasting Considering Economic Growth Factors

This work proposes a methodology to project future freight demand for all commodity types that begin and end in each geographical region and the amount of freight that moves between all origin and destination pairs. Following the traditional four-step demand forecasting framework, the procedure corresponds to trip generation and trip distribution analysis for interregional freight demand. Using future economic growth factors from macroeconomic and input-output models, the amounts of freight production and attraction in each analysis zone are forecasted and taken as given. Subsequently, an iterative matrix balancing method is applied to determine the estimated freight shipment demand for all origin and destination zone pairs. The proposed algorithm is applied to generate predicted future freight demand within the United States from 2010-2050 in five-year increments based on the national freight demand data from 2007. Four different scenarios are proposed that consider variations in both global economic growth and environmental regulation. This study will assist transportation planners and decision makers in public and private sectors to assess how future freight delivery demand on the national scale considering various future global economic growth and environmental policy scenarios will affect various issues such as air quality and human health problems.

The developmental state in global regulation: Economic change and climate policy

What are the origins of global regulation? This article proposes that the developmental state — the state investing in economic development — can be a source of global environmental regulation. Through industrial policy, the developmental state can promote structural economic change in polluting sectors that supports global regulatory policy in two ways: first, providing state support to green industries creates economic interests in support of global regulation; and, second, driving down the cost of technology through government subsidies alters the pay-offs of global cooperation for other states. This article examines the two mechanisms in the case of climate change: the global leadership of the European Union; and international cooperation on the Paris Agreement. The argument advances our theory of the state in global regulatory politics as both a developmental and a regulatory force. This article identifies significant scope for the developmental strategies of major economies to change the interest and cost structures of polluting sectors to support global environmental regulation.

COMMUNITY PROTOCOLS AS TOOLS FOR RESISTING EXCLUSION IN GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE

ABSTRACT This paper analyzes the rise of the community protocol approach under the access and benefit-sharing (ABS) transnational governance arena, to understand how local initiatives translate a global environmental regulation. This paper contributes to the literature on transnational governance by showing how this is constituted by a series of translation processes and each time a concept is introduced in a transnational arena and then translated by a community or organization, it gains new forms and uses depending on the interests and experiences of the actors involved. However, the same concept used for the same goal by communities in different parts of the world led to different concrete outcomes, which points to the idea that the outcomes in translation processes are not only ongoing but also unpredictable. In addition, the cases illustrate that in the process of actively translating a global regulation, the local actors themselves also change. Finally, the emergent findings show how community protocols were translated to become translocal tools to resist exclusion in environmental governance through two main mechanisms: connecting goals and practices and (re)connecting social networks.

Estimates of recent Hg pollution in Northeast China using peat profiles from Great Hinggan Mountains

Ombrotrophic peatlands are regarded as one of the faithful archives of atmospheric mercury (Hg) deposition, and a large number of studies on Hg accumulation in peatlands have been reported in Europe and North America. Comparatively little information is available about peat chronological records of atmospheric Hg flux in China. We investigated the concentration and historical accumulation rate of Hg (Hg AR) through geochemical analysis of three 210Pb-dated peat cores from Great Hinggan Mountain, Northeast China. Statistical analysis indicated no significant correlations between peat humification proxies and Hg concentration. The average Hg concentration (13.3 ± 1.5 µg kg−1) and Hg AR (7.2 ± 0.9 μg m−2 year−1) in the pre-1830 peat layers were designated as the pre-industrial, background values. The temporal variations of Hg AR show an obvious peak in 1980 ± 10, which correspond to periods of specific social activities where heightened Hg pollution was likely. The major peaking period follows a global trend and the decreasing pattern of Hg AR in the last two decades might be likely due to the increasingly intense global environmental regulation on Hg emission.

Lineage grammars: describing, simulating and analyzing population dynamics.

