Search Results (13)

The development and implementation of microbial consortium-based biofertilizers represent a promising direction in sustainable agriculture, particularly in the context of the ongoing global ecological and agricultural crisis. This article examines the agroecological and economic impacts of applying microbial consortiums and explores the mechanisms of technology transfer using the example of two countries with differing levels of scientific and technological advancement–China and Kazakhstan. The analysis of the Chinese experience reveals that the successful integration of microbial biofertilizers into agricultural practice is made possible by a well-established institutional framework that includes strong governmental support for R&D, a robust scientific infrastructure, and effective coordination with the private sector. In contrast, Kazakhstan, despite its favorable agroecological conditions and growing interest among farmers in environmentally friendly technologies, faces several challenges from limited funding to a fragmented technology transfer system. The comparative study demonstrates that adapting Chinese models requires consideration of local specificities and the strengthening of intergovernmental cooperation. The article concludes by emphasizing the need to establish a multi-level innovation ecosystem encompassing the entire cycle of development and deployment of microbial biofertilizers, as a prerequisite for improving agricultural productivity and ensuring food security in countries at different stages of economic development. Full article

With the intensification of armed conflicts driven by regional incentives, global geopolitical conflicts are becoming increasingly intense. In addition, the possibility of another financial crisis is approaching, and global inflation is rapidly rising. As a result, Europe and the United States must restart coal-fired power generation to cope with energy shortages and delay carbon neutrality goals. However, the current political and public opinion about the environment has led to a one-sided exaggeration and political criticism of China’s carbon emissions, resulting in China’s contribution to carbon neutrality being intentionally or unintentionally ignored. The uncertainty surrounding future low-carbon policies has made climate observers increasingly concerned about the threat of environmental degradation to fragile intergovernmental decarbonization efforts. This article aims to clarify the one-sided view of China’s carbon emissions internationally, clarify China’s measurement indicators for carbon emissions, analyze China’s advantages in responding to the global warming crisis under complex historical and political conditions, summarize China’s efforts to achieve its dual carbon goals in the current situation, and thus summarize China’s unique and absolute advantages in cooperation in clean energy, energy storage, and ultra-high voltage transmission networks that are beneficial to global climate change. This will clarify the truth regarding China’s carbon emissions in the global context and boost global confidence in addressing climate change. Full article

In the current context of increasingly severe global environmental problems, green innovation policies have attracted much attention as an important means to promote sustainable economic development, achieve efficient resource utilization, and be environmentally friendly. Since green innovation involves various factors such as technology research and development and policy support, active cooperation and coordination among governments at all levels are required. Therefore, the theoretical analysis of the game strategy of green innovation among regional governments is particularly important. This paper focuses on inter-governmental collaboration, constructs a tripartite evolutionary game model between the central government and different local governments, analyzes the revenue situation of each party under different policy tendencies, and studies the impact of changes in different factors such as local government green innovation revenue and central government tax revenue on the stability of green innovation policy through simulation analysis. The results show that the adoption of punitive policies by the central government is more conducive to the formation of a stable collaborative governance mechanism. In addition to direct governance costs and benefits, the tax coefficient of local governments and the reduction in local enterprise profits are also key factors affecting regional collaborative governance. On this basis, this paper discusses the game strategies of different regional governments in promoting green innovation from the perspectives of the central government and local governments and puts forward policy recommendations to promote regional collaborative green innovation at the mechanism construction and specific operational levels, providing theoretical guidance for inter-governmental green innovation cooperation. Full article

The interconnected forest regions along the lower Tumen River, at the Sino-North Korean border, provide critical habitats and corridors for the critically endangered Amur Leopard (Panthera pardus orientalis). In this region, there are two promising corridors for leopard movement between China and North Korea: the Jingxin–Dapanling (JD) and Mijiang (MJ) corridors. Past studies have confirmed the functionality of the JD corridor, but leopards’ utilization of the MJ corridor has not yet been established or confirmed. In this study, we assessed the functionality of the MJ corridor. The study area was monitored using camera traps between May 2019 and July 2021. We also analyzed 33 environmental and vegetation factors affecting leopard survival and analyzed leopard movement. In the Mijiang area, the Amur leopard was mainly active in the region adjacent to the Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park and did not venture into area near the North Korean border. The complex forest structure allowed leopards to move into the Mijiang area. However, the high intensity of human disturbance and manufactured physical barriers restricted further southward movement. Therefore, human-induced disturbances such as grazing, mining, farming, logging, and infrastructure development must be halted and reversed to make the Mijiang region a functional corridor for the Amur leopard to reach the North Korean forest. This necessitates inter-governmental and international cooperation and is essential for the long-term survival of the Amur leopard. Full article

