Justice for pollution-victims in China and Australia

The concept of environmental justice is well developed in North America, but is still at the evolutionary stage in most other jurisdictions around the globe. This paper seeks to explore two jurisdictions where incidents of environmental justice are likely to be seen in the future as a result of manufacturing and mining practices. The discussion will centre upon avenues to environmental justice for both private citizens and the public at large. The first jurisdiction considered is China, where environmental liability claims brought by Chinese citizens have increased at an annual average of 25% (Yang 2011). Manufacturing is at the core of the Chinese economy and is responsible for some of the unprecedented economic growth in the region. Less discussed are the industry impacts on water and air pollution levels and the associated implications of these pollutants on local communities. China introduced the Tort Liability Law (TLL) in 2010, which may provide avenues to justice for private citizens. The other jurisdiction considered by the paper is Australia, where the mining boom has buffered the Australian economy from the global financial crisis. There is some limited case law in Australia where private citizens have made a claim in toxic torts; however the framework is underdeveloped in terms of the significant risks facing indigenous and local communities in mining areas and also by comparison to the developments of the TLL framework in China. This paper traces the regulatory responses to the affects of major industries on communities in China and Australia. From this it examines the need for environmental justice avenues that align with rule of law principles.

Of dogs, fish, birds and turds : the social construction of sewage pollution by recreational boaters

Animals are often used as ‘evidence’ of marine pollution. Take for instance the ubiquitous images of miserable oil-soaked marine birds following high profile oil spills such as the Exxon Valdez, Pacific Adventurer and Deepwater Horizon incidents or the images of bloated floating fish carcasses which are used to signal the presence of toxic pollutants. In recent years waste discharges from vessels have come under increased public and regulatory scrutiny both in Australia and around the world. International, regional, national and local restrictions are becoming more stringent for high profile marine pollutants such as oil as well as previously overlooked vessel-sourced pollutants such as sewage. Drawing upon media reports and recreational boater responses to government attempts to regulate the discharge of sewage from recreational vessels, this paper considers the important role played by animals in constructions of marine pollution by sewage and attributions of blame for this pollution. Specifically, this study found that recreational boat owners disputed claims their sewage management practices posed an environmental threat arguing that the sewage discharged was readily and eagerly consumed by fish in the receiving environment. Boat owners also argued that increased levels of bacteria which indicate the presence of faeces within the marine environment could be directly attributed to the excrement of marine mammals and birds or were the result of dog faeces being washed through municipal storm water systems rather than the result of vessel discharges. By contrast the contamination of oysters was provided as evidence of sewage pollution by other stakeholders.

Air pollution, temperature and pediatric influenza in Brisbane, Australia

Previous studies have demonstrated the importance of weather variables in influencing the incidence of influenza. However, the role of air pollution is often ignored in identifying the environmental drivers of influenza. This research aims to examine the impacts of air pollutants and temperature on the incidence of pediatric influenza in Brisbane, Australia. Lab-confirmed daily data on influenza counts among children aged 0-14years in Brisbane from 2001 January 1st to 2008 December 31st were retrieved from Queensland Health. Daily data on maximum and minimum temperatures for the same period were supplied by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. Winter was chosen as the main study season due to it having the highest pediatric influenza incidence. Four Poisson log-linear regression models, with daily pediatric seasonal influenza counts as the outcome, were used to examine the impacts of air pollutants (i.e., ozone (O3), particulate matter≤10μm (PM10) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2)) and temperature (using a moving average of ten days for these variables) on pediatric influenza. The results show that mean temperature (Relative risk (RR): 0.86; 95% Confidence Interval (CI): 0.82-0.89) was negatively associated with pediatric seasonal influenza in Brisbane, and high concentrations of O3 (RR: 1.28; 95% CI: 1.25-1.31) and PM10 (RR: 1.11; 95% CI: 1.10-1.13) were associated with more pediatric influenza cases. There was a significant interaction effect (RR: 0.94; 95% CI: 0.93-0.95) between PM10 and mean temperature on pediatric influenza. Adding the interaction term between mean temperature and PM10 substantially improved the model fit. This study provides evidence that PM10 needs to be taken into account when evaluating the temperature-influenza relationship. O3 was also an important predictor, independent of temperature.

