Private Governance of Climate Change in Hong Kong: An Analysis of Drivers and Barriers to Corporate Action

This study examines how corporate governance of climate change is developing in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (Hong Kong), Asia's leading financial centre. It situates corporate actions within the broader framework of urban multi-stakeholder climate governance. In the absence of international obligations under the Kyoto Protocol and government regulation to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the majority of companies in Hong Kong have yet to tackle climate change. However, a small number of proactive corporations are acting to reduce climate change induced risks and reposition themselves to take advantage of climate change opportunities. Focusing on these leading corporations, this study identifies the motivations for and barriers to action. It concludes that corporations are only one of the necessary players in addressing climate change at the city level. Corporate climate change governance could be improved in Hong Kong by developing a stronger institutional framework and broader civil society support.     

全球气候变化对国际安全的挑战与思考

鉴于全球气候变化开始困扰国际社会以至威胁人类生存,如何解决这一非传统安全问题,便成为当今世界关注的焦点与亟待解决的问题。对此,学者们认为,各国间的谅解与互信,特别是在战略上的合作,对全球气候变化的治理、能源的合理使用是至关重要的。然而,由于传统的国家利益观念的影响,国际社会能否达成共识,将是治理气候变化这一潜在威胁的关键。历史上,危机常常可以转化为机遇。那么,国际社会能否抓住这一机遇,对来自全球气候变化的挑战进行认真的思考与治理,这将是对人类智慧的考验。     

Polycentric Transformation in Kenyan Water Governance: A Dynamic Analysis of Institutional and Social‐Ecological Change

Beginning in 2002, Kenyan water governance transitioned from a monocentric, top‐down system to one exhibiting traits of polycentricity. In this paper, we investigate the changes made to water policy following the 2002 reform, outcomes produced in a collection of community‐ and catchment‐level user groups in the Mount Kenya region, and the conformance of these changes and outcomes with principles of polycentricity. A new framework is used to capture the complex institutional arrangements and interactions existing before and after the polycentric transformation. Unlike many previous polycentricity studies, the present research focuses primarily on the outcomes of the polycentric shift and determines if these correspond to predictions from polycentricity theory. We utilize survey data collected in 2013 from water managers, as well as archival research to interrogate congruence with principles of polycentricity. This study contributes to the broader discussion on polycentricity in two fundamental ways: (i) It documents the functioning of a water management system following a top‐down imposed polycentric reform, and (ii) It empirically inspects whether these polycentric reforms have produced benefits predicted by polycentricity theorists, such as experimentation by local water users, increased collective action, and improved coordination between levels of management.     

气候变迁与商人南下

自然科学研究成果显示,距今4000年-3500年期间全球气温有过明显下降,这一降温事件对当时人类的活动产生了重大影响。建国前的商人正处于此次气候发生变异的时期,其活动地域的南迁与气候变化紧密相关。     

国际气候变化谈判与中国的应对

应对全球气候变化正作为一个重要议题影响着各国社会经济发展,其紧迫性要求各国必须采取有效措施。然而,旨在应对全球气候变化的哥本哈根会议并未实现普遍的预期目标,国际社会围绕气候变化问题的谈判仍在继续。本文旨在此基础上提出部分建议,即中方作为发展中大国,未来应积极开展多边外交,以积极的姿态和务实的态度参与应对气候变化的国际合作,以争取自身的发展权益,维护核心国家利益。     

"一五"时期的投资与制度变革

"一五"期间,我国资源供求状况及其配置方式发生巨大变化,这些变化与这一时期的投资过热和经济波动存在必然联系."一五"时期的投资是个连续大起大落的过程,两次冒进间隔时间短,这在建国以来的投资史上是少见的.由于投资规模过大、增长速度过快,导致生产资料和消费品供求形势全面紧张,促使国家将计划管理的力度和范围不断加大,从而加快了三大改造的步伐,全面建立起了计划经济体制.但自此也形成了追求高速度和外延、粗放型的增长方式.     

