Analysis of Environmental Governance Expense Prediction Reform With the Background of Artificial Intelligence

In this paper, Artificial Intelligence assisted rule-based confidence metric (AI-CRBM) framework has been introduced for analyzing environmental governance expense prediction reform. A metric method is to assess a level of collective environmental governance representing general, government, and corporate aspects. The equilibrium approach is used to calculate improvements in the source of environmental management based on cost, and it is tailored to test the public sector-corporation for environmental shared governance. The overall concept of cost prediction or estimation of environmental governance is achieved by the rule-based confidence method. The framework compares the expected cost to the environment of governance to determine the efficiency of the cost prediction process.

Potential for cascading impacts of environmental change and policy on indigenous culture

Global environmental and societal changes threaten the cultures of indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLC). Despite the importance of IPLC worldviews and knowledge to sustaining human well-being and biodiversity, risks to these cultural resources are commonly neglected in environmental governance, in part because impacts can be indirect and therefore difficult to evaluate. Here, we investigate the connectivity of values associated with the relationship Ngātiwai (a New Zealand Māori tribe) have with their environment. We show that mapping the architecture of values-environment relationships enables assessment of how deep into culture the impacts of environmental change or policy can cascade. Our results detail how loss of access to key environmental elements could potentially have extensive direct and cascading impacts on the cultural values of Ngātiwai, including environmental responsibilities. Thus, considering only direct effects of environmental change or policy on cultural resources, or treating IPLC social-ecological relations simplistically, can severely underestimate threats to cultures.

Backward Trajectory and Multifractal Analysis of Air Pollution in Zhengzhou Region of China

With the continuous promotion of industrialization and urbanization, China's environmental pollution is becoming increasingly serious, which has caused considerable damage to the natural balance. Air pollution seriously harms people's physical and mental health, the ecological environment, and the social sustainable development of society. In this study, the backward trajectory model and multifractal methods were adopted to analyze air pollution in Zhengzhou. The backward trajectory analysis showed that most clusters of air pollution were from southern Hebei, eastern Shandong, and mid-western Henan, which were then transported to Zhengzhou. For the PSCF and CWT analyses, we selected four representative cities to explore how close the air pollution of Zhengzhou is to other areas on the basis of air polluted concentration. The results of several multifractal methods indicated that multifractality existed in the AQI time series of Zhengzhou and cross-correlations between Zhengzhou and each of the four cities. The widths of multifractal spectra showed that the air pollution in Zhengzhou was closest to that in Jinan, followed by Shijiazhuang, Zibo, and Luoyang. The CDFA analysis showed that carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and inhalable particulate matter (PM10) had important influences on air pollution in Zhengzhou. These findings offer a useful reference for air pollution sources and their potential contributions in Zhengzhou, which can support policy makers in environmental governance and in achieving sustainable urban development.

Low-carbon governance, fiscal decentralization and sulfur dioxide emissions: Evidence from a quasi-experiment with Chinese heavy pollution enterprises

This paper investigates the effects of enterprise environmental governance under low-carbon pilot policies in China with a difference in differences (DID) design. In examining the development of these policies, we focus on exploring their effects on sulfur dioxide emissions of heavily polluting enterprises based on prefectural city- and firm-level data from 2003-2014. Overall, the policies significantly increased enterprise SO2 emissions, and the underlying reason being that investments in CO2 control crowded out investment in SO2 control in enterprises in low-carbon pilot regions. We also find that the implementation of low-carbon pilot policies resulted in greater SO2 emissions from state-owned enterprises and enterprises in western regions than from non-state-owned enterprises and those in eastern regions. It is further found that fiscal decentralization and the associated mediating effect of market segmentation promote enterprises' CO2 control and inhibit their SO2 control. This study helps us re-examine the overall environmental effects of low-carbon policies and has implications for the revision and improvement of environmental governance policies in developing countries.

