Regional Environmental Governance Research Articles

Environmental Effects of Credit Allocation Structure and Environmental Expenditures: Evidence from China

This article studies how the allocation structure of bank credit capital between state-owned and private enterprises and government environmental expenditures affect environmental pollution in China. The present literature argues that credit allocation and government environmental expenditures may play an important role in environmental quality improvement. However, these studies rarely consider the credit allocation structure between State-owned enterprises (SOEs) and private enterprises; in addition, they overlook the interaction effects of credit allocation and government environmental expenditures. Based on these, we put forward three hypotheses. Moreover, the study applies relevant spatial data for 2011–2017 from 31 provinces in China to a spatial econometric model, and the results indicate that (1) environmental pollution among provincial regions shows a significant positive spatial autocorrelation. (2) Environmental expenditures and environmental pollution display an inverse U-shaped relationship, which supports the numerical simulation results. (3) The interaction effect of credit allocation structure and environmental expenditures on environmental pollution is significantly positive, which means that the allocation of more credit capital to private enterprises will restrain the effect of government environmental expenditures. With the increasing significance of environmental protection in China, it is necessary to strengthen the supervision of private enterprises’ environmental pollution behavior, expand government expenditures on ecological protection, and promote regional collaborative environmental governance to improve environmental quality.

Technical approach and strategic plan for large-scale ecological and environmental gover-nance and national ecological security pattern construction.

Terrestrial ecosystems are the core components of the biosphere, supporting human life, production and social and economic activities. With the development of human civilization and the progress of science and technology, the continued expanding resources utilization in terms of scale and intensity has caused environmental problems, including global climate change, biodiversity loss, environmental pollution, resource depletion and ecosystem degradation, which threaten the sustainable development of our society. The public expects ecological research providing scientific theories and systematic solutions for the utilization and protection of ecosystems at the continental and global scale, and the maintenance of sustainable development of human society as well. This study aimed to serve the ecological civilization construction in China, ecological security pattern construction, regional ecological and environmental governance, and the development of macrosystem ecology. We reviewed the effectiveness and experience of regional ecological and environmental governance in China, analyzed the scientific requirements and the characteristics of the times of China's eco-civilization construction towards large-scale ecological research, and proposed using a new philosophy, i.e., nature-based macroecosystem approach, to improve the ecological and environmental governance and ecological security pattern construction at the regional scale. Based on the above-mentioned expounding, we discussed the strategic plan, technical approaches and technological support system of large-scale ecological security pattern construction and ecological and environmental governance in China. This review could provide theoretical references for safe, healthy and beautiful land spatial construction and the progress of eco-civilization of China.

Energy Regionalisms in Theory and Practice

AbstractRegionalism has long conceptual and empirical histories across social sciences, and areas of the international and transnational practice of economics, imperialism, and environmental governance. However, energy regionalism remains in the early stages of development both conceptually and empirically. This article reviews three areas of diverse and interdisciplinary scholarship, including international relations, geography, and regional environmental governance, and draws lessons for research agendas associated with energy regionalism. It draws insights from recent work on comparative regionalisms, together with critical perspectives from geography scholarship, conceptualizing regionness as potentially subnational and transnational, as well as inter‐state. Recent geographical literature examines regions and regionalisms as both sets of relational networks and territorial entities, with infrastructure playing a central role around questions of energy. The use of regionalism in international relations literatures, around regionally‐framed environmental cooperation regimes, offers another set of conceptual and empirical lessons for an energy regionalism research agenda. Arguing that these areas have much to contribute to the study of a conceptual and theoretically diverse understanding of energy regionalisms research, the piece concludes by identifying five nodes for theorizing empirical research on energy regionalism: constructing regionness; inequality, money and power; epistemic and normative dimensions; diffusion and institutional hybridization; and scaling regionalism.