Arenas of Power in Climate Change Policymaking

This article investigates the potential linkage between particular policy design ideas and distinctive patterns of politics and power relations. The research examines a sequence of four cases involving the use of the cap‐and‐trade policy design principally to combat global climate change through the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Through the lens of arenas of power framework, the comparative case analysis suggests the existence of consistent linkages between particular cap‐and‐trade design ideas, and distinct patterns of political conflict and empowerment. The article concludes with a brief consideration of what the findings suggest about the national politics of climate change policymaking in the United States in the near term, and more important, an assessment of the implications for the further development and refinement of policy theory.     

商末黄河中游气候环境的变化与社会变迁

新石器时代到商代黄河流域的气候属于温暖湿润期;商代后期气候出现厂干旱化,导致了古公亶父迁岐,文王迁程迁丰,帝乙帝辛时不断向南方发展;而商末的旱灾和饥荒是周武王克商的直接导火索,导致商周之际的改朝换代。商末气候环境的变迁对其时社会政治的影响极大。     

Studying Incremental Institutional Change: A Systematic and Critical Meta‐Review of the Literature from 2005 to 2015

Since the early 2000s, theorizing on incremental institutional change has made inroads in comparative historical analysis. In particular, the ideas, concepts, and theory introduced by Kathleen Thelen and her collaborators have been widely adopted by scholars. These scholars are not, however, univocally positive about the theory. Three main critiques have been plaguing the theory since its early days: the concepts it builds on lack clarity, the model of agency it uses is too static, and the theory lacks analytical power overall. Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta‐Analysis method, this article presents a meta‐analysis of the peer‐reviewed empirical literature from 2005 to 2015 that applies this theory. It seeks to better understand the reach of the critiques expressed, as this may provide a starting point for improvement. It finds considerable quantitative support for the critiques, and uncovers an additional problematic issue: the tendency for concept stretching and concept proliferation by scholars seeking to overcome the shortcomings of the theory. Paradoxically, concept stretching and proliferation only further reduce the analytical power of the theory. The article concludes with suggestions for improvement of the development and application of the theory.     

北魏均田制下产权制度变迁分析

结合新制度经济学的有关理论,对我国历史上的均田制进行分析是很有意义的。作为国家强制性的制度变迁形式,均田制依靠国家的力量得以推行,为国家建立税收基础,以实现国家租金收入的最大化。但是,在均田制实施的过程中,却遭遇到了来自下层的变通与退出力量,使得均田制度的演进过程又呈现出既定利益结构下的诱致性变迁。     

Geographical Concentration of Manufacturing Industries in China: The Importance of Spatial and Industrial Scales

Using the most recent data from the first economic census in China, a team of China-based and American economic geographers investigates the geographical concentration of manufacturing industries at the provincial and county levels by integrating proxy variables for natural advantages, agglomeration economies, and institutional changes (e.g., decentralization) associated with economic transition. The authors focus their investigation on manufacturing activity as a whole, as well as on manufacturing categories at the two- and three-digit levels of aggregation (the latter representing a finer scale of analysis than used in almost all previous studies). Interesting differences emerge in the locational patterns of industries whose enterprises pursue strategies of globalization vis-à-vis local protectionism. Differences also are apparent in the impacts of agglomeration economies and knowledge spillover at different spatial scales. The findings suggest that both spatial scale and level of industrial aggregation matter when analyzing patterns of industrial agglomeration in China. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: L10, L20, L60, O18. 5 figures, 5 tables, 50 references.     

中国旅游度假区治理结构及变迁

本文系统分析了中国度假区治理结构及其类型,并从制度变迁的角度揭示了度假区治理结构的适应性调整过程.研究表明,中国度假区发展是地方性行政经济的产物,地方政府是我国度假区发展中最重要的行政权利主体,度假区治理结构的类型和构成则是地方政府内部不同行政利益主体博弈的均衡结果.十多年来,我国度假区治理结构变迁的路径主要表现在管委会实际受权变化和管委会制度逐步向传统行政管理制度复归,这是我国度假区对发展环境不适应,进而在制度层面进行适应性调整的结果.     