CO2, Environmental Emergencies, and Industrial Pollution Assessment in China from the Perspective of the Circular Economy

The rise of energy consumption has also increased emissions of the “three wastes” (wastewater, waste gas, and industrial solid waste), and environmental emergencies caused by pollutants, natural disasters, and production safety accidents have aroused social concerns. As few scholars have combined treatment efficiency of the three wastes with environmental emergencies to explore their relationships, this research thus uses a two-stage undesirable Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method to explore the situations of 4 regions and 30 provinces in China from 2013 to 2017 based on such interactive perspectives. The study finds that the overall regional environmental efficiency in China is generally low, and in terms of regional differences, the eastern and northeastern regions are better than the central and western regions. The efficiency values of the three wastes in China have also fluctuated greatly from 0.7 down to 0.2 in recent years. The efficiency of environmental emergencies in China is greatly impacted by the efficiency of environmental governance inputs. Based on the results, the study proposes that the eastern provinces can be an example for promoting balanced regional development and offers policy recommendations such as taking precautions against environmental emergencies.

Development Level Evaluation of Water Ecological Civilization in Yangtze River Economic Belt

Water ecological civilization (WEC) is a key component and basic guarantee of ecological civilization. This paper sets up an evaluation index system (EIS) for WEC development (WECD) level, which covers such three dimensions as social economic development, control over total water resources and water utilization efficiency, and synthetic environmental governance and adopts set pair analysis (SPA) to measure and analyze the WECD level in Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) from 2010 to 2019. The results show that (1) the score of each subsystem in YREB WECD grew continuously in the sample period and poised to increase in future, (2) in general, YREB WECD level steadily increased to a relatively high level, and (3) the good development trend of YREB WECD is inseparable from the fact that YREB stepped up its efforts in capital investment, water utilization, and water environment protection and recovery. Finally, pertinent measures were put forward to further improve the YREB WECD level.

Shock and Conflict in Social-Ecological Systems: Implications for Environmental Governance

In this paper, we present a framework for the analysis of shock and conflict in social-ecological systems and investigate the implications of this perspective for the understanding of environmental governance, particularly its evolutionary patterns and drivers. We dwell on the distinction between shock and conflict. In mapping the relation between shock and conflict, we invoke a different potentiality for altering rigidity and flexibility in governance; different possibilities for recall, revival and trauma; and different pathways for restructuring the relation between governance, community and environment. Shock and conflict can be both productive and eroding, and for each, one can observe that productivity can be positive or negative. These different effects in governance can be analyzed in terms of object and subject creation, path creation and in terms of the dependencies recognized by evolutionary governance theory: path, inter-, goal and material dependencies. Thus, shock and conflict are mapped in their potential consequences to not only shift a path of governance, but also to transform the pattern of self-transformation in such path. Finally, we reflect on what this means for the interpretation of adaptive governance of social-ecological systems.

The role of political parties in multi-level environmental governance in the European Union and Germany

The subject of the study is the involvement of political parties in multi-level environmental governance in the European Union, using Germany and its federal states as an example. This article describes the theoretical and practical foundations of multi-level governance. The place of European parties and their national member parties from Germany in the institutional system and decision-making process of environmental policy has been defined. For practical illustration, the climate policy guidelines of Germany’s main national parties (the Christian Democratic Union of Germany and the Christian Social Union in Bavaria, the Social Democratic Party of Germany, the Alternative for Germany, the Free Democratic Party of Germany, the Left and the Alliance 90 / The Greens) and their European affiliations (the European People’s Party, the Party of the European Socialists, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, the European Green Party and the Party of European Left) were compared with an emphasis on the new targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The unique opportunity for parties to participate in environmental policymaking at all key levels, which is not limited to parliamentary institutions has been highlighted. Appointments to environmental positions at different levels often correlate with membership of the most environmentally oriented parties, although the level of environmental involvement may differ between national parties and their European affiliations. Among other things, this has to do with participation in governing coalitions and dependence on a senior partner in them, as shown by the examples of the Bundestag and the Landtag of Baden-Württemberg. The final decision depends heavily on the unity of the coalition at federal and state level, whereas in the European Parliament there is a great differentiation of opinions, which allows even the most influential European People’s Party to be blocked from voting.