Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Clean Development Mechanism Executive Board. For the registered projects, the
certified emission reductions are expected to be about 351 million tons of carbon
dioxide equivalence, accounting for 63.78% of the global total, which is a
tremendous contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions reduction.
(People's Republic of China, 2012: 85)
In 2008, China published the Circular Economy Promotion Law following those
of Germany and Japan, making it the world's third. A number of pilot programmes
have been introduced on resource utilization, the industrialization of remanufacturing
and the recycling of renewable resources.
A total of 90 pilot cities in three batches and 11 distribution markets have been
identified as pilot programs for renewable resource recycling system building.
An urban renewable resource recycling system, based on recycling stations and
the sorting, processing and gathering areas (bases), and supported by an
information management platform, has gradually been formed. Since 2009, 110
end-of-life vehicle recycling and dismantling enterprises have been selected for
pilot projects for retrofitting and upgrading, in an effort to improve the level of
resource utilization. The construction of “urban minerals” model bases is being
carried out in order to promote the large-scale and high-value recycling of
renewable resources.
(People's Republic of China, 2012: 16)
Internationally, China has persistently argued that the developed countries should
lead the world in changing unsustainable patterns of production and consumption,
and that they ought to help developing countries develop a green economy through
finance, technology transfer, capacity building and access to expanding markets. For
developing countries, including China, green economic strategies should be designed
and implemented in line with national conditions.
Many developing countries are at a stage of rapid industrialization and urban-
ization, during which they are faced with both the arduous tasks of poverty
eradication, economic restructuring and the transition to a green economy, and
with the constraints of energy, resources and environmental factors. Developing
a green economy in these countries is crucial to the global sustainable develop-
ment, and they deserve the understanding and support from the international
community.
(People's Republic of China, 2012: 89)
A globalizing world
Like so many other concepts, globalization has been subject to a considerable amount
of debate in academic and policy circles. Although a few people dispute whether
globalization is either occurring or is indeed a useful way of making sense of current
trends and processes, there is a general consensus that globalization is real and
characterizes the nature of our times. There are a number of definitions on offer,
including notions of space-time compression and accelerating interdependence but
for Held
et al
.: 'Globalization may be thought of initially as the widening, deepening