The effect of audit of outgoing leading officials’ natural resource accountability on environmental governance: evidence from China

PurposeThis paper aims to examine the relationship between the audit of outgoing leading officials' natural resource accountability and environmental governance, as well as the internal mechanism of audit of outgoing leading officials' natural resource accountability that plays a role in national environmental governance.Design/methodology/approachBased on city-level panel data from 2012 to 2015, this paper adopts a difference-in-difference model to examine the role of government audit in national governance from an environmental perspective. Furthermore, using a mediating effect model, the study sheds light on the internal mechanism of audit of outgoing leading officials’ natural resource accountability that plays a role in national environmental governance.FindingsThis paper finds that: the implementation of the audit of outgoing leading officials’ natural resource accountability has significantly improved the water quality of the pilot area, but its effects on waste gas and smoke are not obvious; environmental supervision partly plays a mediating role in the improvement of regional environmental governance by the audit of outgoing leading officials’ natural resource accountability; the audit of outgoing leading officials’ natural resource accountability can complement the incentive mechanism of promotion. The older the local officials are, the more obvious the effect of the audit of outgoing leading officials’ natural resource accountability on the environmental quality of the pilot areas is.Originality/valueThis paper reveals the role of government audit from the perspective of environmental governance. It provides empirical evidence for policy regarding the audit of outgoing leading officials' natural resource accountability.

Impact of Chinese market segmentation on regional collaborative governance of environmental pollution: A new approach to complex system theory

AbstractThe market segmentation among local governments under decentralization of China not only directly triggered the “fragmentation” of regional development, but also hindered collaborative actions in environmental governance. This study adopts a new method to calculate regional environmental collaborative governance using a synergy degree model of a complex system, and then it empirically analyzes the impact of Chinese market segmentation. We find that the regional environmental collaborative governance in China shows a growing trend during the period of investigation, but the level is still low. Market segmentation has significantly inhibited the regional collaborative governance of environmental pollution among local governments of China. The effect of market segmentation on the order of personnel input and capital input is significantly negative, while the effect on the order of policy input and organizational input is not significant. In the areas where the air pollution and water pollution are serious, the effect of market segmentation is also significantly negative. The conclusions are helpful to understanding the institutional factors that hinder regional environmental collaborative governance in China more comprehensively, and provide insights for improving the performance of environmental governance.

Contestation and Collaboration for Water Resources: Comparing the Emerging Regional Water Governance of the Aral Sea, Irtysh River, and Mekong River

This paper enquires into how effectively “regional transboundary water governance” functions in resolving ecological problems associated with shared water resources. It compares three cases in Asia—the Irtysh River, Aral Sea, and Mekong River basin. Previous scholarly work on the hydro-politics of these three cases within social science disciplines, especially political science and international relations, focuses heavily on the dimension of “hegemonic power disparity between state actors” (from the weaker parties’ points of view) and/or the “economic or strategic benefits of development either defending or criticizing” (from the more powerful—often the polluters’—point of view). To contribute to existing research, this paper intends to enlarge the analytical scope and use the formation of regional environmental governance to grasp a broader picture of the complexity and interconnectivity of ecological issues, regional history, and politics. For analysis, we investigated the multilevel gaps in environmental communication at three different levels, exploring both the conflictual and cooperative relationships amongst all actors involved, namely (a) state-to-state relations: hydro-hegemonism due to the power disparity in historical and political contexts; (b) society level: authoritarian environmentalism between politics and citizens; and (c) global inter-connectivity or distance from (or the absence of) the application of international norms. We argue that all three cases, albeit at various degrees, equally exhibit the potential to fill the multidimensional gaps to ensure more functional, effective, and equitable regional hydro-governance.

Embryonic forms of private environmental governance in Northeast Asia

This article provides empirical evidence of the emergence of new private governance forms through three case studies: transboundary air pollution, green supply chain, and energy transition in Northeast Asia. This article also refers to private governance theories discussed in the context of global environmental governance. Consistent with the private authority theory, entrepreneurs with vast expertise and capacity to provide useful information and practices have emerged. They allow stakeholders to cooperate in regional environmental sustainability under the conditions of weak or no focal institutions and heterogeneous state preferences. This observation is consistent with the global trend of environmental governance, which is shifting from regulatory-based to goal-setting governance. As global partnership theory suggests, hybrid forms of private governance, including various local- to global-level public–private partnerships, emerge across the cases. However, these forms of governance are still in the embryonic stage, where their functions of private authority are not fully developed. These insights challenge the predominant view on the limited roles of nonstate actors in building regional environmental governance in Northeast Asia as discussed in the existing literature.