BackgroundPrecise description of the dynamics of biological processes would enable the mathematical analysis and computational simulation of complex biological phenomena. Languages such as Chemical Reaction Networks and Process Algebras cater for the detailed description of interactions among individuals and for the simulation and analysis of ensuing behaviors of populations. However, often knowledge of such interactions is lacking or not available. Yet complete oblivion to the environment would make the description of any biological process vacuous. Here we present a language for describing population dynamics that abstracts away detailed interaction among individuals, yet captures in broad terms the effect of the changing environment, based on environment-dependent Stochastic Tree Grammars (eSTG). It is comprised of a set of stochastic tree grammar transition rules, which are context-free and as such abstract away specific interactions among individuals. Transition rule probabilities and rates, however, can depend on global parameters such as population size, generation count, and elapsed time.ResultsWe show that eSTGs conveniently describe population dynamics at multiple levels including cellular dynamics, tissue development and niches of organisms. Notably, we show the utilization of eSTG for cases in which the dynamics is regulated by environmental factors, which affect the fate and rate of decisions of the different species. eSTGs are lineage grammars, in the sense that execution of an eSTG program generates the corresponding lineage trees, which can be used to analyze the evolutionary and developmental history of the biological system under investigation. These lineage trees contain a representation of the entire events history of the system, including the dynamics that led to the existing as well as to the extinct individuals.ConclusionsWe conclude that our suggested formalism can be used to easily specify, simulate and analyze complex biological systems, and supports modular description of local biological dynamics that can be later used as “black boxes” in a larger scope, thus enabling a gradual and hierarchical definition and simulation of complex biological systems. The simple, yet robust formalism enables to target a broad class of stochastic dynamic behaviors, especially those that can be modeled using global environmental feedback regulation rather than direct interaction between individuals.

Interdisciplinary Perspectives on International Law and International Relations: The State of the Art. Edited by Jeffrey L. Dunoff and Mark A. Pollack. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Pp. xv, 680. Index. $125, cloth; $44.99, paper.

Interdisciplinary Perspectives on International Law and International Relations: The State of the Art. Edited by Jeffrey L. Dunoff and Mark A. Pollack. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Pp. xv, 680. Index. $125, cloth; $44.99, paper.

الحوكمة البيئية و التجارة العالمية : نحو تفسير لإشكالات الحوكمة البيئية العالمية = Environmental Governance and Global Trade : Towards an Explanation of Global Environmental Governance Crisis

The study aims at clarifying the features of global governance based on the notion of "Unitas Multiplex", which signify the existence of the object in unitary and multiple figures in the same time. In order to do this, I want to define the transformations of the global regulatory projects after the globalization waves and the return of the market as a global regulatory regime, and analyze the conditions for equal and equitable global governance. After showing the proposal model of global regulation based on the notion of unitary emergence and pluralistic regulation, this research analyzes the debate between the two projects of global trade governance and global environmental governance, and the different formulas for treating this conflict. This research proposes finally a pluralistic model to the global environmental regulation in order to reconstruct contradictory global projects, which take in account the multiplicity of local actors and the necessity to their democratic governance and the unitary of the global project of environmental regulation. I analyzing, than, the various characteristics and configurations of global environmental governance, which form the theoretical basis of this concept, like the characteristic of the institutional multiplicity of the global environmental governance, the participation of non state actors, and the new arrangements of global environmental politics which adopt a new approach of the political economy of global environmental governance. We conclude that the trade-environment conflict should be treated in new ways through the making a non reductionist pluralist analytical frame, with a new logic in order to confront trade to environment, by viewing this conflict in multiple angles in the institutional level, and in the level of the relation between the problem of legitimacy and the notion of democracy, and in the level of the relation between society and nature.

Free market environmentalism and the neoliberal project: The case of the Climate Disclosure Standards Board

Abstract In the absence of good social, political, economic and environmental policy, the ecological status of the planet continues to deteriorate. In this paper, we argue that environmental decline has provided scope for new forms of policy-making, yet these emergent policies and policy-making bodies remain poorly understood. Drawing on the work of political geographers and political economists this paper explores the impact of neoliberalism on the development of global environmental regulation. We argue that climate disclosure practices and regulation have provided an opportunity to reinforce the ideological landscape of neoliberalism. In order to anchor this argument, we show that the origins of carbon regulation have emerged almost exclusively from within non-elected coalitions of multinationals operating through private, not-for-profit entities. These organisations continue to shape community expectations and influence government of climate change abatement strategies. To explore the impact neoliberalism has had on the environment, we examine the Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB), its role, and its global impact on the regulation of reporting firms.

Transnational Environmental Law in Action: The European Union's Sustainable Biofuels Experiment

Sustainable biofuels certification is an example of hybrid governance that locates authority, implementation and enforcement by and non-state actors across borders. The emerging concept of transnational environmental seeks to explore such forms of regulation beyond the state. This article argues that transnational environmental provides a holistic perspective that breaks free of bounded notions of law and the state to capture the realities of social ordering (to address environmental challenges) at the periphery, instead of the traditional political centers of states and international organizations. However, this does not mean that the involvement or influence of states is diminished in any way. In the case of sustainable biofuels certification, states play an important role in creating incentives for other actors such as the market and civil society to play a role in global environmental regulation and orchestrating such multi-actor and multi-level regulatory arrangements.

