Eco-Environmental Policy Research And Case Studies: Within A Circular Economy Perspective

Compared to agriculture civilization, the productivity level and scientific and technological capacity of human society have achieved an unprecedented development and improvement since the beginning of industry civilization, however, human activities have also led to high consumption of natural resources and the decline of the functions of ecosystem service. Since 1960s, with of the movements of environmental protection and the rapid development of ecology, there is a new economic developing model, "Circular Economy", which aims at the harmonious development of ecology and economy, has been regarded as the critical path for human society to achieve the transition from industrial civilization to ecological civilization. With the rapid economic development since the reform and opening up of China, ecological and environmental problems have become the main obstacles for China to achieve a sustainable development. There have been a lot of researches which focus on material flow analysis and cleaner production with regards to circular economy of China, however, the imperfect eco-environmental policy framework of China has become one of the main difficulties to further develop circular economy in China. Thus, it is very necessary to address the eco-environmental policy of in the perspective of circular economy. In particular, the analysis and evaluation on those the existing eco-environmental policy would help to have a comprehensive understanding of the role of the policy mechanisms in the role of further development of circular economy in China.In this study, we combined thorical analysis and case studies as the main methodology. The circular economy is defined in a broad sense, which means not only as a waste recycle economy, but also as a new model of economy. Therefore, the scope of eco-environmental policy with regards to circular economy should be more comprehensive. This study is conducted as follows:firstly, it starts from a good understanding of the value of eco-resources with the theory of ecosystem services evaluation, which the value of ecosystem services of Kunyu Mountain Reserve have been comprehensive evaluated; secondly, from Command and Control Policy(CCP) perspective and Marked Based Policy(MBP) perspective, we chose the Shandong's paper industry and China's fuel tax reform as two research cases to study the effects of the eco-environmental policy with the methodology of eco-efficiency analysis and delinking analysis, elasticity analysis and scenario analysis respectively.This study investigated the value of Kunyu Mountain Nature Reserve and found that there were enormous direct and indirect values of ecosystem services in Kunyu Reserve. It is important to internalize these values into the development of circular economy, which ecological compensation policy should become an important mean for internalization. The evalueation of ecosystem services should be used as the basis of the implementation of ecological compensation policy. However, the amount of compensation standards should be established on the basis of scientific analysis of the scope of external compensation and internal compensation. This study suggest that those ecological sevices which have outward characteristics such as carbon sequestration and maintenance of biodiversity should receive external ecological compensation, and the compensation standard can refer to the calculated value of the related ecosystem services.With regards to the debate of whether stricter environmental regulations can promote environmental and economic performance at the same time, this study presented a case study with regards to the implementation of stricter environmental standards in Shandong Province's Pulp and Paper Industry (SPPI) compared to the national standards of China. This study investigated the eco-efficiency trends of SPPI from 2001 to 2008 in three fields:water efficiency, energy efficiency and environment efficiency. Eco-efficiency is widely regarded as a quite powerful tool of considering ecology and economy together. A "de-linking" and "re-linking" tool was used to attain a further evaluation. This study found that the stricter regulations could promote corporate change from passive management to active control and from end-of-pipe treatment to cleaner production. The study showed that with the implementation of stricter regulation most of the efficiency indicators (except CO2 emission and energy consumption) had achieved significant improvements, and the overall environmental performance trends of SPPI showed it to be more sustainable. However, the study also found that it was not enough to address a single indicator in the environmental regulation of the pulp and paper industry. More holistic eco-efficiency indicators need to be further considered and introduced to the industry as the next step to create true sustainable development.In this study, we examined the empirical elasticities of income, price and vehicle stock with respect to China's transport gasoline demand with an econometric model and pooled data from 1995 to 2007. On the basis of elasticity model and previously published data, the potential effects with respect to fuel demand and GHG emissions of a fuel tax implementation in China were examined. The tax rate scenarios analysis showed that fuel tax could be used as a national strategy to reduce fuel consumption and CO2 emissions. Tax rates will have significant impacts on the potential effects of fuel tax. Besides tax rates, the policy of transportation development and traffic mode will also generate significant impact on the effects of fuel tax policy. In a well developed public transportation scenarios, the fuel tax policy can better play its role in energy conservation and CO2 reduction. Fuel tax can also bring potential benefits for urban population with the reduction of gasoline consumption and indirectly reduction of vehicle emission.