Trade Benefits and Environmental Costs of GVCS: A Case Study of the BRICS

As the international trading system has developed with the division of Global value Chains (GVCS), the export trade of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) has grown rapidly. The resulting growth of carbon emissions has drawn wide attention from the international community, necessitating the comparison of the trade benefits and environmental costs of the BRICS participation in GVCS. Based on the Eora database, this paper constructs a decomposition framework for the calculation of export value-added and embodied carbon, based on a multi-region input-output (MRIO) model. The trade benefits and environmental costs paid by the BRICS’ total exports from 1990 to 2015 were measured and the imbalance was analyzed, along with the causes. The results show that the main value-added and carbon embodied in the BRICS’ exports originate from their own countries, and the domestic value-added content of the BRICS’ exports decreased while the foreign value-added content increased.

Accounting Framework to Measure the Environmental Costs and Disclosed in Industrials Companies Case Study of Societe Cement Hamma Bouziane （SCHB） in Constantine

Accounting, being an integrated information system, is not merely influenced by its environment, but also affects environment as well, due to its crucial role in generating the necessary information to decision-makers. It has two main pillars： measuring and declaring the costs that result from the activities of companies, especially industrial companies because they affect the environment. Therefore, the objective of this research is to investigate how well industrial companies are committed to measuring their environmental duties and declaring them in their balance sheets. This topic will be developed over two parts： scientific basis of environmental costs and accounting; environmental measuring and disclosure.

Economic Benefits and Environmental Costs of China＇s Exports： A Comparison with the USA Based on Network Analysis

This＇ paper decomposes economic benefits （value-added） and environmental costs （CO2） of exports according to their sources, and maps the global value network （GVN） and the global emissions network （GEN） for China＇s exports during 1995-2009 from national, sectoral and national sectoral perspectives. A comparison is conducted between China and the USA. National GVN and GEN show that shares of value-added and CO2 emissions from China in its GVN and GEN both decreased first then increased after 2006, while shares from the USA in its GVN and GEN generally decreased. Seetoral GVN and GEN show that among China＇s exports, ＂electrical and optical equipment＂ and ＂electricity, gas and water supply＂ were, respectively, the sectors that obtained the most value-added and emitted the most CO2. National-sectoral G VN and GEN for China exhibited reciprocal and disassortative patterns, and in-strengths and out-strengths of GVN and GEN for China ＇s exports were mainly captured by several domestic country-sector pairs.

Environmental damage costs from fossil electricity generation in China, 2000~2003

Electricity consumption increases rapidly with the rapid development of China. The environmental damage costs of electricity generation are very important for both policy analysis and the proper management of the environment. A method was developed in this work to estimate gross environmental damage costs according to emission inventory and environmental cost factors, and to extend the costs from provincial to national level with population density. In this paper, sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), particulate matter less than 10 μm in diameter (PM10), and carbon dioxide (CO2) from fossil fired power plants over 6000 kW were selected as index pollutants to quantify the environmental costs of damages on human health and global warming. With the new developed method, environmental damage costs, caused by 3 types of fired power plants in 30 provinces and 6 economic sectors during the years 2000 to 2003, were evaluated and analyzed. It can be seen that the calculated total national environmental damage costs of electricity have rapidly increased from 94930.87×106 USD in 2000 to about 141041.39×106 USD in 2003, with an average annual growth rate of 14.11%. Environmental damage costs of SO2, NOx, PM10, and CO2 are 69475.69×106, 30079.29×106, 28931.84×106, and 12554.57×106 USD and account for 49.26%, 21.33%, 20.51%, and 8.90% of total environmental costs in fossil electricity generation, respectively. With regard to regional distribution, external costs caused by fossil electricity generation are mainly concentrated in the more populated and industrialized areas of China, i.e., the Eastern Central and Southeastern areas.

An Empirical Study on Environmental Regulatory Costs &Environmental TFP

This paper examines the cost of environmental regulation and the environmental total factor productivity （TFP） with directional distance function and the Malmquist-Luenberger （ALL） index respectively, using inputs and output data of 36 two-digit industries over the period 1998- 2010. It finds that Chinese industries incur a relatively high environmental regulatory cost and that China has paid a high price fulfilling its promise to emissions mitigation. A comparison between conventional and environmental TFP shows that the two indicators for all industries declined on average, but a hypothesis test reveals insignificant difference between the two. In addition, the rise in environmental TFP is mainly due to technological progress, which is consistent with findings of many researches; analysis demonstrates signs of absolute convergence of environmental TFP.

