Blue carbon accounting to monitor coastal blue carbon ecosystems.

In the global context, countries must reduce carbon dioxide emissions to "net zero" by 2050 to limit global warming to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels. China's Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) are to peak carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 and achieve the carbon neutrality target by 2060. To monitor the achievements of the NDCs, establishing an annual-based accounting mechanism is necessary to record the carbon stocks in China, especially for Blue Carbon. The paper aims to present China's first national-scale systematic Blue Carbon accounting for mangroves, salt marshes, and seagrasses, covering the accounting subjects of physical and monetary assets, as well as relevant indicators for investors. It focuses on the design of the accounting method and system, the selection of data categories applied to this system, and the application of China's Blue Carbon accounting based on this accounting system. Taking Blue Carbon accounting as a starting point, this paper analyses the restoration prospects of these ecosystems and their application potential for NDCs in China compared with the terrestrial ecosystems. The results indicate that mangroves are the most cost-effective type of ecosystem, even compared to terrestrial forests. Thus, the paper provides policymakers with a new perspective on the decision-making of carbon sequestration relevant decisions, aiming to promote the monitoring, restoration, and expansion of China's coastal blue carbon ecosystem through the establishment of a sound Blue Carbon accounting system, and to help achieve the carbon neutrality goal in China's NDCs through regular and systematic monitoring of its national Blue Carbon inventories.

A conceptual framework to help choose appropriate blue nature-based solutions.

Biodiversity loss and climate change have severely impacted ecosystems and livelihoods worldwide, compromising access to food and water, increasing disaster risk, and affecting human health globally. Nature-based Solutions (NbS) have gained interest in addressing these global societal challenges. Although much effort has been directed to NbS in urban and terrestrial environments, the implementation of NbS in marine and coastal environments (blue NbS) lags. The lack of a framework to guide decision-makers and practitioners through the initial planning stages appears to be one of the main obstacles to the slow implementation of blue NbS. To address this, we propose an integrated conceptual framework, built from expert knowledge, to inform the selection of the most appropriate blue NbS based on desired intervention objectives and social-ecological context. Our conceptual framework follows a four incremental steps structure: Step 1 aims to identify the societal challenge(s) to address; Step 2 highlights ecosystem services and the underlying biodiversity and ecological functions that could contribute to confronting the societal challenge(s); Step 3 identify the specific environmental context the intervention needs to be set within (e.g. the spatial scale the intervention will operate within, the ecosystem's vulnerability to stressors, and its ecological condition); and Step 4 provides a selection of potential blue NbS interventions that would help address the targeted societal challenge(s) considering the context defined through Step 3. Designed to maintain, enhance, recover, rehabilitate, or create ecosystem services by supporting biodiversity, the blue NbS intervention portfolio includes marine protection (i.e., fully, highly, lightly, and minimally protected areas), restorative activities (i.e., active, passive, and partial restoration; rehabilitation of ecological function and ecosystem creation), and other management measures (i.e., implementation and enforcement of regulation). Ultimately, our conceptual framework guides decision-makers toward a versatile portfolio of interventions that cater to the specific needs of each ecosystem rather than imposing a rigid, one-size-fits-all model. In the future, this framework needs to integrate socio-economic considerations more comprehensively and be kept up-to-date by including the latest scientific information.

The economic impacts of introducing biodegradable fishing gear as a ghost fishing mitigation in the English Channel static gear fishery.

We address the economic impacts of the role of Biodegradable Fishing Gear (BFG) as a mitigation measure for the ghost fishing impact of lost fishing gear, through scenarios based on industry interviews. We find that the use of BFG is a technical challenge and not an economic problem. The majority of costs to fishermen in terms of BFG use are not related to investment and maintenance costs rather the impact of reduced fishing efficiency. At the Channel static gear fishery level, we estimate the costs of implementing BFG to be as high as £8 million. If the issue of fishing efficiency was resolved (i.e. BFG was a like-for-like) then the large negative costs could be overturned to between a cost of £880,000 and a small positive benefit of around £150,000. Considering the negative environmental impacts of lost gear, the benefits of BFG use over traditional fishing gear would grow exponentially.

