China Environmental Economic Policies’ethics And Its Path Of Practice

Environmental economic policies belong to a type of policy means which apply economic means such as pricing, taxation, fiscal means, credit, charges and insurance etc. to adjust or affect behaviors of the market subjects to achieve coordinated development of economic development and environmental protection. Theoretic study and practical experience at home and abroad have proved that environmental economic policies are the most effective way of internizing the externality of environmental problems and thus realizing environmental justice. Aimed at the continuous improvement of balanced development of environment-resources-economy and the environmental-economic-social comprehensive benefit, this Dissertation, integrated with humanistic orientation and scientific foundation, have explored and integrated multi-disciplined basic theories and synthetic methodologies of ethics, environmental (ecological) sciences, economics, policy sciences, political sciences, public administration science etc. to study and examine environmental economic policies’ethics and its path to practice. The research results and innovation points of this Dissertation are as follows:First of all, the author thinks that environmental economics should be the main theoretical basis of environmental economic policy system, while the recycling economy policy system should be its policy design basis, therefore, the author firstly, from the angle of environmental justice, economic ethics and human nature paradigm to study the theoretic foundation and policy design basis. As a comprehensive system of economics and natural sciences including economics, environmental sciences and ecologic sciences etc., theories and methods of environmental economics contains rich ethical values, while at current development stage, the system of recycling policies has provided a open policy basis for formulation of current environmental economic policies and the operation of the environmental economic policies’ethic mechanisms.Secondly, from the characteristics, attributes, and the basic functions of environmental economic policies, including the concept, modes and classification of environmental economic policies, their behavioral adjustment function and fund allocation etc., this article has tried to reveal the basic rules, operation principles and the ethic codes and moral rationality of ethics of environmental economic policies. With the theories of teleology and deontology ethics as main line, this paper expounds the teleology, deontology, environmental ethics and Schweitzer’s humanitarian ethical theory methods, including their historical origin and the contemporary development of economic construction of our country environment policy ethics theory method system and reveals their constructive meaning and reference function to our country’s construction of our own environmental economic policies system, and preliminarily attempt to draw the outline of our country environmental economic policy ethics theory system’s general framework and basic positioning. On this basis, this paper highlight the environmental economic policy ethics theory method and common pursuit, and has expounded the operating principles of environment ethic, studied the five specific code of the ethics for environmental economic policies:firstly, be gentle with the earth, protect the environment; secondly, environmental justice and common equality; thirdly, respect life, and protect biodiversity; fourthly, treat nature kindly, save resources; fifthly, moderate material consumption, advocate environment-friendly consumption, thus prepared some necessary artifacts for the construction of environmental economic policies’ethics theoretic and methodological system.Thirdly, this paper deeply analyzes three aspects of the formation environment and basis of theories and methodologies of environmental economic policies in our country, the first one is the Marxism and normative ethics, especially Chinese Marxist value philosophy, which provides the value basis of and practical reason for generation of ethics of environmental economic policies; the second one, its social realistic foundation and the formation of nationality and modernity, the third one is material technology base and the formation of global nature; and comes to the seven challenges or disadvantages:the first is rigid constraint of the environmental resources comprehensive accommodating capacity highlights environmental crisis; the second, difficulties to coordinate with regional administrative segmented system and imperfect policy supporting measures led to government failure; the third, imperfection of the market economic system and environmental property right mechanism lead to market failure; the fourth, the lack of public and social self-organization participation cause social failure; the fifth, the development of science and technology level gap with the developed countries; the sixth, imperfect legal protection; the seventh, regional development and residents’ big income gap lead to lack of stability of regional fairness and benefit adjustment etc. Later, on this basis, discussed four kinds of fair and effective enforcement safeguard mechanism and environmental economic policy strategy, including benefit-balancing decision-making mechanism, the implementation mechanism, evaluation mechanism, education mechanism etc., to ensure the environmental economic policies to achieve multiple value targets as fairness and efficiency, economic efficiency and legitimacy and rationality, acceptability, operability of supervision regulation and coordination etc.Finally, in the perspective of ecological compensation, this paper has analyzed the concrete realization form of environmental economic policy ethics. We shall, in compliance with values of sustainable development concept, environmental justice and ecological security (i.e. respect ecological laws), under the guidance of Marxism and on the basis of the current national situation of our country, draw lessons from Kant’s deontology, John Rawls’s "justice as fairness" principle, Nozick’s theory of deserved rights and Sen’s theory of practical ability, this paper expounds the concepts, tasks and compensation funding sources, compensation standards, compensation fund sources, moral rationality of ecosystem service compensation, and clarified that the essence of the ethics of ecological compensation policies is to protect development right of the regions and citizens, and to offer compensation for the development right consigned by citizens. The premise of ecological compensation in China should be scientific demarcation of main function areas, the key is to establish reasonable safeguards. At the same time, in accordance with the advancing requirements of ecological compensation and capital chain as the main line, the general mindset of establishing and improving the environmental economic policy system of our country should start from the environmental public financing and environmental resources value accounting&verification, greatly promote the building of environmental economic policy system; it is advisable that the government should be actively and properly involved with various environmental fields with market failure, and keep on formulating and improving related policies in environmental public financing and fiscal system, ecological compensation, environmental taxes and fees, green credit, green insurance etc., and grope for and promote development of environmental economic policies of trading/market style, such as emissions trading, emission permits. As one of the research achievements of this paper, in view of ecological compensation in China, one of the four principles of ecological compensation as "the principle of separation of new debts/accounts and old ones", according to the requirements of the environmental economic policy ethics, compensation and repairs of old ecological debts to be responsible by the national compensation. Ecological compensation as a focus of concerns from all walks of life, especially un-privileged people and vulnerable groups in ecological fragile zones as restricted development zones and prohibited development zones. Under our current situation and national conditions, market economy system and environmental property right mechanism have not reached adequately mature and satisfied extent, in a considerably long period, the government is the main party to overcome the market failure, therefore, it is imperative to strictly enforce public fiscal transfer payment system of the environmental public financing under the value guidance of the justice, equality, harmony and ecologization and efficiency, thus push the current ecological compensation system to tide through the current relatively hard time, and then transform to a more complete and balanced pattern of government compensation, market compensation and social compensation. Therefore, in the chapter, with the environmental public financing as main line, the author analyzed existing problems and reform opportunity, in a fairly long period of time, the government should be the main party to overcome the market failure in advancement of ecological compensation mechanism, therefore, justice, equality, harmony, eco-orientation and efficiency should be the values for guiding environmental economic policies in our country, especially the implementation of the environmental public finance transfer payment system to realize the ecological compensation mechanism, as a transitional period to be developed into a more complete and balanced state with joint function of government compensation, market compensation and social compensation in the form of a smooth transition. Therefore, in this chapter, with environment public finances as the main line, this chapter analyzes the problems and reform opportunity that exist in the public finance policy, and thus provided policy reference for the problem "where can the money come from" when the government as the main party of ecological compensation. In the meantime, with environmental capital as starting point, the dissertation have coordinated and integrated various specific policy elements so as to promote environmental economic policies to develop per actual situation and practical stage, thus adjust policy elements structure and interests pattern, and continuously and dynamically adjust interests relationship to actually promote equality, justice and efficiency of the group of environmental public policies, and thus provided appropriate suggestions for merging and coordinated joint functioning, in expecation of reaching continuous enviromental-resources-economic balanced development and continuous improvement of enironmental-economical-social comprehensive effect to achieve a dynamic balance of economic development and environmental protection and a win-win situation.