Investments in environmental protection are crucial for achieving the goals of building green economy. The purpose of the study is, firstly, to assess the state and trends of Ukrainian companies ...investments for environmental purposes; secondly, to identify the determinants of the impact on the volume of environmental protection investments; finally, to determine presence /absence of a link between environmental investments and financial performance of companies. The initial data for the study were obtained from published statistical reports for the period from 2010 till 2019. Methods of analysis for testing hypotheses are descriptive and correlation-regression ones. It was found out that the selected independent variables (belonging to environmentally damaging activities and revenue of the companies) are positively correlated with the volume of costs and investments in environmental protection of Ukrainian companies. However, for the independent variable “financial results” a negative correlation was obtained. The hypothesis of environmental investments positive impact on the financial profitability of companies has not been confirmed. Environmental policy in Ukraine concerning implementation of “green” growth strategy is defined as a reflective one due to a number of economic and political factors.
New Earth Politics Nicholson, Simon; Jinnah, Sikina; Conca, Ken ...
03/2016
eBook
Humanity's collective impact on the Earth is vast. The rate and scale of human-driven environmental destruction is quickly outstripping our political and social capacities for managing it. We are in ...effect creating an Earth 2.0 on which the human signature is everywhere, a "new earth" in desperate need of humane and insightful guidance. In this volume, prominent scholars and practitioners in the field of global environmental politics consider the ecological and political realities of life on the new earth, and probe the field's deepest and most enduring questions at a time of increasing environmental stress. Arranged in complementary pairs, the essays in this volume include reflections on environmental pedagogy, analysis of new geopolitical realities, reflections on the power of social movements and international institutions, and calls for more compelling narratives to promote environmental action. At the heart of the volume is sustained attention to the role of traditional scholarly activities in a world confronting environmental disaster. Some contributors make the case that it is the scholar's role to provide activists with the necessary knowledge and tools; others argue for more direct engagement and political action. All the contributors confront the overriding question: What is the best use of their individual and combined energies, given the dire environmental reality?ContributorsErik Assadourian, Frank Biermann, Wil Burns, Ken Conca, Peter Dauvergne, Daniel Deudney, Navroz Dubash, Richard Falk, Joyeeta Gupta, Maria Ivanova, Peter Jacques, Sikina Jinnah, Karen T. Litfin, Michael F. Maniates, Elizabeth Mendenhall, Simon Nicholson, Kate O'Neill, Judith Shapiro, Paul Wapner, Oran R. Young
El reconocimiento de los graves daños ambientales como crímenes internacionales en el Estatuto de Roma de la Corte Penal Internacional (CPI) no solo expande la justicia penal internacional y refuerza ...la protección del medio ambiente a nivel global, sino también se constituye como un mecanismo para acabar con la gran impunidad que gozan actualmente las empresas. Por ello, a partir de un análisis descriptivo y comparativo de la práctica actual y de la bibliografía relacionada con el tema, el presente artículo, por un lado, evalúa el reconocimiento de los graves y extensos daños ambientales como crímenes que activan la competencia de la CPI, como respuesta a la actual crisis ambiental, y, por otro lado, explora los cambios sustantivos que implica la inclusión de los crímenes ambientales en el Estatuto de Roma, particularmente la extensión de las competencias personales de la CPI para la investigación y el enjuiciamiento de empresas. Palabras Clave: Estatuto de Roma. Corte Penal Internacional. Medio Ambiente. Empresas. The recognition of new environmental crimes under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) not only expands the international criminal justice and strengthens the global environmental protection, but also constitutes a mechanism to end to the corporate impunity. Therefore, based on a descriptive and comparative analysis of current practice and related literature, this article, on the one hand, evaluates the recognition of serious environmental damages as crime that activate the competence of the ICC, as a response to the current environmental crisis, and, on the other hand, it explores the substantive changes that entails the recognition of environmental crimes under the Rome Statute, particularly the extension of the jurisdiction personae of the ICC for the prosecution of corporations. Keywords: Rome Statue. International Criminal Court. Environment. Businesses.