In a forcedly global system, we are facing a more and more regulated, sustainable coffee market. The International Coffee Organization is the only coffee intergovernmental organization working to face the numerous challenges of this polyhedric world, from producing fields to consuming markets. Coffee statistics, a unique table for discussion, starting from multilateral up to bilateral dialogue, involving private entities and civil society, cooperation and development projects, and the circular economy are some of the main issues for this intense year 2023. In Europe, one of the main issues for coffee contaminants is the renewal of the authorization as an active substance for glyphosate, which is a chemical widely used in herbicide products, especially in the coffee sector. The use of glyphosate is approved in the EU until 15 December 2023, subject to each product being authorized by national authorities following a safety evaluation. In July 2023, EFSA published the results of a risk assessment for the active substance glyphosate, where no critical areas of concern for the health of humans, animals, or the environment have been identified. Due Diligence: On 1 June 2023, the European Parliament agreed on its position on the Directive on Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence (CSDDD), which requires in-scope companies to conduct due diligence on and take responsibility for human rights abuses and environmental harm throughout their global value chains. The European Coffee Federation has supported the proposal in May 2022 through a position paper, as it is an important step toward the development and promotion of more socially and environmentally sustainable and responsible coffee value chains, sustainable sourcing approaches, and the prevention of loss of biodiversity and natural resources. Deforestation EU regulation: changes to food systems are required to halt deforestation and forest degradation to slow the rate of climate change and the threat to global diversity. Henceforth, the EU deforestation regulation aims to minimize the risk of placing products and commodities on the EU market that cause deforestation and forest degradation. There is a strong need to conduct country-level assessments on the readiness to fulfill the new EU legislation, especially on how smallholder coffee farming families would be affected. To be prepared, producing countries, coffee farmers (and particularly small-holder farmers) and their producer organizations need timely information on guidelines and capacity building on regulatory due diligence. Data requirements on geo-localization and traceability need to feed a discussion on how data should be managed and by whom, as well as on data ownership. Sector-specific guidelines are required, and for the coffee sector specifically, on how to differentiate between forest and coffee agroforestry systems such that coffee farm management is not seen as deforestation. As evident, more and more issues for a sustainable coffee world are arising, impacting the whole global coffee market; traceability is becoming a pillar on which it needs to be developed, stimulating multilateral and bilateral dialogue to help all countries align their capacities to reach this important common target. Full article

The selective behavior of local governments during regional environmental cooperation could generate a diffusion effect through the black box of reputation mechanism. This study incorporates the reputation mechanism, social capital, and environmental governance performance into a unified analysis framework, empirically testing the moderating effect of the implementation rate of environmental cooperative projects (indicating reputation) on the relationship between two types of social capital and environmental governance performance among cities in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) and Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei (BTH) regions. The inter-governmental environmental cooperation news and policies are collected by Data Capture technology as a dataset, and a set of social-economic data is also adopted. The spatial econometric regression results show that an increase in reputation could both strengthen the leadership and coordination ability (bridging social capital) of the central cities in the YRD and BTH regions, thus improving their environmental governance performance. However, the bonding social capital path could only significantly work in the BTH region, which unexpectedly increases pollutant emission through excessive internal cohesion. The results indicate that a “community of entangled interest” should be constructed among cities within urban agglomerations, which requires local governments to weaken the concept of their administrative boundary. At the same time, in order to avoid excessive internal condensation, a clear division of rights and responsibilities is also necessary during continuous inter-governmental environmental cooperation. We believe that these findings could provide empirical evidence for local governments to avoid failing to the traps of “agglomeration shadow”. Full article

