Study On The Sustainable Development Of Urban Economy Under The Restriction Of Resources And Environment

Sustainable Development Solutions Network(SDSN) issued a report named Action Agenda for Sustainable Development in Jun. 2013. The report systematically lists out 10 important challenges faced by sustainable development of human society at present and proposes corresponding sustainable development target systems by aiming at these challenges. This means that studies about urban sustainable development have increasing demands and importance. During over 38 years since the reform and opening up, economic, social and urban construction has gained rapid development in Beijing. Meanwhile, the relation between resources & environment and economic and social development has also presented increasingly sharp contradictions. With the urban, economic and social development in Beijing, the pressure of urban population, resources and environment has increased continuously. With the further promotion of capital functions in urban function positioning of Beijing, Beijing will be urged to transfer out industries of non-core capital functions in the city, including industries involving high pollution, high energy consumption and strong population dependence. The pursuit for economic targets in urban development will also decrease. Correspondingly, ‘high-grade, precision and advanced’ industries like low-carbon green high-end service industry, technology-intensive industry, and high-tech industry will further become key industries for urban development. At the same time, the requirements for urban infrastructure level, urban management level, urban living environment and ecological environment will increase.Based on the summarization of existing theories, this paper further makes a theoretical analysis on the relation between resources and environment and economic growth, the relation between ecological footprint and sustainable economic development, and the connotations and relation of rent and sustainable economic development. Improvement is conducted on the basis of the economic growth model in classical economics, and the sustainable economic development paths under resource and environment restrictions are analyzed. Moreover, reasons for self-discipline failure of nature are analyzed under the framework of “rent dissipation – transaction expenses”, and the mechanism of resource and environment rent dissipation is discussed. After the basic theories are analyzed, a qualitative analysis is made on the current situations and problems of resources and environment in Beijing. Then the improved ecological footprint analysis model is used to conduct quantitative measurement for ecological footprint, ecological carrying capacityand ecological surplus deficit in Beijing from 2000 to 2014. Besides, the resource and environment utilization efficiency characterized by ecological efficiency in Beijing is calculated via SBM model of considering undesirable output. By establishing STIRPAT model, the relation between ecological footprint and other influence factors is discussed. Finally, two kinds of resource and environment rent contained in unit economic output from 2000 to 2012 in Beijing and the total amount are calculated according to the connotation of rent theory. Based on this, the resource and environment rents of various districts and counties from 2005 to 2012 in Beijing are estimated, so as to observe the rule of spatial variation.(1) Ecological deficit increases gradually and ecological overshoot is aggravated continuously, showing that economic society in Beijing develops at the cost of excessive plundering for natural resources and ecological environment. At present, Beijing develops by consuming the capital of nature rather than relying on the interest of resources and environment. The continuous increase of consumption needs for resources and environment has imposed increasing pressure on the ecological system. As a result, the self-healing and reproduction ability of nature might disappear. Thereby severe threats will be caused to biological diversity and the interest of human society.(2) Economic growth has already become a major influence factor of resources and environment in Beijing, and the contradiction between economic growth and resources & environment rises to the main contradiction of sustainable development in Beijing. The influence of population gross in Beijing on the total ecological footprint is secondary, and the factor of population size is still an important driving force for the pressure of resources and environment in Beijing. The increase of resource and environment utilization efficiency is not a sufficient condition for sustainable economic development. However, it cannot be denied that technical factor has an inhibiting effect on the increase of ecological footprint.(3) Among various industry categories, the unit economic output of agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery industry contains a much higher rent than the unit economic output of other industries. Production service industry, life service industry and public service industry in the tertiary industry involves high economic output, so its total rent is the highest though the unit economic output is lower than that of agriculture, forestry,animal husbandry and fishery industry. In addition, if two kinds of resource and environment rent are counted in social economic output of Beijing, the output price will rise by 20.8% on average. This means that the cost for urban enterprises and residents to conduct production and life activities will increase greatly. The spatial distribution framework of resource and environment rent centers on Dongcheng District, Xicheng District, Chaoyang District and Haidian District; it spreads toward the peripheral curve gradually and decreases in order. When industry and production service are developed vigorously in new districts of urban development, the resource and environment rent will increase substantially.(4) Two basic approaches to eliminate ecological footprint: Firstly, ultimate demands in Beijing City should be reduced, and the total social economic output must be controlled within the level matching the ecological carrying capacity. Secondly, resource and environment tax or environmental service charge of corresponding proportion should be collected according to the principle of polluter-pays and beneficiary-compensates.(5)For the city center and Water ecological function zones, the former GEF resources is often a cost, paid the beneficiaries in line with ecological and resource consumers, environmental polluter pays principle; the latter is a kind of compensation or gain, let ecology builders get compensation, including compensation in order to protect the ecological environment and the loss of part of the right to development. Urban Resources and Environment rents for the establishment of ecological compensation resources, ecological environment construction of public funds, the establishment of long-term ecological compensation mechanism provides a theoretical basis.