The past decade has witnessed remarkable economic development, marked by rapid industrialization and urbanization across Asian regions. This surge in economic activity has led to significant ...emissions, resulting in alarming levels of air pollution. Our study comprehensively assessed the spatial and temporal trends of key pollutants, namely nitrogen dioxide (NOsub.2), sulfur dioxide (SOsub.2), and aerosol (using aerosol optical depth (AOD) at 550 nm as an indicator), from 2011 to 2021. The data sources utilized include OMI onboard the Aura satellite for NOsub.2 and SOsub.2, as well as MODIS onboard Terra and Aqua satellites for AOD. The results from spatial and temporal trend analyses of the three parameters show that there is a clear declining trend over China and Republic of Korea (e.g., NOsub.2 is declining with an overall rate of −7.8 × 10sup.12 molecules/cmsup.2/year over China) due to the strict implementation of air pollution control policies. However, it is essential to note that both countries still grapple with substantial pollution levels, with proportions exceeding 0.5, indicating that air quality is improving but has not yet reached a safe threshold. In contrast, South Asian regions, including Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India, are experiencing an increasing trend (e.g., NOsub.2 is increasing with an overall rate of 1.2 × 10sup.12 molecules/cmsup.2/year in Bangladesh), primarily due to the lack of rigorous air pollution control policies. The average emissions of NOsub.2 and SOsub.2 were remarkably higher in winter than in summer. Notably, the identified hotspots are statistically significant and predominantly coincide with densely populated areas, such as the North China Plain (NCP). Furthermore, this study underscores the pivotal role of sector-wise emissions in air quality monitoring and improvement. Different cities are primarily influenced by emissions from specific sectors, emphasizing the need for targeted pollution control measures. The findings presented in this research contribute valuable insights to the air quality monitoring and improvement efforts in East and South Asian regions.
Because of the high catalytic activities and substrate specificity, natural enzymes have been widely used in industrial, medical, and biological fields, etc. Although promising, they often suffer ...from intrinsic shortcomings such as high cost, low operational stability, and difficulties of recycling. To overcome these shortcomings, researchers have been devoted to the exploration of artificial enzyme mimics for a long time. Since the discovery of ferromagnetic nanoparticles with intrinsic horseradish peroxidase-like activity in 2007, a large amount of studies on nanozymes have been constantly emerging in the next decade. Nanozymes are one kind of nanomaterials with enzymatic catalytic properties. Compared with natural enzymes, nanozymes have the advantages such as low cost, high stability and durability, which have been widely used in industrial, medical, and biological fields. A thorough understanding of the possible catalytic mechanisms will contribute to the development of novel and high-efficient nanozymes, and the rational regulations of the activities of nanozymes are of great significance. In this review, we systematically introduce the classification, catalytic mechanism, activity regulation as well as recent research progress of nanozymes in the field of biosensing, environmental protection, and disease treatments, etc. in the past years. We also propose the current challenges of nanozymes as well as their future research focus. We anticipate this review may be of significance for the field to understand the properties of nanozymes and the development of novel nanomaterials with enzyme mimicking activities.
Who speaks for the trees, the water, the soil, and the air in
American government today? Which agencies confront environmental
problems, and how do they set priorities? How are the opposing
claims of ...interest groups evaluated? Why do certain issues capture
the public's attention? In Making Environmental Policy ,
Daniel Fiorino combines the hands-on experience of an insider with
the analytic rigor of a scholar to provide the fullest, most
readable introduction to federal environmental policymaking yet
published. A committed environmental advocate, he takes readers
from theory to practice, demonstrating how laws and institutions
address environmental needs and balance them against other
political pressures. Drawing on the academic literature and his own
familiarity with current trends and controversies, Fiorino offers a
lucid view of the institutional and analytic aspects of
environmental policymaking. A chapter on analytic methods describes
policymakers' attempts to apply objective standards to complex
environmental decisions. The book also examines how the law, the
courts, political tensions, and international environmental
agencies have shaped environmental issues. Fiorino grounds his
discussion with references to numerous specific cases, including
radon, global warming, lead, and hazardous wastes. Timely and
necessary, this is an invaluable handbook for students, activists,
and anyone wanting to unravel contemporary American environmental
politics.