Survey data of public awareness on climate change and the value of marine and coastal ecosystems.

The long-term provision of ocean ecosystem services depends on healthy ecosystems and effective sustainable management. Understanding public opinion about marine and coastal ecosystems is important to guide decision-making and inform specific actions. However, available data on public perceptions on the interlinked effects of climate change, human impacts and the value and management of marine and coastal ecosystems are rare. This dataset presents raw data from an online, self-administered, public awareness survey conducted between November 2021 and February 2022 which yielded 709 responses from 42 countries. The survey was released in four languages (English, French, Spanish and Italian) and consisted of four main parts: (1) perceptions about climate change; (2) perceptions about the value of, and threats to, coasts, oceans and their wildlife, (3) perceptions about climate change response; and (4) socio-demographic information. Participation in the survey was voluntary and all respondents provided informed consent after reading a participant information form at the beginning of the survey. Responses were anonymous unless respondents chose to provide contact information. All identifying information has been removed from the dataset. The dataset can be used to conduct quantitative analyses, especially in the area of public perceptions of the interlinkages between climate change, human impacts and options for sustainable management in the context of marine and coastal ecosystems. The dataset is provided with this article, including a copy of the survey and participant information forms in all four languages, data and the corresponding codebook.

Evaluating the combined effect of climate and anthropogenic stressors on marine coastal ecosystems: Insights from a systematic review of cumulative impact assessment approaches.

Cumulative impacts increasingly threaten marine and coastal ecosystems. To address this issue, the research community has invested efforts on designing and testing different methodological approaches and tools that apply cumulative impact appraisal schemes for a sound evaluation of the complex interactions and dynamics among multiple pressures affecting marine and coastal ecosystems. Through an iterative scientometric and systematic literature review, this paper provides the state of the art of cumulative impact assessment approaches and applications. It gives a specific attention to cutting-edge approaches that explore and model inter-relations among climatic and anthropogenic pressures, vulnerability and resilience of marine and coastal ecosystems to these pressures, and the resulting changes in ecosystem services flow. Despite recent advances in computer sciences and the rising availability of big data for environmental monitoring and management, this literature review evidenced that the implementation of advanced complex system methods for cumulative risk assessment remains limited. Moreover, experts have only recently started integrating ecosystem services flow into cumulative impact appraisal frameworks, but more as a general assessment endpoint within the overall evaluation process (e.g. changes in the bundle of ecosystem services against cumulative impacts). The review also highlights a lack of integrated approaches and complex tools able to frame, explain, and model spatio-temporal dynamics of marine and coastal ecosystems' response to multiple pressures, as required under relevant EU legislation (e.g., Water Framework and Marine Strategy Framework Directives). Progress in understanding cumulative impacts, exploiting the functionalities of more sophisticated machine learning-based approaches (e.g., big data integration), will support decision-makers in the achievement of environmental and sustainability objectives.

Enterprise financialization and technological innovation: Mechanism and heterogeneity.

After the 2008 financial crisis, under the double effects of enterprise value maximization and the decline of real economy marginal profit, the relationship between enterprise financialization and technological innovation is worth exploring in depth. On the basis of testing the impact of non-financial enterprise financialization on technological innovation, this paper explores the impact mechanism as well as the heterogeneity among different types of enterprises. This paper selects non-financial listed enterprises in China from 2007 to 2017 as samples to study the influence of enterprise financialization on technological innovation and its mechanism through panel regression and mediating effect models. Moreover, the heterogeneity among different types of enterprises is further studied. The main conclusions are as follows. First, the financialization of enterprises has a significant "crowding out" effect on technological innovation. Second, the "crowding out" effect of enterprise financialization on technological innovation is formed through capital structure rather than performance. Third, enterprises are faced with different attributes and external environment, thus the influence of financialization on technological innovation is heterogeneous. Fourth, there are significant differences in the impact of financialization on technological innovation between enterprises' attributes and the external environment they face, and the deviation degree caused by attributes is much greater than that caused by the external environment.