Regional total-factor productivity and environmental governance efficiency of China’s industrial sectors: A two-stage network-based super DEA approach

Currently, China’s industrial sector is a primary source of both energy consumption and environmental pollution. This paper proposes a two-stage, network-based super data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach to investigate the overall efficiency and eco-efficiency of the sub-stages in China’s industrial system, including the production and three pollutant treatment stages, from 2004 to 2015. The results reveal that: (1) the industrial system’s overall efficiency improved during the sample period. Specifically, efficiency has significantly improved in the production and wastewater stages, while no such improvements have been observed in the solid waste and waste gas treatment stages. (2) Both absolute and conditional β-convergences exist in the overall efficiency and sub-stage efficiencies. Over time, these types of efficiency gradually reached higher levels. (3) Although China has initially achieved positive results in improving its industrial system’s overall efficiency, room for further improvement still exists. Among the industrial system’s sub-stages, the waste gas treatment stage exhibits the highest efficiency, followed by the solid waste treatment stage, while the production and wastewater treatment stages have relatively low efficiency.

Climate change: vegetation and phenological phase dynamics

PurposeThe ecological environment of the Loess Plateau, China, is extremely fragile under the context of global warming. Over the past two decades, the vegetation of the Loess Plateau has undergone great changes. This paper aims to clarify the response mechanisms of vegetation to climate change, to provide support for the restoration and environmental treatment of vegetation on the Loess Plateau.Design/methodology/approachThe Savitsky–Golay (S-G) filtering algorithm was used to reconstruct time series of moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) 13A2 data. Combined with trend analysis and partial correlation analysis, the influence of climate change on the phenology and enhanced vegetation index (EVI) during the growing season was described.FindingsThe S-G filtering algorithm is suitable for EVI reconstruction of the Loess Plateau. The date of start of growing season was found to gradually later along the Southeast–Northwest direction, whereas the date of the end of the growing season showed the opposite pattern and the length of the growing season gradually shortened. Vegetation EVI values decreased gradually from Southeast to Northwest. Vegetation changed significantly and showed clear differentiation according to different topographic factors. Vegetation correlated positively with precipitation from April to July and with temperature from August to November.Originality/valueThis study provides technical support for ecological environmental assessment, restoration of regional vegetation coverage and environmental governance of the Loess Plateau over the past two decades. It also provides theoretical support for the prediction model of vegetation phenology changes based on remote sensing data.

Research on bonus-penalty mechanism of pollution abatement: A case study of the northeastern region of China

As China’s environmental governance turn to a high-quality management, establishing reasonable and effective bonus-penalty mechanism is an effective means to promote coordinated emission reduction and improve regional air quality. Therefore, this paper constructs a bi-level programming model with bonus-penalty standards and emission quotas, based on the maximization of social benefits and the minimization of the gap between reward and punishment funds. Given the NP-hard problem of bi-level programming model, this work also designs a nested hierarchical particle swarm optimization (HPSO) algorithm for the above model. Subsequently, from the emission data of SO2 and macroeconomic data in the northeastern region of China from 2006 to 2015, the SO2 emission quota and bonus-penalty standards of each province are calculated. The results demonstrate that (1) the optimal emission quotas of Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning province are 37.7, 30.3 and 69.3 (10,000 tons), respectively. (2) When the compensation fee of pollutant abatement is set at 521.48 yuan/ton and the standard of excess discharge levy is 2977.43 yuan/ton, the effect of pollution control in each province can be effectively improved. The empirical analysis also reveals that the proposed model has a remarkable effect on regional environmental governance. Finally, this paper puts forward some suggestions on the implementation of the bonus-penalty mechanism.

Strategic interaction of environmental regulation and green productivity growth in China: Green innovation or pollution refuge?