How the US Environmental Protection Agency designed the governance of risk and forged its legitimacy over the course of four decades.
The open access edition of this book was made possible by ...generous funding from the MIT Libraries.
The US Environmental Protection Agency was established in 1970 to protect the public health and environment, administering and enforcing a range of statutes and programs. Over four decades, the EPA has been a risk bureaucracy, formalizing many of the methods of the scientific governance of risk, from quantitative risk assessment to risk ranking.
Demortain traces the creation of these methods for the governance of risk, the controversies to which they responded, and the controversies that they aroused in turn. He discusses the professional networks in which they were conceived; how they were used; and how they served to legitimize the EPA. Demortain argues that the EPA is structurally embedded in controversy, resulting in constant reevaluation of its credibility and fueling the evolution of the knowledge and technologies it uses to produce decisions and to create a legitimate image of how and why it acts on the environment. He describes the emergence and institutionalization of the risk assessment–risk management framework codified in the National Research Council's Red Book, and its subsequent unraveling as the agency's mission evolved toward environmental justice, ecological restoration, and sustainability, and as controversies over determining risk gained vigor in the 1990s.
Through its rise and fall at the EPA, risk decision-making enshrines the science of a bureaucracy that learns how to make credible decisions and to reform itself, amid constant conflicts about the environment, risk, and its own legitimacy.
In 2023, China’s Marine Environmental Protection Law was secondly revised, in which the extraterritorial provisions in marine environmental protection were evolved and highlighted. Through enforcing ...the extraterritorial provisions, it is possible for China to pay attention and control marine pollution or ecological damage that occurs beyond the territory and safeguard the national marine environment. However, China has not carried out any enforcement practices based on the extraterritorial provisions of the Marine Environmental Protection Law. As a responsible participant in marine environment governance and driven by the need to address marine environmental threats posed by foreign countries, China has a sufficient rationale for introducing extraterritorial enforcement in marine environment protection from a broader perspective. However, given that extraterritorial enforcement in the marine environmental protection field is not adopted universally, China’s future extraterritorial enforcement activities will face risks of excessive use, and a series of dilemmas may inevitably arise during the enforcement practices. Analyzing the potential dilemmas of China’s extraterritorial enforcement in marine environment protection, corresponding suggestions are provided to avert excessive extraterritorial enforcement and promote the effectiveness of extraterritorial enforcement activities to protect essential national marine environmental interests.
Concerns for arsenic exposure are not limited to toxic waste sites and massive poisoning events. Chronic exposure continues to be a major public health problem worldwide, affecting hundreds of ...millions of persons.
We reviewed recent information on worldwide concerns for arsenic exposures and public health to heighten awareness of the current scope of arsenic exposure and health outcomes and the importance of reducing exposure, particularly during pregnancy and early life.
We synthesized the large body of current research pertaining to arsenic exposure and health outcomes with an emphasis on recent publications.
Locations of high arsenic exposure via drinking water span from Bangladesh, Chile, and Taiwan to the United States. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency maximum contaminant level (MCL) in drinking water is 10 µg/L; however, concentrations of > 3,000 µg/L have been found in wells in the United States. In addition, exposure through diet is of growing concern. Knowledge of the scope of arsenic-associated health effects has broadened; arsenic leaves essentially no bodily system untouched. Arsenic is a known carcinogen associated with skin, lung, bladder, kidney, and liver cancer. Dermatological, developmental, neurological, respiratory, cardiovascular, immunological, and endocrine effects are also evident. Most remarkably, early-life exposure may be related to increased risks for several types of cancer and other diseases during adulthood.
These data call for heightened awareness of arsenic-related pathologies in broader contexts than previously perceived. Testing foods and drinking water for arsenic, including individual private wells, should be a top priority to reduce exposure, particularly for pregnant women and children, given the potential for life-long effects of developmental exposure.
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