Global environmental regulation: Current status of carbon markets and carbon credits

AbstractClimate change is at the heart of political and legislative debates, international treaty negotiations, religious discussion, and daily media stories. Climate‐change legislation did not pass in the US Congress, but the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued greenhouse gas (GHG) regulations under a 2007 US Supreme Court decision based on the Federal Clean Air Act. Thus, national GHG regulation is going forward in the United States, to the surprise of many who are not involved in environmental issues or regulated under the EPA program.

A Study on Current Status of Corporate Green IT Propulsion Strategy in China Responding the Global Environmental Regulation

A Study on Current Status of Corporate Green IT Propulsion Strategy in China Responding the Global Environmental Regulation

Global Environmental Regulation: Instrument Choice in Legal Context

A central issue in environmental law is the choice among regulatory instruments. From Pigou to Coase to the present, scholars have debated the relative merits of liability rules, property rules, technology standards, taxes, subsidies, and tradeable allowances. An emerging scholarly consensus in economics and law would crown taxes as the presumptive optimal instrument for controlling environmental externalities. But this debate has largely been confined to the context of national law. This article examines the choice of regulatory instruments at the global level--the Olympics of instrument choice. It contends that the choice of optimal regulatory instrument is contingent on the underlying legal system of the regulatory polity. The article focuses on two salient dimensions of variation across legal systems; the voting rule for adoption of law, and the implementation structure for execution of law. The economics literature on instrument choice typically assumes that the regulator wields automatic fiat and unitary implementation. National regulatory legislation is generally adopted under a majoritarian voting rule which can compel sources of externalities to comply, and executed through a federalist structure which can impose constraints directly on sources. By contrast, global regulatory treaties are generally adopted under a voluntary assent voting rule which requires source countries to choose to participate, and executed through a jurisdictional structure which requires regulation to be implemented by nation-state intermediaries. The article argues that the fundamental differences along these two dimensions between the national and global legal systems--voting rules and implementation structures--make tradeable allowances, not taxes, the presumptive first choice for environmental protection at the global level. The article shows that the voluntary assent voting rule for international treaty law necessitates side payments to engage reluctant sources of externalities--a beneficiaries pay rather than a pay approach. And it shows that making such side payments is more under tradeable allowances than under taxes, where participation efficiency is defined as minimizing the sum of the costs of securing participation (which include not only out-of-pocket costs but also the moral hazard distortions induced by subsidizing or compensating polluters for the costs of abatement) plus the costs of enduring nonparticipation (which include leakage of the externality-generating activities from regulated to unregulated jurisdictions). The article argues that when participation must be secured rather than coerced, side payments can be made in a more participation efficient manner alongside tradeable allowances than alongside other instruments. In addition, the article shows that implementation by nation-states makes taxes more costly to monitor than tradeable allowances. In concert, these two legal system variables counsel selection of tradeable allowances, not taxes or command-and-control technology standards, to address global environmental problems such as greenhouse warming and biodiversity loss. More generally, the article argues that whether the regulatory polity is the entire planet or a local neighborhood, the prevailing voting rule and implementation structure will powerfully affect the relative merits of regulatory instruments, and that the debate over instrument choice needs to be reconceived with more explicit attention to the assumed underlying legal framework. Indeed, the article suggests that a key explanation for the divergence between the Pigouvian and Coasean approaches is the assumed underlying legal system. The article seeks to demonstrate that in the design of international regulatory law, economics matters; and, at the same time, that in the economics of regulatory design, law matters.

Nuclear energy system for the global environmental regulation in Korea— Energy-economy interaction model analysis

Global environmental regulation such as limits on CO 2 emissions will change the energy cost as well as energy mix, and it will eventually affect the potential economic growth and future energy demand. The rise of energy price from the environmental regulation will encourage the efficiency increase of energy use, fuel switching and the substitution between the energy and the other factors of production like labour and capital. Such situations can be successfully simulated through an energy-economy model which permits two-way interaction between energy and economy. An analysis on the role of nuclear energy system for meeting the global environmental constraint like CO 2 emission regulation, has been performed through an energy-economy interaction model - EFOM-MACRO-KOREA. In case carbon taxation which is a widely discussed policy measure for CO 2 abatement should be introduced, the role of nuclear energy in the domestic sustainable energy system as well as the economic impacts has been assessed. For the analysis, various scenarios in tax rate have been considered. Levying carbon tax will decrease future economic growth, and the decrease will be bigger in case that there are some restrictions on nuclear installation. It is shown that nuclear energy system will play an important role in Korean sustainable development up to 2040 in most cases.