Local Government Debt and Green Total Factor Productivity-Empirical Evidence from Chinese Cities.

In recent years, the expansion of local government debt (LGD) in China has caused widespread concern. Enhancing green total factor productivity (GTFP) is an important way to coordinate resources, environment, and regional development and is an important indicator to realize the transformation of green economic development. Scientific assessment of the impact of LGD on GTFP helps promote the transformation of green economic development. This paper selects sample data from 271 cities in China from 2010 to 2019 and empirically investigates the mechanisms of LGD, green innovation, and financial market development on GTFP. The results show that (1) LGD expansion significantly suppresses GTFP in China; (2) green innovation mediates between the two, and LGD suppresses GTFP by reducing the level of green innovation; and (3) financial market development can mitigate the negative impact of LGD on urban GTFP. Therefore, the governance of LGD should be strengthened, the financial market environment should be optimized, the distortion of financial resources should be corrected, and innovative financing modes such as green finance and green credit should be encouraged to enhance GTFP.

Biodiversity policy and subnational implementation in the remote regions of France.

Biological diversity in the marine and coastal environment is declining globally. Several layers of governance intertwine in the regulation of biodiversity with multiple strains of policy developments taking place at the international, national and subnational levels. In particular, the subnational level of governance has become crucial in the implementation of biodiversity protection. The article aims at better understanding how governance mechanisms in defence of biodiversity can be developed and implemented at the subnational level and what obstacles they may face. For this purpose, the article relies on a single-case study: it analyses biodiversity policy in France and explains its subnational implementation in Reunion. Major achievements and impediments are also discussed for policy tools adopted for the protection of areas and species. The study reveals important bureaucratic, political and societal pressures that can affect subnational implementation together with the availability of material and immaterial resources. The article concludes with policy recommendations that are specific to Reunion but concern aspects common to other Outermost Regions of the European Union: centre-local coordination, regional strategy, public engagement and transnational collaboration.

Priorities to inform research on marine plastic pollution in Southeast Asia.

Southeast Asia is considered to have some of the highest levels of marine plastic pollution in the world. It is therefore vitally important to increase our understanding of the impacts and risks of plastic pollution to marine ecosystems and the essential services they provide to support the development of mitigation measures in the region. An interdisciplinary, international network of experts (Australia, Indonesia, Ireland, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, the United Kingdom, and Vietnam) set a research agenda for marine plastic pollution in the region, synthesizing current knowledge and highlighting areas for further research in Southeast Asia. Using an inductive method, 21 research questions emerged under five non-predefined key themes, grouping them according to which: (1) characterise marine plastic pollution in Southeast Asia; (2) explore its movement and fate across the region; (3) describe the biological and chemical modifications marine plastic pollution undergoes; (4) detail its environmental, social, and economic impacts; and, finally, (5) target regional policies and possible solutions. Questions relating to these research priority areas highlight the importance of better understanding the fate of marine plastic pollution, its degradation, and the impacts and risks it can generate across communities and different ecosystem services. Knowledge of these aspects will help support actions which currently suffer from transboundary problems, lack of responsibility, and inaction to tackle the issue from its point source in the region. Being profoundly affected by marine plastic pollution, Southeast Asian countries provide an opportunity to test the effectiveness of innovative and socially inclusive changes in marine plastic governance, as well as both high and low-tech solutions, which can offer insights and actionable models to the rest of the world.

Interaction between Digital Economy and Environmental Pollution: New Evidence from a Spatial Perspective.