Trade in 'Dirty Air' : carbon crime and the politics of pollution

‘Carbon trading fraudsters may have accounted for up to 90% of all market activity in some European countries, with criminals pocketing billions, mainly in Britain, France, Spain, Denmark and Holland, according to Europol and the European law enforcement agency.’ (Mason, 2009). ‘Carbon offset projects often result in land grabs, local environmental and social conflicts, as well as the repression of local communities and movements. The CDM approval process for projects allows little space for the voices of Indigenous Peoples and local communities – in fact, no project has ever been rejected on the grounds of rights violations, despite these being widespread’. (Carbon Trade Watch, 2013)

Preventing pollution attacks in multi-source network coding

Network coding is a method for achieving channel capacity in networks. The key idea is to allow network routers to linearly mix packets as they traverse the network so that recipients receive linear combinations of packets. Network coded systems are vulnerable to pollution attacks where a single malicious node floods the network with bad packets and prevents the receiver from decoding correctly. Cryptographic defenses to these problems are based on homomorphic signatures and MACs. These proposals, however, cannot handle mixing of packets from multiple sources, which is needed to achieve the full benefits of network coding. In this paper we address integrity of multi-source mixing. We propose a security model for this setting and provide a generic construction.

Sustainable Urban Water Environment : Climate, Pollution and Adaptation

"This multi-disciplinary book provides practical solutions for safeguarding the sustainability of the urban water environment. Firstly, the importance of the urban water environment is highlighted and the major problems urban water bodies face and strategies to safeguard the water environment are explored. Secondly, the diversity of pollutants entering the water environment through stormwater runoff are discussed and modelling approaches for factoring in climate change and future urban and transport scenarios are proposed. Thirdly, by linking the concepts of sustainable urban ecosystems and sustainable urban and transport development, capabilities of two urban sustainability assessment models are demonstrated."--publisher website

Air pollution and invisible violence

In recent years air pollution has been referred to as an ‘invisible killer’, and ‘an invisible health crisis’ (European Respiratory Society 2012). As other chapters in this collection have argued, the invisibility of crime is manifested through various lenses: lack of knowledge, lack of political and media attention, an absence of policing and regulatory focus, and an unwitting and ill-informed public. All such arguments pertain to air pollution; however, toxic emissions are also literally invisible from sight and consciousness, as are the associated consequences.

A comparative study of airborne particulate pollution at two bus stations of different site geography

Airborne particulate pollutant is considered to be one of the major harmful emissions produced by vehicle engines as it has been directly linked to serious health problems. Passengers spend long times at bus stations and may be exposed to high concentrations of pollution. Particle pollution at two bus stations in Brisbane, Australia were monitored. The two bus stations consisted of markedly different site geography and surroundings with one situated in a street canyon and the other elevated above ground level. The same flow of traffic operated through both stations. Real time measurements of ultrafine particle concentration, size distribution and meteorological conditions were carried out on the platform continuously over several days. The results showed that the particle number concentrations were significantly different at the two stations, suggesting that the layout of site geometry and surroundings was a dominant determining factor through the injection of fresh air into the station platforms and the rates of dilution.

Assessment on the effect of pollution abatement on environmental efficiency with Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation

Both environmental economists and policy makers have shown a great deal of interest in the effect of pollution abatement on environmental efficiency. In line with the modern resources available, however, no contribution is brought to the environmental economics field with the Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) application, which enables simulation from a distribution of a Markov chain and simulating from the chain until it approaches equilibrium. The probability density functions gained prominence with the advantages over classical statistical methods in its simultaneous inference and incorporation of any prior information on all model parameters. This paper concentrated on this point with the application of MCMC to the database of China, the largest developing country with rapid economic growth and serious environmental pollution in recent years. The variables cover the economic output and pollution abatement cost from the year 1992 to 2003. We test the causal direction between pollution abatement cost and environmental efficiency with MCMC simulation. We found that the pollution abatement cost causes an increase in environmental efficiency through the algorithm application, which makes it conceivable that the environmental policy makers should make more substantial measures to reduce pollution in the near future.