Costs and Benefits of China＇s Environmental Regulation

This paper examines the current costs, benefits and intensity of China＇s industrial environment regulation, as well as the path of regulatory enhancement. Regulatory intensity has been on the rise since 1997. The intensity was only 43 in 1997 and then reached 68 by 2007. This paper for the first time compares the treatment costs at the front and rear ends of pollution chain, employs the concept of regulatory benefit multiplier, and calculates the benefit multipliers for different pollutants. Results indicate that enhanced environmental protection since 1997 makes social and economic sense, particularly for the front end treatment of various pollutants since 2004, which have considerable economic benefits. After comparing the benefit multipliers, we have prioritized the pollutants for regulatory consideration： environmental regulation shouM be made tougher for waste water first, and then dust and fumes, followed by SO2 and lastly CO2. This will help to achieve the best environmental outcomes while incurring no additional economic costs.

Economic Valuation of Environmental Services： Increasing the Effectiveness of PES Schemes in Developing Countries？

Payments for ecosystem service （PES） schemes have spread all over developing countries in the last 20 years or so. PES schemes often have high opportunity costs in terms of foregone uses of goods and services offered by the environment. It is within this scope that economic evaluation of environmental goods and services plays a role. In this paper we surveyed articles and studies that report application of economic environmental valuation procedures in PES schemes. Special attention was paid to data collection and analysis, to theoretical robustness of its procedures and to the aggregation of estimated value. We also scrutinize how these estimates had been incorporated into PES schemes, in particularly in the assessment phase of these schemes. Empirical data from Brazil and other Latin American countries were used, particularly those in the Amazon Basis. Our results reveal a frequent overestimation of the values of ecosystem services calculated through the use of economic valuation methods. Values have been estimated by production function methods （opportunity cost, preventive expenditures, recovering cost or dose-response methods）. As a consequence, estimated values reflect much more willingness to accept compensation by supplier and rarely willingness to pay by consumer of these ecosystem services. Besides this distance between supply and demand, application of valuation methods did not account for problems such as uncertainty, risks, and lack of information. All these limitations have led to wrong decision-making.

Long-Term Environmental Accounting on Civil Infrastructures in Developing Countries

This paper proposes the environmental burden and benefit assessment method, which contributes to the evaluation of public works, by considering a quantitative environmental impact. The method developed is applied for the Bangkok subway construction project, so that the environmental impact following the Bangkok subway construction work is evaluated on the basis of environmental accounting. As a result, it was possible to quantify the burden and benefits to the environment in the life cycle of the Bangkok subway. In addition by converting the burden and benefits of the Bangkok subway construction project into monetary terms and introducing the Economic Internal Rate of Return （EIRR）, it was possible to evaluate the subway construction project from an economic point of view.

The views and control of environmental cost

This article explores the concept of company environment cost, its classification and feature, and points out the difficulty for company to control environment cost actively. It offers the opinion that environment cost in regional economy development should be controlled by taking government as the center and discusses the control focus.

The Management of Environment Cost Caused by Ballast Water

According to classical economic theory,external cost is the indirect,and uncompensated,social or environmental cost caused to an uninvolved third party that arises as an effect of another party’s activity.In light of this,the environmental cost caused by ballast water is considered as a negative externality.This paper aims to contribute by proposing that the environmental cost caused by ballast water can be determined through questionnaires,and that the imposition of a Pigouvian retributive tax is required to compensate for the environmental damage caused.The paper proceeds as follows.Firstly,ballast water management is discussed.Second,the environmental cost is discussed and it is asserted that it is important to have clear regulations and to update them frequently to prevent or minimize ballast water’s negative impact on the environment.Finally,it is suggested that the environmental cost caused by ballast water can be determined by questionnaires and,more specifically,by the WTP(Willingness to Pay)method,and that a special Pigouvian corrective taxation which can internalize this cost should be imposed.

RELATIVITY AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

From the realism of science, and taking the guide of EINSTEIN’s Relativity as guide, this article called in question the present theory of the sustainable development by the rational thinking of philosophy and a close logic inference. It is found that there are many paradoxes to the theory. Through more deepening and meticulous inference, we arrived at philosophic language of science about the sustainable development. The sustainable development is "non-sustainable development", and the non-sustainable development is "the best sustainable development". While carrying out philosophical principle thinking and repeating science demonstration for the sustainable development, this article got further confirmation that the existence of human being at the minimum environment cost may help them obtain motive power of the sustainable development. In fact, this foundation motive power exists in the flow of development in different organization levels, meanwhile it exists in strategy of intuition living of the ancient people. Only in relative lower environment cost to live can we get the support system of science for the sustainable development, and be able really to achieve the basic goal of the sustainable development.