Analysing Contemporary Metropolitan Spatial Plans in Europe Through Their Institutional Context,Instrumental Content and Planning Process

This article sets out to propose and apply a qualitative framework for thinking about how to analyse and compare metropolitan spatial plans in a milieu of divergent spatial planning traditions and discretionary planning practices. In doing so, the article reviews and develops an understanding concerning the institutional context, instrumental content and planning processes associated with four contemporary metropolitan spatial plans in Europe, namely those of London, Copenhagen, Paris and Barcelona. Through the results of a multiple case study and a subsequent cross-comparative analysis, the article stresses that contemporary metropolitan spatial plans tend to merge the characteristics associated with project-based and strategy-based spatial plans, thus contrasting with the typical land-use character of municipal plans and the often strategic, growth-oriented pursuit of regional plans in Europe. In this sense, the metropolitan scale is treated less explicitly as a planning scale per se; rather, it tends to emerge as a “concealed” scale between municipal and regional scales and also between local and regional knowledge in planning. Moreover, the analysis suggests that while metropolitan plans seem to converge in terms of their general themes, they cannot be ultimately “typified” in view of ad hoc variations related to their institutional contexts, instrumental contents and planning processes.     

The Role of Pilot Projects in Urban Climate Change Policy Innovation

Cities are taking a leadership role in addressing global climate change and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, but policy innovations are needed to help cities move from goals to outcomes. Pilot projects are one means by which cities are experimenting with new ways of governing and financing climate change mitigation. In this paper, we develop a framework for understanding the role of pilot projects in urban policy innovation: their emergence and rationale, and the means by which they ultimately scale up and out to reduce GHG emissions. We use this framework to evaluate a pilot project for retrofitting social housing buildings in Toronto. We find the initial pilot project helped address the challenges of pursuing deep retrofits of social housing. Scaling these lessons up to the city level required overcoming challenges to financing and coordinating a larger project; scaling out to the provincial level revealed institutional and political obstacles to pursuing the co-benefits of deep building retrofits in social housing. Bridging agents play an important role in both scaling processes. The analysis reveals the additive nature of urban policy innovation and the dynamic interplay of change agents and institutional and political context in innovation processes.     

Tuvalu and Climate Change: Constructions of Environmental Displacement in The Sydney Morning Herald

Tuvalu, a place whose image in the ‘West’ is as a small island state, insignificant and remote on the world stage, is becoming remarkably prominent in connection with the contemporary issue of climate change‐related sea‐level rise. My aim in this paper is to advance understanding of the linkages between climate change and island places, by exploring the discursive negotiation of the identity of geographically distant islands and island peoples in the Australian news media. Specifically, I use discourse analytic methods to critically explore how, and to what effects, various representations of the Tuvaluan islands and people in an Australian broadsheet, the Sydney Morning Herald, emphasize difference between Australia and Tuvalu. My hypothesis is that implicating climate change in the identity of people and place can constitute Tuvaluans as .tragic victims. of environmental displacement, marginalizing discourses of adaptation for Tuvaluans and other inhabitants of low‐lying islands, and silencing alternative constructions of Tuvaluan identity that could emphasize resilience and resourcefulness. By drawing attention to the problematic ways that island identities are constituted in climate change discourse in the news media, I advocate a more critical approach to the production and consumption of representations of climate change.     

The Environmental Performance of Participatory and Collaborative Governance: A Framework of Causal Mechanisms

Many have advocated for collaborative governance and the participation of citizens and stakeholders on the basis that it can improve the environmental outcomes of public decision making, as compared to traditional, top‐down decision making. Others, however, point to the potential negative effects of participation and collaboration on environmental outcomes. This article draws on several literatures to identify five clusters of causal mechanisms describing the relationship between participation and environmental outcomes. We distinguish (i) mechanisms that describe how participation impacts on the environmental standard of outputs, from (ii) mechanisms relating to the implementation of outputs. Three mechanism clusters focus on the role of representation of environmental concerns, participants' environmental knowledge, and dialogical interaction in decision making. Two further clusters elaborate on the role of acceptance, conflict resolution, and collaborative networks for the implementation of decisions. In addition to the mechanisms, linking independent with dependent variables, we identify the conditions under which participation may lead to better (or worse) environmental outcomes. This helps to resolve apparent contradictions in the literature. We conclude by outlining avenues for research that builds on this framework for analysis.     