Flowing water resources and relatively fixed regional segmentation form a governance problem. The essence of horizontal collaborative governance is the establishment of coordination and cooperation processes between different independent and decentralized stakeholders in order to solve cross-regional public problems. As a result, the process of collaborative governance involves a jagged relationship of rights and responsibilities. This study attempts to explore how to achieve cross-regional intergovernmental joint prevention and treatment, and build a coordinated governance mechanism for a whole river basin. Based on data sources including local statistical yearbooks, open data of ecological environment departments and policy texts, this paper performs a comparative analysis of the current water quality status of various major water bodies in China and the relevant domestic ecological compensation systems. Based on this analysis, the current water quality situation is not optimistic. In order to strengthen the ecological and environmental management of river basins, more than 40 relevant systems and implementation schemes of ecological compensation for river basins have been introduced from the central government to the local government level since 2016, and 13 cross-provincial agreements (schemes) on horizontal ecological compensation for river basins have been signed. By analyzing various data and more than 53 systems (programs), it becomes apparent there are some problems in the governance of aquatic environments of river basins in China. These problems include a lack of laws and regulations on ecological compensation, imperfect coordination mechanisms, a single compensation mode and insufficient amounts of compensation. Based on this, this study proposes that China’s cross-regional river basin ecological compensation and collaborative governance mechanisms should start with differential governance; explore a variety of horizontal ecological compensation methods according to local conditions; improve cross-regional river basin collaborative mechanisms, laws and regulations; build a new path of horizontal independent collaboration; broaden the channels of financial compensation; and comprehensively improve the level of regional linkages in the governance of river basins. Full article

Intergovernmental collaboration is essential for regionally coordinated air pollution prevention and control. An evolutionary game model of local government behavior strategy selection taking into account the fixed cost of the local government, the total amount of network production factors, and the total amount of total network factors of production that can be moved is built based on the social capital theory in order to realize the cross-border collaborative control of regional air pollution. The issue of an intergovernmental cooperation framework for collaborative prevention and control of large-scale air pollution is addressed from the standpoint of the multi-stakeholder “benefit–cost” drive. Additionally, the major variables influencing the behavioral approach selection for intergovernmental cooperation are considered. The initial sensitivity of the evolution path of the local government behavioral strategy is also analyzed. The results of this study are: (1) The primary elements impacting intergovernmental cooperation on joint prevention and control of air pollution are fixed costs and fixed benefits, and reducing the fixed costs of such cooperation in an appropriate manner without compromising local governments’ pollution control can do so. (2) Under the assumption that local governments have fixed expenses, the total amount of network factors of production and total network factors of production that can be moved factors of production have a direct impact on intergovernmental cooperation. When local governments’ fixed costs are constant, they are more likely to choose the cooperative behavior option if the sum of their network production factors and total network factors of production that can be moved is higher. (3) The initial probability of cooperation among the three parties and the total amount of production factors have an impact on the system’s ESS when local governments in the area have equal total production factors. The study’s findings can offer theoretical justification for the “profit-driven” intergovernmental coordination of joint prevention and management of air pollution. Full article

Recent developments in the Arctic region, mainly marked by climate change, have caused the region to receive increasing attention from regional and non-regional actors, mainly due to emerging energy-related opportunities and environmental concerns. The main reason for non-regional stakeholders to become involved in the Arctic region to pursue their interests is to obtain the observer status in the Arctic Council. Accordingly, this manuscript analyzes the long-term perspective of Türkiye’s involvement in the Arctic region as a non-regional actor and reveals a set of enablers and disablers pertaining to energy and environmental domains. For this purpose, in-depth interviews with experts from Türkiye, with Arctic Council members, or with observer countries are conducted. Results of the analysis are also utilized to provide insights regarding countries with similar profiles to Türkiye, i.e., middle-power and developing countries that are geographically distant from the Arctic region. The results highlight energy security, hydrocarbon reserves, and climate change as significant factors for countries such as Türkiye. Scientific, private sector, or intergovernmental cooperation with regional actors to encourage global action and environmental initiatives are the main enablers. Challenges in the extraction and sharing of energy resources, high costs and high technology requirements of energy exploration and extraction activities, increasing human activity, and damages to the Arctic ecosystem are identified as significant disablers. Full article

