1、2675 单词， 4960 汉字 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
2、 carbon dioxide, 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 ca
3、rbon control is 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
4、 levels that avoid 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 wi
5、thin an agreed set 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
6、set. The geopolitics 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 car
7、bon-neutral by cutting 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 nationa
8、l targets for reducing 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 resp
9、onses have been 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 a
10、s a new era of carbon 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 r
11、egulation. So far, 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 i
12、n sustainable transport 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
13、most distinctive 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 y
14、et been rolled out 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
15、global carbon footprint. 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 emi
16、ssions to a stable 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 inpu
17、ts can get complicated, 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 go
18、al of carbon control 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 l
19、ow carbon economy 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 li
20、mited effect in 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
21、 stringent low carbon standards for housing and transport sectors, targets for non-renewable 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
22、 taxation is politically 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-
23、reduction requirement 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 cred
24、its between participants. 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
25、 countries. Another 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 t
26、he excess carbon 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
27、trading scheme 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
28、 product could 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 determin
29、e the cheapest 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, propon
30、ents of carbon 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 eleme
31、nt in its approach 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 (Def
32、ra, 2007) set out 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 Secreta
33、ry of State to 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 mec
34、hanisms, such as 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 pe
35、ople, places and 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 so
36、me extent the devolution 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 strategies (DCLG, 2006).