The strategic interaction of inter-regional environmental regulation is a typical feature of local government behavior in China, which can affect the green productivity growth in the local region through the Porter effect and the pollution refuge effect. Based on the panel data of 274 prefecture-level cities from 2005 to 2015 in China, this thesis constructs a comprehensive indicator of environmental regulation, accurately identifies the mode of China's inter-regional strategic interaction of environmental regulation and calculates the green total factor productivity, green technology efficiency and green technology progress in 274 cities. In addition, this thesis also conducts an empirical analysis on the effect of the strategic interaction of environmental regulation on the green productivity in China. The author of this thesis finds that: (1) the mode of strategic interaction of environmental regulation in China is complementary “race to the top”, that is, the local region will strengthen its environmental regulation, if the environmental regulations in its adjacent regions are strengthened; (2) the environmental regulation in the local region promotes the green productivity in China, while the weighted environmental regulation in the adjacent regions inhibits the green productivity. What's more, environmental regulations in economic-proximity regions have greater negative spatial spillover effects on green productivity in the local region, compared with those in geographic-proximity regions; (3) environmental regulation in the local region and its adjacent regions can affect the green productivity growth in China through the channels of green innovation and pollution transfer, that is, the Porter effect and pollution refuge effect coexist in China. They mean that in the process of China's regional environmental governance, it is necessary to reduce pollution transfer, and promote green innovation so as to achieve sustainable and high-quality economic development.

Fiscal decentralization, government environmental preference, and regional environmental governance efficiency: evidence from China

The purpose of this study is to discuss the direct and indirect effects of fiscal decentralization on environmental governance efficiency (hereafter referred to as EGE). We first put forward hypotheses by using a theoretical framework. Subsequently, we conduct an empirical investigation by using panel data of 30 Chinese provinces over the period 2003–2015. A province-level dataset is used to measure EGE, and new indices are regressed on fiscal decentralization. Results demonstrate that fiscal decentralization has a significant negative effect on EGE and government environmental preference has a mediating effect on the relationship between fiscal decentralization and EGE. The results obtained are robust when different methods are used. A further investigation of heterogeneous responses to policy changes across regions demonstrates that the effect of fiscal decentralization on EGE presents evident regional heterogeneity.

Investigating network structure of cross-regional environmental spillover effects and driving factors

ABSTRACTThe study of cross-regional environmental spillover effects can reveal the spatial information of pollution, and helps to promote regional environmental governance under inter-government cooperation. Based on the non-linear granger causality test and social network analysis, we constructed and analyzed the network of cross-regional environmental spillover effects and the driving factors of the network structure. The results showed that Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Jiangsu, and Shandong have the most significant spatial spillover effects of environmental pollution to other provinces. GDP, foreign direct investment (FDI), wage levels (WL) and infrastructure levels (IFL) could explain 61.7% of the variance in the cross-regional environmental effects. Among them, GDP was the most powerful explanation for the network, and FDI, WL, and IFL were the main factors that affect the network’s relationship. Finally, based on the above empirical results, this paper put forward the policy recommendations of cross-regional environmental governance. Therefore, in the development of regional economic growth targets, we should take full account of the constraints of regional ecological environment carrying capacity, to further improve the regional industrial production methods to promote the balanced development of cross-regional industries.Implications: As a relationship, the environmental spillover effect links the environmental emissions from different regions into a system, which is represented by the Network of Environmental Spillover Effects (NESE). The change of its structure will have an impact on the status, function and role of each region in the network structure, thus affecting the environmental changes in the region. Therefore, the study of the NESE is helpful to promote cross-regional environmental collaborative governance and reduce environmental pollution.

