Environmental Policy Studies,

This paper proposes the measures to deal with environmental issues. The environmental issues refer not to geographical disasters and natural phenomena but these by human activities.There are rich literatures on how to resolve environmental issues but the issues are far from settlement. I conduct research on the basis of existing achievements and propose "Environmental Development theory". The theory includes three arguments. First, environmental issues and measures to deal with them have five phases. Environmental issues are historical problems which occurred with the growth of population and human’s abilities to change environment and will be resolved by the development of knowledge and technologies. Secondly, there is either alternative or mutual promotion relationship between environment and development. On one hand development can be achieved by sacrificing environment and on the other hand the growth of economy can supply material and technical support for environment protection. Finally, I argue environmental intra-generation fairness can be divided into international fairness and national fairness. It is very important to protect the development rights of developing countries in the process of environment protection. All countries in the world should share all achievements on improving resources efficiency and environment protection equally. All countries should work together to realize sustainable development.Some environmental issues may be resolved by private means, such as voluntary negotiations, mergers, moral constraints and etc. Private means need strict conditions and their functions are limited. For example there are several limits for negotiations to resolve environmental issues. First, the quantity of both parties in transaction should be small in order to reduce transaction costs. Secondly, the sources of damages should be clear. Finally, property rights should be settled clearly to make it easier for the transfer and protection of the rights. Such strict conditions cannot be realized in the real world; hence it is necessary for government to get involved in environment protection. Governments should perform their responsibilities when private means are not effective. Governmental means also have their conditions, advantages and disadvantages. For example the advantages of order and control measure are effective, mandatory high, in line with social ethics, with best total social benefits and etc. However the disadvantages of order and control measure are crude, poor under cost and benefit analysis. It also increases social costs of obedience and causes some other complex problems. Hence policies and measures should be selected according to requirements and conditions.Environmental issues are also international issues and call for international cooperation. The scope of international environmental cooperation is expanding. All countries and international institutions have taken many policies and measures to resolve national and international environmental issues. Order and control is a main measure to deal with environmental issues in worldwide and is a favorite of officials and the public although it has lots of disadvantages. Economic measures such as emission trading and beneficiary compensation projects are very effective for environment protection although they are not applied widely. However the social recognition of economic measures is relatively low.China has established its environment protection system though there is still room for improvement. Law and institutional systems for environment protection are set up but environmental inspection and monitoring and information disclosure all need to be improved systematically. Environmental tax system has not been established and still under research and discussion. Environmental tax is going to be implemented during the Twelfth Five Year Plan. Environmental charges’improvement will be in a dilemma. Fiscal tools have great functions on environment protection by government expenditure, transfer payments, subsidies, and government procurement. Fiscal tools should increase capital efficiency and play a more important role in future. Emission trading is new to China and should be improved during practice. Beneficiary compensation projects should be improved on the basis of small-scale applications. It is also necessary to improve international cooperation on environmental protection. China should make use of foreign help in capital, technologies, machines, management and other aspects to strengthen its environment protection capabilities.China faces the constraints of population, food, energy and stage of development. As a major exporter and a major emitting country, China also faces great pressure from the international community. Hence I argue China should resolve its environmental issues by combining control and order measure with economic measures, by relating environment protection with the transfer of economic growth pattern, by adhering policies and measures to China’s economic situation, and by improving policies and measures gradually. I argue that China should achieve sustainable development by eight principles:giving priority to outcome principle, cost-efficiency principle, intra-generation and intergeneration fairness principle, coordinating environment protection with economic and social development principle, prevention better than cure principle, connecting damager payment and beneficiary refunding principle, prudent principle, and residents’ involvement principle. Suggestions are also made to resolve China’s environmental issues. For example in tax scope I suggest to set up China’s environmental tax system which includes three parts:environmental tax, taxes which can support environment protection, tax reduction policy related to environmental protection and so on.