Towards an Ecological Economics of Sustainability: From the Perspective of Environmental Regulation Policies and Pollutant Emissions Governance

Dear Colleagues,

The aim of this Special Issue is to provide recent advances in the field of environmental regulation policies and pollutant emissions governance. Global climate change caused by greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from fossil fuel combustion and anthropogenic activities has already become one of the most significant ecological and environmental issues. To actively respond to global climate change and reduce pollutant emissions, a legally binding global climate change agreement (i.e., the Paris Protocol) on reducing GHG emissions was implemented in November 2016, which is one of the most important and unprecedented conventions in human history. From the perspective of pollutant emissions governance, this agreement primarily determined the shared targets of emissions reduction. However, the implementation of reduction targets led to a traded value for emissions permits due to the economic costs of reducing GHG emissions. As a result, some policies, such as carbon markets centered in GHG emissions reduction, including allowance-based trade and project-based trade, were set up. Notably, GHGs primarily are carbon dioxide, so these markets are also called carbon markets. In fact, since this agreement was implemented, the relevant economic activities relevant to carbon markets had already become very active in recent years. 

During the process of reducing pollutant emissions, some typical environmental regulation policies, such as carbon markets, were favored by many countries and regions in the world owing to their higher flexibility and lower reduction cost. Therefore, the European Union, some states in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, China, Republic of Korea and Japan all established national or regional carbon markets. In fact, for policy makers, establishing a carbon market is recognized as an effective measure to lessen polluant emissions, so as to improve regional air quality and, more importantly, it is also a significant policy tool to achieve a more sustainable ecological environment. Investigating its reason, through formulating targeted environmental regulation policies, such as imposing carbon taxes and carbon tariffs on carbon markets, various industries and related enterprises would accelerate the green and low-carbon transformation. As a result, they would actively adopt low-carbon technologies and produce more products with low-carbon emissions, so as to effectively respond to global climate change and curtail pollutant emissions

Therefore, in this context, regarding issues related to environmental regulation policies and pollutant emissions governance, the topics for the Special Issue include but are not limited to the following. First, how can we accurately estimate and forecast the current situation and future trend in energy consumption, resulting in carbon emissions or other pollutant emissions in some countries or regions? Second, what are the impacts of environmental regulation policies on pollutant emissions governance? Third, how can we accurately estimate the potential and cost of pollutant emissions reduction in each region on the basis of clarifying the imputation of responsibilities for reducing pollutant emissions? Finally, for relevant stakeholders, how can they make full use of environmental regulation policies to lessen pollutant emissions in order to achieve regional emissions reduction targets?

Dr. Zhangqi Zhong
Prof. Dr. Wei Shao
Dr. An Pan
Dr. Zongke Bao
Guest Editors

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• technological innovation
• carbon emission accounting
• inter-regional trade
• environmental regulation
• carbon market
• environmental governance
• environmental quality
• emission trading system
• energy and environmental policy
• global value chain
• supply chain carbon emissions
• low-carbon innovation
• industrial robot application