Nearly 40% of the world’s population lives within 100 kilometres of the coast with the risk that this implies in terms of exposure to the effects of climate change. Ocean energy, according to the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) in 2019, has been identified as one of the measures for mitigating these effects. In addition, ocean energy can play an essential role in achieving some of the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) set at the Paris Climate Summit in 2015, namely SDG 7 (clean and affordable energy) and SDG 13 (climate action) and could have a substantial impact on others such as SDG 1 (poverty eradication), SDG 2 (end hunger), SDG 5 (gender equality), SDG 6 (universal energy access), SDG 8 (promote sustainable economic growth), SDG 9 (build resilient infrastructure), SDG 14 (sustainable conservation of oceans and seas) and SDG 17 (promote sustainable development cooperation). There are several projects under development around the world aimed at extracting energy from waves. However, to date, no technology has been found that, in general terms, is superior to others. There are several conditioning factors that prevent this type of energy from reaching the level of maturity of other marine renewable energies. These are mainly economic, technological, environmental, and regulatory, to mention the most important. This article aims to analyse the approaches that other researchers have adopted to evaluate wave energy projects and, through a prospective method of expert consultation such as the Delphi methodology, will present the most generally accepted criteria for successful wave energy projects. Subsequently, the validity of these results will be analysed for the case of the use of the energy produced for self-consumption in ports. Full article

This paper identifies and responds to the four main objections raised against Buddhist environmentalism. It argues that none of these objections is insurmountable and that, in fact, Buddhists have developed numerous concepts, arguments, and practices which could prove useful for dealing with the most pressing environmental problems we have created. Buddhism is sometimes described by its critics as too detached from worldly concerns to respond to the environmental crisis but the successes of Engaged Buddhism demonstrate otherwise. Although halting climate change will require inter-governmental co-operation and immediate action, we should not underestimate the necessity of grassroots movements for achieving lasting change in our attitudes and behaviours. If meditation can awaken us to the fact of ecological inter-connectedness and to the ultimate drivers of climate change (e.g., greediness and a misplaced sense of entitlement) it can also help us reconnect with nature and expand our circle of moral concern to include plants, animals, and the wider environment. Full article

The Arctic Council is an intergovernmental forum promoting cooperation, coordination and interaction among Arctic states, indigenous communities, and peoples on issues of common importance. The rising geo-political importance of the Arctic and the onset of climate change has resulted in the Council becoming a focus of increasing interest from both inside and beyond the Arctic. This has resulted in new demands placed on the Council, attracting an increasing number of participants, and instigating a period of transformation as Arctic states work to find a way to balance conflicting demands to improve the Council’s effectiveness and take care of national interests. This paper considers whether, during this time of change, the Council is having an impact on the issues it was formed to address, i.e., environmental protection and sustainable development. To provide answers, it looks at how the Council reports on and evaluates progress towards the implementation of recommendations it makes regarding biodiversity, how it identifies where activities have had impacts and uncovers the mechanisms through which they were successful, to provide an insight into how the Arctic Council can be an agent of change. Full article

The paper deals with the computational life cycle assessment (LCA) model of electricity generation in the Czech Republic. The goal of the paper was to determine the environmental assessment of electricity generation. Taking into account the trend of electricity generation from 2000 to 2050, the paper was focused on electricity generation evaluation in this country in view of its current state and future perspectives. The computational LCA model was done using the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) method, which allowed the assessment of greenhouse gas emissions. For the assessment, 1 Mega-watt hour of the obtained electricity (MWhe) was used as a functional unit. The cradle-to-gate approach was employed. The system boundary covered all the technologies included in the electricity mix of the country. Resulting from the analysis, the solids, lignite in particular, was assessed as an energy source with the most negative impact on the emissions of greenhouse gas. This article results from international cooperation of a Czech-Polish team in the field of computational LCA models. It presents partial results of the team cooperation which serves as a base for following comparison of Czech and Polish systems of electricity generation. Full article