An Overview of the Resources and Environmental Issues from Wasted Food in Urban Catering across China

There is growing global concern over food waste and its impacts on resources, environmental issues and food security, especially in developing countries. However, knowledge of food waste, in particular, the food wasted by consumers in restaurants, is entirely inadequate in China. Here, based on media reports and documents about food waste we provide an overview of food wasted by consumers in restaurants in China. We roughly estimated total food waste in order to uncover the seriousness of this large issue. We collected international literature referring to food waste and provided a detailed explanation of the resources and environmental costs associated with food waste. Ultimately we propose a conceptual diagram on research into catering food waste by consumers to evaluate resources and environmental costs based on life cycle assessment in China. This work will stimulate interdisciplinary research in this field.

Environmental cost and pollution risk caused by the industrial transfer in Qinghai Province

With the rising pressure due to energy consumption and costs of environmental protection and recovery, industrial transfer from the eastern to central and western areas has surged in China. However, extremely fragile ecological conditions and severe water shortage are significant hurdles for industry development in Western China. Whether the vulnerable environment can bear the pollution caused by the transferred industry from Eastern China becomes a significant issue. This study firstly estimates energy and environmental costs in different areas of China, and assesses the necessity to upgrade the industrial structure of Qinghai Province. Then the emis- sions of waste water, waste gas, and smoke caused by transferred industries are calculated by Input-Output Model. On the basis of the effect analysis of waste emission on environment, pollution risks of Qinghai province are assessed. The results illustrate that the costs of environmental protection and recovery in China have a gradient distribution, of which the energy efficiency is Lower while environmental costs are higher in Western China. Industrial structure adjustment has different impacts on the pollution of different sectors. Although the development of machinery and equipment, hotels and catering services, and real estate, leasing, and business services has increased the emission of pollutants, it is offset by the decreasing emissions caused by other industries such as construction and metal products. Therefore, although economic development will increase environ- mental pollution, industrial adjustments can effectively decrease waste water and waste gas emissions to reduce the pollution risk. It should be noted that there are still tremendous challenges for industrial transfer in Qinghai Province to coordinate the environment and industry development.

The valuation of China’s environmental degradation from 2004 to 2017

This paper aims to evaluate the cost of environmental degradation by adopting the conventional environmental economic methodology in China from 2004 to 2017 and summarize the change in both the causes and costs of China’s environmental degradation.Results from this study revealed the following:i.The environmental degradation cost in China increased from 511 billion yuan to 1,892 billion yuan from 2004 to 2017,and its share in the GDP decreased from 3.05% to 2.23%;ii.The environmental degradation cost growth rate was lower than the GDP growth rate.The environmental degradation cost growth rate decreased sharply,by dropping from 10% in 2014 to 2% in 2017.The environmental benefits of industrial transformation have emerged;iii.The provinces of Shandong,Hebei,Jiangsu,Henan,and Guangdong had the highest environmental degradation costs.The annual average growth rate of the environmental degradation costs in Jiangsu,Guangdong,and Zhejiang were lower than their growth rate of the GDP respectively;iv.Consideration of environmental degradation cost in decision-making could contribute to the high-quality development of China.

Environmental deterioration of farmlands caused by the irrational use of agricultural technologies

Without considering the ecosystem-depen- dence of agricultural production, irrational use of agricultural technologies could bring only short-term economic benefits but leave long-term environmental deterioration. If some agricultural lands have to be abandoned because of these technologies such as chemical films or groundwater depletion, it will aggravate the burden of remaining lands for maintaining or enhancing production. Thus, agricultural production should be a part of public services, requiring the consideration of interests of different stakeholders and sustainability.

The Driving Forces and Synergistic Effect between Regional Economic Growth,Resources and the Environment in the Yangtze River Economic Zone

From the viewpoints of population,resources,environment and economic-social development,we establish the models of accounting for resource and environmental costs and coordinated（or relative coordinated） development degrees between economic growth and resources and the environment using the evaluation method of ecosystem service value.Synergistic effects between regional economic growth and resources and the environment in the Yangtze River Economic Zone was analyzed and driving forces were analyzed by regression of partial least squares.We found that from 1983 to 2012,resource and environmental costs in the Yangtze River Economic Zone（including seven provinces and two municipalities） increased from 4736.55 trillion CNY to 15 359.45 trillion CNY and corresponding weights dropped from 31.1% to 19.7% compared to the national level.The degree of coordinated development rose from 0.295 to 1.506,higher than the national average.In the years 1983,1993 and 2003,the main factor that drove the coordinated development of regional economic growth,resources and the environment was low level resource and environmental costs.With continuous increases in primary and tertiary industrial added values after 2012,the advantage of the Yangtze River Economic Zone has weakened.In the future,provinces should improve the rules and regulations on planning and implementing main functional areas,promote adjustment of industrial structure,restore ecology,improve resource utilization efficiency and reduce environmental loss costs to enhance quality of economic development and promote the coordinated development of regional economic growth and resources and the environment.