The Links Among Contested Knowledge,Beliefs, and Learning in European Climate Governance: From Consensus to Conflict in Reforming Biofuels Policy

The close link between scientific knowledge, learning, and beliefs is particularly relevant in environmental policymaking and the interaction of environmental with economic development‐focused policies. This article contributes to a more refined understanding of the links among scientific knowledge, belief changes, and the move from a collaborative to an adversarial policy subsystem within the Advocacy Coalition Framework. It analyzes the process of drafting and negotiating the biofuels aspects of the European Renewable Energy Directive, which was dominated by political disagreements between two advocacy coalitions. Their initial agreement on increasing the share of renewable energies in transport turned into conflict after new scientific evidence emerged on the negative environmental and climate change impacts of crop‐based biofuels. The environmental coalition changed its empirical policy beliefs to reflect normative policy beliefs on environmental protection. This change in empirical policy beliefs uncovered a pre‐existing conflict with the normative policy beliefs of the economic development‐focused coalition. As a consequence, the collaborative policy subsystem shifted to an adversarial policy subsystem.     

Experimental Publics: Activist Culture and Political Intelligibility of Climate Change Action in the Hunter Valley,Southeast Australia

The ethnographic study of Western environmental activism opens up the prospect of studying subjectivities formed in opposition to dominant Western ideas and values, and yet encapsulated within Western societies and democratic polities. One of the directions in which it points the anthropologist, which is pursued in this article, is towards the study of the political lifeworlds of activists, their self‐identity as citizens and their embeddedness in the wider society. Environmental politics can be an emergent activity in citizens' lives, as expressed in John Dewey's concept of ‘the public’ as citizens who organise themselves to address the adverse consequences of situations that they experience in common (Dewey 1991[1927]). This paper focuses on a middle ground of social action between habitual daily practice, and the domain of institutional politics: groups of people in small voluntary organisations in the heavily coal‐mined Hunter Valley, Southeast Australia, who are moved to collective action to address the threatening aspects of anthropogenic climate change. Action group members variously articulate their reflexive understandings of the structural contradictions of environmentalism in corporate capitalist societies where values of consumerism and processes of individualization corrode collective concerns of citizenship‐based politics. These understandings inform activists' personal motivations, values and ideals for a ‘climate movement’, diverse modes of political action and striving for wider political intelligibility.     

古代诗歌中的气候信息及其运用

诗歌具有时间上的历时性完整,空间上的广达性全面,气候事件的内容广泛性、来源独立性的特点,决定了其在历史气候研究中的可能性。在运用文献资料进行历史气候研究时最重要的一步就是对气候资料的提取、运用,诗歌也不例外。任何一条气候资料必须同时具备三个基本要素,即时间、空间和气候事件。如何从诗歌中正确提取和运用这三个要素就成为历史气候研究的关键。此外,诗歌写作的整体背景、诗歌中的文学成分以及诗歌本身存在的谬误等都会影响到诗歌在历史气候变化研究中的运用;而诗歌在不同气候研究内容中的作用也不尽相同,诗歌对于历史时期特殊气候事件的恢复具有非常重要的意义,但在进行历史气候的平均状态研究时更多时候只能作为一种佐证。     

The Formation of Large-scale Collaborative Resource Management Institutions: Clarifying the Roles of Stakeholders, Science, and Institutions

This article explores the emergence of collaborative institutional arrangements for managing natural resources in large-scale and complex resource settings, among numerous political jurisdictions and stakeholders. It examines four regional institutions in the United States: the Northwest Power and Conservation Council's Fish and Wildlife Program, the Chesapeake Bay Program, the CALFED Bay-Delta Program, and the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan. While a wealth of literature has looked at the emergence of smaller-scale resource management institutions, and some literature has begun to look at the characteristics and successes of these regional institutions, theory is lacking to explain the formation of these regional institutions. We first introduce three relevant streams of literature—on common pool resources management, on policy entrepreneurs and social capital, and on science and information in policy change—to frame our analysis. The comparisons of the cases point to the importance of integrating key insights from the literature for understanding the formation of collaborative resource governance. We emphasize how science, leadership, and prior organizational experience interact in facilitating institutional change, particularly in the process of raising awareness about resource management problems. In tracing the formation of these institutions, we also identify how external institutional triggers can help spur collaborative governance.