The evolution and research framework of carbon footprint: Based on the perspective of knowledge mapping

Abstract Carbon footprint can monitor the degree of human stress on the ecological environment and has been widely used to measure the level of climate change and sustainable development. To systematically sort out and analyse the development history of carbon footprint research, a keyword co-appearance and literature co-citation knowledge mapping has been drawn, the carbon footprint research hotspots, knowledge bases, research frontiers, and research features have been analysed, from Web of Science core database since 2008 as a data source. From the review, by establishing a carbon footprint research framework from the perspectives of both government and market, the problems of regional environmental governance efficiency, fairness mechanisms, and carbon emission rights are analysed under the government-led and market-led approaches and reviewed the development of carbon footprint research methods. In addition, the boundary and the applicability of the carbon footprint accounting methods has been discussed. The results show: (1) China is increasingly becoming an ideal for carbon footprint research due to its varied and complicated problem of climate and environment. (2) Future research hotspots will focus more on carbon sinks, land use changes, energy consumption, industrial ecology, buildings, livestock, and international trade. (3) Half-life, burst, and centrality indicate that the knowledge bases of carbon footprint are the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report on Emissions Scenarios, ISO14040 (2006) and Livestock’s long shadow. (4) The latest international fronts of carbon footprint research focus on the carbon footprint generated in international trade, innovations of methods and discrimination and definition of the theory concept, for example, the expression of carbon footprint means the use of either ecological land area units or physical weight units. (4) The research features are mainly concerned with the carbon footprint application of the multi-region input-output model in international trade, multi-scale assessment of human impact on the environment and sustainable development, and resource-environment effects associated with food loss and waste.

Spatial agglomeration of new energy industries on the performance of regional pollution control through spatial econometric analysis

With the increasing prominence of China’s energy security and environmental pollution issues, improving environmental control performance is significant for China to achieve a sustainable economy and environment. In this study, the impact of the spatial agglomeration of the new energy industry on the regional pollution control performance was considered in a spatial econometric model. From the two perspectives of technology patents and employees, the impact of the spatial agglomeration of the new energy industry was explored using the spatial panel data model. The research results show the existence of spatial correlation of the pollution control performance among regions. Moreover, the spatial agglomeration of relevant technology patents can have a negative effect and the spatial agglomeration of employees a positive effect on the improvement in regional pollution control performance. Then, policy recommendations to improve the regional pollution control performance are proposed based on the research results: establishing a regional environmental joint governance system, improving the diffusion mode of new energy technology patents, and quickly constructing a new energy industrial park.

Resource Development and Pollution Prevention in the Russian Arctic

Russia accounts for more than half of the Arctic Ocean coastline and thus has sovereign rights for most Arctic offshore petroleum resources. The Northern Sea Route along the Russian coast is projected to become the main shipping lane for the Arctic resources. Russia is the largest gas and second largest oil exporter in the world. Its economy is highly dependent on petroleum exports, as witnessed by the recession following the 2014 oil price drop. With maturing provinces onshore, and over half of Russian State revenue coming from oil and gas development, the industry is turning to the Arctic and Far East. Anthropogenic activities have had negative impacts in the Russian Artic for decades: from top soil and permafrost destruction from industrial development, to mining, pipelines, nuclear testing, and finally – oil and gas exploitation. Most of the pollution in the region originates from anthropogenic activities domestically and from South-East Asia. Additionally, there is substantial ‘legacy’ pollution accumulated over decades of poor environmental policies in the soviet times. This paper briefly outlines the Russian Arctic policy and environmental regulation with a focus on resource development. It then examines the extent of Russia’s participation in international and regional environmental governance. Finally, it considers successes and challenges in pollution prevention in the Russian Arctic.

Addressing Uncertainty of Environmental Governance in Environmentally Sensitive Areas in Developing Countries: A Precise-Strike and Spatial-Targeting Adaptive Governance Framework