A Green Mixed Integer Linear Programming Model for Optimization of Byproduct Gases in Iron and Steel Industry

Byproduct gas is an important secondary energy in iron and steel industry, and its optimization is vital to cost reduction. With the development of iron and steel industry to be more eco-friendly, it is necessary to construct an integrated optimized system, taking economics, energy consumption and environment into consideration. Therefore, the environmental cost caused by pollutants discharge should be factored in total cost when optimizing byproduct gas distribution. A green mixed integer linear programming （MILP） model for the optimization of byproduct gases was established to reduce total cost, including both operation cost and environmental cost. The operation cost included penalty for gas deviation, costs of fuel and water consumption, holder booster trip penalty, and so forth; while the environmental cost consisted of penalties for both direct and indirect pollutants discharge. Case study showed that the proposed model brought an optimum solution and 2.2% of the total cost could be reduced compared with previous one.

Universal generating function based probabilistic production simulation for wind power integrated power systems

According to the demand of sustainable development and low-carbon electricity, it is important to develop clean resources and optimize scheduling generation mix. Firstly, a novel method for probabilistic production simulation for wind power integrated power systems is proposed based on universal generating function(UGF), which completes the production simulation with the chronological wind power and load demand. Secondly,multiple-period multiple-state wind power model and multiple-state thermal unit power model are adopted, and both thermal power and wind power are coordinately scheduled by the comprehensive cost including economic cost and environmental cost. Furthermore, the accommodation and curtailment of wind power is synergistically considered according to the available regulation capability of conventional generators in operation. Finally, the proposed method is verified and compared with conventional convolution method in the improved IEEE-RTS 79 system.

TRANSFORMATION OF AGRICULTURE ON THE LOESS PLATEAU OF CHINA TOWARD GREEN DEVELOPMENT

Loess Plateau of China is a typical dryland agricultural area.Agriculture there has transformed from food shortage toward green development over the past seven decades,and has achieved world-renowned achievements.During1950–1980,the population increased from 42 to 77 million,increasing grain production to meet food demand of rapid population growth was the greatest challenge.Engineering measures such as terracing and check-dam were the crucial strategies to increase crop production.From 1981 to 2000,most of agronomic measures played a key role in increasing crops yield,and a series of policy support has benefited millions of smallholders.As expected,these measures and policies greatly increased crop production and basically achieved food security;but,low per capita GDP(only about 620 USD in 2000)was still a big challenge.During 2001–2015,the increase in agricultural and non-agricultural income together supported the increase in farmer income to5781 USD·yr^(–1).Intensive agriculture that relies heavily on chemicals increased crop productivity by 56%.Steadfast policy support such as"Grain for Green Program"had an overwhelming advantage in protecting the natural ecological environment.In the new era,the integration of science and technology innovations,policy support and positive societal factors will be the golden key to further improve food production,protect environment,and increase smallholder income.

The net ecosystem services value in China's Mainland

Protection of the ecological environment is an effective strategy for maintaining ecosystem health,improving provision of ecosystem services,and increasing human well-being.However,traditional calculations of the value of ecosystem services(VES)provide weak guidance because they ignore the costs of these services,leading to economically inefficient strategies.To understand the difference between VES and the net ecosystem services value(NES,after subtracting costs from VES)and to improve evaluations of ecosystem services,we estimated NES for China's Mainland(including farmland,grassland,forest,and wetland).NES totaled 10.0×10~3RMB ha^(-1)yr^(-1)in 2014,which is only 35.1%of the corresponding VES.Grassland NES was–0.7×10~3RMB ha^(-1)yr^(-1),in contrast with a positive grassland VES.NES of farmland,grassland,forest,and wetland in2014 totaled 7.2×10^(12)RMB,accounting for 27.0%of China’s GNP.Recent Chinese planning based on VES emphasizes forest conservation and ignores the conservation of other important ecosystems,such as grassland,leading to a continuing loss of China’s natural capital.Due to regional differences in economic conditions,resource endowments,and geographical characteristics,VES and NES differ among regions.To maximize the ecological benefits from conservation,it is necessary to account for these differences by comparing strategies based on NES,thereby choosing projects that maximize both economic and ecological benefits.To maintain the ecological balance,ecological restoration and socioeconomic activities should account for the costs of providing ecosystem services.This is essential to minimize the costs and maximize the benefits of projects.