Decomposition analysis of air pollution abatement in China: empirical study for ten industrial sectors from 1998 to 2009

This study analyzes the management of air pollutant substance in Chinese industrial sectors from 1998 to 2009. Decomposition analysis applying the logarithmic mean divisia index is used to analyze changes in emissions of air pollutants with a focus on the following five factors: coal pollution intensity (CPI), end-of-pipe treatment (EOP), the energy mix (EM), productive efficiency change (EFF), and production scale changes (PSC). Three pollutants are the main focus of this study: sulfur dioxide (SO2), dust, and soot. The novelty of this paper is focusing on the impact of the elimination policy on air pollution management in China by type of industry using the scale merit effect for pollution abatement technology change. First, the increase in SO2 emissions from Chinese industrial sectors because of the increase in the production scale is demonstrated. However, the EOP equipment that induced this change and improvements in energy efficiency has prevented an increase in SO2 emissions that is commensurate with the increase in production. Second, soot emissions were successfully reduced and controlled in all industries except the steel industry between 1998 and 2009, even though the production scale expanded for these industries. This reduction was achieved through improvements in EOP technology and in energy efficiency. Dust emissions decreased by nearly 65% between 1998 and 2009 in the Chinese industrial sectors. This successful reduction in emissions was achieved by implementing EOP technology and pollution prevention activities during the production processes, especially in the cement industry. Finally, pollution prevention in the cement industry is shown to result from production technology development rather than scale merit. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Does an environmental Kuznets curve for waste pollution exist in China?

China is an emerging and leading world economy. The pace of economic change has been tremendously rapid since the beginning of economic reforms. Despite the importance of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) and environmental problems in China, no previous study has tested the EKC in China because of the difficulty in obtaining data and the need to adjust the data. The focus of this paper is to test the EKC in China using province level data over the period 1992-2003. This study applies non-parametric techniques to estimate the relationship between income and the environmental quality of wastewater, air pollution and solid waste. Copyright © 2009 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

The pollution release and transfer register system in the U.S. and Japan : an analysis of productivity

This study analyzes Total Factor Productivity (TFP), which includes all categories of productivity. Our measure investigates productivity in the context of the provision and dissemination of environmental information policies. We investigated data on the emission of toxic chemical substances for the U.S. and Japanese manufacturing firms, including 386 firms for the period 1999-2007 and 466 firms for the period 2001-2008. The results show that productivity improved in all nine industrial sectors and that pollution levels were high in the U.S. and Japan from 2001 to 2007. In particular, the electronics industry improved rapidly after 2002 in both countries, which may be attributed to the enforcement of RoHS and the REACH directive in Europe. As a result of these stringent policies on toxic chemical emissions, the U.S. and Japanese firms, many of which export to the European market, have strong incentives to reduce their toxic chemical emissions.

Regulation, pollution and heterogeneity in Japanese steam power generation companies

In this paper, the random stochastic frontier model is used to estimate the technical efficiency of Japanese steam power generation companies taking into regulation and pollution. The companies are ranked according to their productivity for the period 1976-2003 and homogenous and heterogeneous variables in the cost function are disentangled. Policy implication is derived.

Environmental performance and returns to pollution abatement in China

Because of China's extremely rapid economic growth, the scale and seriousness of environmental problems is no longer in doubt. Whether pollution abatement technologies are utilized more efficiently is crucial in the analysis of environmental management in China. This study analyzes how the performance of environmental management has changed over time using province level data for 1992-2003. Mixed results for environmental performance are shown using nonparametric estimation technique. We find that environmental performance index, abatement effort, and increasing returns to pollution abatement play important roles in determining the pollution level over the period of the study.