气候变化中：碳排放控制【外文翻译】.doc

1、 外文翻译 原文 Climate change and planning:carbon control and spatial regulation Material Source: Town Planning Review, Liverpool University Press, 2008, 79(1) Author: Aidan While After a decade of false starts, the goal of radically reducing emissions of greenhouse gases, and particularly carbon dioxide,

2、 is rising up the political agenda. The renewed urgency of the carbon control agenda reflects a tipping point in political, public and media acceptance of the reality of global warming, its human causes, and the future economic and social costs of inaction. Political commitment to carbon control is

3、also being driven by various other pressures, including the rising cost and instability of oil supplies, and the threats posed by rapid industrialisation in India and China. At the international level, the desperate search is on for a robust programme for reducing carbon emissions to levels that avo

4、id irreversible and damaging global climate change (currently linked to a 2 rise in global temperature). Like the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the new international programme will be based on the setting of national targets. However, unlike the Kyoto Protocol, these targets will be framed within an agreed s

5、et of environmental limits for future greenhouse gas emissions underpinned by broad international support. Clearly there is still much to be negotiated in terms of the distribution of the global emissions quota, but it is a matter of when rather than if the post-Kyoto target will be set. The geopoli

6、tics of carbon control means that the targets will be rigorously monitored and enforced at national and international levels. Towards a new regulatory era of carbon control Most Western nations have begun to anticipate the new era of carbon control, with Norway planning to become carbon-neutral by c

7、utting its net greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050 (Vidal, 2007). In the UK, the Stern Review of the economics of climate change (HM Treasury, 2006) has been followed by a succession of policy commitments: a requirement for zero-carbon new housing by 2016; more stringent national targets for re

8、ducing carbon dioxide emissions by 60 per cent on 1990 levels by 2050; a draft planning policy statement on climate change (DCLG, 2006); ministerial enthusiasm for a personal carbon-trading scheme; and a raft of related policy initiatives across government departments. Political responses have been

9、mirrored by widespread media interest in climate change and a minor publishing boom in carbon calculators and guides to low-carbon lifestyles. It is becoming increasingly apparent that the years 20062007 represent a major turning point in attitudes to socio-environmental regulation as a new era of c

10、arbon control takes hold. From now on, carbon considerations will exert increasing influence over the choices we make in all aspects of our lives. Moreover, the pace of change will increase rapidly. There has been a lot of debate about the implications of carbon control for spatial regulation. So fa

11、r, much of the discussion has focused on the actions required to reduce our carbon footprint: shifting the balance of energy supply away from carbonbased fuels; investing in renewable energy technologies; increased energy efficiency; reducing dependence on car travel; and investing in sustainable tr

12、ansport solutions (Bulkeley, 2006). The new politics of carbon control will bring a new urgency to these policy commitments, most of which have been priorities for well over a decade. However, relatively little has been said in spatial planning circles about what is likely to be the most distinctive

13、 aspect of new climate change regimes: the use of carbon quotas and market-based carbon emissions-trading schemes to guide the transition to low-carbon living. This element of carbon-control mitigation has largely gone unexplored because carbon quotas and emissions trading have not yet been rolled o

14、ut explicitly to places and people. Nevertheless, the subnational regulation of carbon emissions through quotas and trading carbon budgeting, to use the UK governments preferred phrase is clearly on the horizon as one of a set of government responses to the challenge of reducing the global carbon fo

15、otprint. Targets, trading and low-carbon capitalism A low-carbon polity is structured around a somewhat instrumental goal, especially in comparison with the integrated perspective of sustainable development. The objective to be secured is the reduction of the major greenhouse-gas emissions to a stab

16、le level, as quickly and efficiently as possible. The definition of a stable level of emissions is set by climate science at a global scale, currently sanctioned by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Although the question of who should bear the costs of carbon inputs can get compl

17、icated, it is fairly easy to monitor the carbon we use, and also to hypothecate the embodied carbon of goods and services (Henson, 2006). However, as carbon control is ultimately concerned with reducing emissions rather than the use of CO2 per se, it is possible that the political goal of carbon con

18、trol could be achieved through technological fixes that seek to manage rather than reduce the emissions, such as carbon capture and storage. While the broad goal of reducing carbon emissions has always been part of approaches to sustainable development, making genuine progress on a low carbon econom

19、y poses a range of regulatory and legitimation challenges for governments. So far, much of the approach has relied on a mix of fairly weak direct regulation, voluntary measures and market-based incentives, as energy generators pass carbon costs on to consumers. This has had only a limited effect in

20、achieving the degree of behaviour change required, particularly at the household level, where emissions continue to rise (Seyfang, 2007). The new regulatory phase of carbon control will lead to an increase in direct environmental taxes, and in the UK this is already reflected in more stringent low c

21、arbon standards for housing and transport sectors, targets for non-ren ewable energy generation, government experiments with low-carbon communities, and monitoring the climate-change impacts of regional spatial strategies. The problem for governments is that pushing further via direct taxation is po

22、litically sensitive, potentially socially regressive and risks failing to engage citizens in the carbon-control agenda. Moreover, direct taxation does not necessarily guarantee a fixed level of emissions reduction. The spatial logic of carbon control is that once the global emissions-reduction requi

23、rement is agreed, it is then translated into a series of territorially-based targets organised at the scale of the nation-state. However, because the carrying capacity is set globally, international carbon-control regimes offer the possibility of the exchange or trading of carbon credits between par

24、ticipants. One form of carbon exchange is a bilateral agreement, whereby one country offsets its carbon emissions by buying credits from another country. An example is the Clean Development Mechanism, whereby Western nations can fund projects intended to reduce emissions in developing countries. Ano