Endowed with distinctive natural ecosystems and abundant biodiversity, regional environmental governance in developing countries, especially the environmentally sensitive areas (ESAs), is facing the daunting task to ultimately divert their regional development mode towards sustainable fashion through governance transition. However, given their less-developed status in particular expressed by under-developed economies, unsound political regimes, low governance capacity, such task seemingly insurmountable. In order to approach the incompatibility between economic development and maintenance of the ecosystem services value, and understand the complex and interlocked nature of the regional institution system of ESAs in developing countries, an ecosystem services value-based adaptive governance model was introduced to identify the deficiencies and failures of existing regional environmental governance and establish innovative arenas and transition agendas for innovating and reframing regional institutions and modifying role of regional actor groups and governance mode in the process of decision making on environmental issues. Such approaches were conducted in a circular diverting process in order to facilitate the mode of regional development transforming towards sustainable development. For demonstration the process of application and effectiveness of this methodology, a case study was conducted in a typical ESAs—the Water Source Area of the Middle Route Project of the South–North Water Diversion Project in China. Through integrating the ecosystem services value (ESV) assessment into a wider framework of institutional change, the regional institution system innovation and reformation was directed by taking the ESV changes and pattern of its geo-distribution in the research area as indicators or clues. Compared with traditional proposals for administrative change, the methodology proposed in this study was not prescriptive or directive: Rather, an approach for influencing the direction and speed of transition through a series of steering and coordination mechanism. Therefore, this model is with the potential to be implemented by local communities in regions, especially ESAs in developing countries, to encounter with similar regional development challenges and complex, interlocking, and over-dated regional institutional system associated with environmental issues.

The threshold effect of the efficiency of science and technological services on regional environmental governance in China

AbstractThrough panel data for every province in China from 2006 to 2016, this paper studies the impact of the efficiency of science and technological services and the level of economic development on environmental governance, with the efficiency of science and technological services as the threshold variables. The results of the research indicate that the efficiency of science and technological services in China's provinces is low, while the regional gap is expanding. When the efficiency of science and technological services is the threshold variable, single threshold results are significant. When the efficiency of science and technological services is the threshold variable and when the efficiency of science and technological services is lower than the threshold value, there is a significant impact on environmental governance. If the efficiency of science and technological services crosses the threshold value, the impact of science and technological service efficiency on environmental governance becomes insignificant. For the level of economic development, it is a core explanatory variable and has a significant impact on environmental governance only when the efficiency of science and technological services is below the threshold value. According to the empirical results, this paper proposes corresponding countermeasures and suggestions.

Exploring Coordinative Mechanisms for Environmental Governance in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area: An Ecology of Games Framework

To solve regional environmental problems, there is a trend of establishing urban agglomerations and formulating cooperative policy institutions in China. The extant studies on policy institutions largely focus on the coordinative mechanisms of multiple actors within one single institution. Only a few studies have tried to understand how different policy institutions are interlinked and mutually affected to influence actors’ decisions and problem resolutions. This article applies a network-based analytical approach and adopts the Ecology of Games Framework to explore how regional environmental governance is coordinated in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. It was found that coordinative mechanisms in regional environmental governance can happen around three elements: policy institutions, policy actors, and policy issues. Policy institutions tend to serve as an umbrella for many diverse and interdependent activities and actors within individual institutions. Additionally, positive externalities emerging between different policy institutions perform as coordinators across institutions. For actors, state-level actors usually play as facilitators of policy institutions while they are not active in participating in policy games in later phases; it is regional actors, particularly from Guangdong, that are active in the operation of policy institutions. For policy issues, they emerge because they are often tied with each other, and some of them play as the common ground for seemly separating policy institutions.

A new framework of regional collaborative governance for PM2.5

PM2.5 (Fine particulate matter in the atmosphere) pollution has become a major problem affecting human health and social development, especially in developing countries like China. The interaction between PM2.5 and the underlying factors across different regions or spatial scales are very complex, so it is helpful to study the spatial distribution and evolution of PM2.5, which is the foundation for carrying out regional collaborative governances. However, there is a paucity of this kind of research in China. This paper tries to put forward a new multi-scalar framework based on the spatiotemporal synthesis. After the spatial distribution and evolution of PM2.5 data is integrated with the methods of remote sensing, geographic information system and social ecological system analysis, we can more properly describe the evolving trajectory and characteristics of PM2.5 at different time–space scales. The paper defines and divides the space influenced by PM2.5 into four categories, which indicate the paths of spatial diffusion and finally puts forward the methodology of regional collaboration and environmental governance.