25、ther form of exchange is the market-based trading of carbon units, in which a financial price is attached to carbon emissions, which can then be traded as commodities. The logic of these cap and trade schemes is that those who save carbon emissions are rewarded by being able to sell the excess carbo

26、n credits, while those who overshoot have to pay for their pollution by buying additional carbon credits. The overall quota is reduced over time, thus pushing up the value of each carbon unit while ensuring that carbon emissions remain within natural limits. In 2005, the EU emissions trading scheme

27、was established for large European companies. The UK government has also discussed the possibility of establishing personal carbon trading, in which carbon points would be used alongside cash when purchasing goods and services such as energy, petrol, flights, and so on (in theory each product could

28、have an embodied carbon value). For governments, there are a range of advantages to cap-and-trade carbon control. First, there is certainty about the emissions quota, but flexibility in the choice of how that target should be met. Second, carbon trading leaves participants to determine the cheapest

29、and easiest way to meet their target, allowing for choices and trade-offs to be made between different sources of carbon emissions. In theory this should mean that carbon trading exerts an influence on upstream producers and service providers, as well as consumers. In addition, proponents of carbon

30、trading argue that it is poten-tially more equitable and more empowering than direct taxation, though that can depend on the ways in which carbon quotas are distributed (Seyfang, 2007). The UK government has signalled its commitment to using new economic instruments as a central element in its appro

31、ach to national carbon management: the best way to encourage a change in investment patterns towards a low-carbon economy, and the most cost-effective way of reducing global emissions, is to establish a price for carbon (DTI, 2007, 38). The draft Climate Change Bill of March 2007 (Defra, 2007) set o

32、ut proposals for enabling powers to introduce new domestic emissions-trading schemes and carbon budgeting as major parts of the governments plan for a clear and credible pathway to a 60 per cent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. The bill places a legal duty on the Secretary of State to

33、stay within the carbon budget, which would be allocated for five-year cycles. The bill allows for the banking and borrowing of emissions across each five-year cycle, as well as emissions trading with other countries. It also supports the extension of existing international trading mechanisms, such a

34、s the EU emissions trading scheme. The rolling out of carbon control: the regional and local Dimension The draft Climate Change Bill and related UK government carbon-control statements have largely sidestepped the question of how the national carbon budget will be distributed among people, places an

35、d organisations. This is perhaps not surprising given that the priority has been to set the national framework. However, given the importance of spatial planning in meeting climate change outcomes it is likely that carbon budgeting will have strong local and regional dimensions. To some extent the d

36、evolution of responsibility for (though not necessarily powers over) carbon control is already happening through targets for renewable energy generation and a requirement for regional planning authorities to monitor, report on and ultimately reduce the climate-change impact of regional spatial strat

37、egies (DCLG, 2006). The Energy White Paper 2007 also announced plans to implement a mandatory cap-and-trade scheme for all large UK organisations, which will cover many of the large local authorities. But that is just the beginning. Explicit carbon quotas will open up a new phase of socio-spatial re

38、gulation, and far-sighted regional and local decision-makers are busy preparing for the new era by developing carbon-reduction strategies and modelling the complex carbon impacts of different spatial planning and management trajectories. Some authorities, such as the Greater London Authority, are se

39、eking to secure their competitive post-carbon future by experimenting with alternative energy supply, investing in low-carbon infrastructure and ensuring that present planning decisions will not be a burden in the future (Hodson and Marvin, 2007). The Transition Towns movement in the UK has seen car

40、bon constraint as an opportunity to experiment with (re)localisation and alternative economic development strategies (Transition Towns, 2006). The question I want to pose is: how might carbon budgeting begin to change the metrics and calculations and thus the politics of decision-making at the subna

41、tional scale? One set of issues relates to the ways in which carbon quotas will cascade down to the regional and local scale. What will be the balance between quotas for organisations, places and households, and how will these overlap with one another? How will production-related and consumption-rel

42、ated emissions be covered in different quota and trading schemes? How will quotas be set for different localities? Will they be weighted to account for the current unevenness in carbon dependence by taking into account factors such as the amount of heavy industry, power generation, the number of hou

43、seholds, geographical area, and so on? Will there be some form of contraction and convergence factored into carbon quotas and public spending? Will quotas for local areas be set at national or regional levels? How will carbon budgets be related to other strategic planning policy objectives such as n

44、ew housing development, regeneration and economic development? Another set of issues relates to the ways in which carbon quotas might alter the strategic and operational context for decision-making at the subnational level. Rigorous carbon budgets for places would mean that carbon impacts have to be

45、 taken into account in all spatial planning decisions. Hard choices would then have to be made about development and investment decisions on the basis of carbon impacts within the overall carbon budget. In other words, regional and local authorities will need to secure their own carbon-control fixes

46、 within the target they have been set, weighing up the costs and savings of actions in social, economic and environmental spheres. We might imagine the necessity for a much more integrated and interventionist approach to local and regional development, in which the management of energy, waste and mo

47、bility is explicitly linked to economic and social development. A whole range of questions and possibilities begin to open up: How will carbon budgets change the metrics of local growth and economic development strategies? Will carbon budgets lead to new forms of spatial interdependencies and/or spa

48、tial coalitions at the regional, intra-regional, subregional or city scales? Will the diktats of carbon control alter the relationship between citizens and local authorities? What will be the penalties for failure to comply? What will be the balance between disciplining or punishing and rewarding lo

49、cal authorities? Will local authorities need new powers if carbon trading is to work effectively? Will regions and localities be allowed to trade carbon credits? Will regions and localities be allowed to bank or borrow credits? Lurking behind these questions are wider issues of uneven development and spatial justice in an era of carbon control. Some commentators, for example, see the potential for a progressive new localism as regional and local authorities seek to balance economic and social development with carbon contro