The digital economy and the green economy are two major issues for economic recovery in the post epidemic era. From spatial interaction spillover, we analyze and measure the relationships between the digital economy and environmental pollution in 287 prefecture-level cities in China from 2008 to 2018 using simultaneous spatial equations and the generalized 3-stage least square (GS3SLS) method. The results show that: (1) there is a reverse and complex spatio-temporal evolution of the digital economy and environmental pollution in Chinese cities. (2) There is a spatial interaction spillover effect between the digital economy and environmental pollution. Local digital economy and environmental pollution inhibit each other. The digital economy and environmental pollution have a significant spatial spillover. The digital economy of surrounding regions has a suppressive effect on local environmental pollution. The environmental pollution of surrounding cities has a crowding-out effect on the local digital economy. (3) Digital economy suppresses environmental pollution through the green development effect and innovative development effect; environmental pollution suppresses the digital economy through the talent crowding out effect and the policy tightening effect. The conclusion of this paper provides evidence for the coupling and coordinated development between the digital and green economy, which is of great significance for promoting the transformation of economic development modes and realizing green and high-quality development.

A bright future for wave reserves?

Wave reserves, initially aimed at protecting surf 'spots', are becoming a way to ensure the conservation of coastal areas that are of great ecological and economic value. They foster local development and contribute to countries' achievements toward international objectives. Several projects to implement large wave reserves are on their way.

A Multi-Criteria Framework for the Sustainable Management of Fisheries: a Case Study of UK's North Sea Scottish Fisheries.

In this paper, a sustainability framework with a case application for UK's Scottish fisheries has been developed which integrates aspects related to economic growth, social development, governance, biology, environment, and logistics. Scotland is the centre of UK's commercial fishery sector however it faces challenges such as overexploitation, and changes in the governance structure following Brexit. The contributions of this study are threefold including (i) collecting and analysing primary data gathered from a diverse group of stakeholders in the Scottish fishery sector and scientific community, (ii) prioritising a diverse range of criteria in terms of importance in decision making from industry and scientific community perspectives, (iii) elaboration of the key management objectives in this region within the context of sustainable management of fisheries in the UK.The results of this stakeholders' survey show that the key management objectives are reductions in overexploitation of stocks, inclusive governance, increase in transparency and simplicity of policy measures, reduction in marine litter, and increase in the efficiency of vessels. The analysis also shows that the industry group places a higher importance on socio-economic objectives such as increase in profit and employment compared to the scientific group. On the other hand, the scientific group prioritised the objectives such as reducing discards, bycatch, and impact on seafloor compared to the industry group. This study provides insight for the UK's fisheries sector, and scientific advisory groups for the enhanced implementation of sustainable fisheries management policies.

Scenarios of profitability of western Mediterranean demersal fisheries in an effort control regime.

In 2019 a multiannual plan for Mediterranean demersal fisheries came into force with the objective to reduce the overexploitation of fisheries in the region by implementing effort control regimes. These measures, however, have the potential to adversely impact the local employment and profitability of the fisheries. In this paper, we examine scenarios on the short term and long term levels of economic yield of the sector using the two main drivers of fuel price and employment. Three main scenarios are defined as i) maintaining the average status quo, ii) effort control regimes implemented in the 2019 multiannual plan, and iii) flexible effort control regimes. For each of the aforementioned scenarios, three main fleets and five main conditions are considered, and the results will be compared and contrasted. The results in this paper show that the future rise in fuel price, which is anticipated due to global efforts to reduce emissions, along with the current effort reduction strategies could significantly threaten the sustainable profitability of the sector, and policy measures that could balance this issue should be implemented. Policy interventions and investments should be directed at technological advancements such as modernisation and increasing efficiency of fleet to reduce fuel use, utilisation of highly efficient gear technologies, shortened trips to fishing grounds, and increase in value creation in other parts of the fisheries supply chain to mitigate the serious challenges in terms of local employment and profitability facing the Mediterranean fisheries.

Can Mandatory Disclosure Policies Promote Corporate Environmental Responsibility?-Quasi-Natural Experimental Research on China.

Corporate environmental responsibility (CER) is an important component of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) report, and an important carrier for enterprises to disclose environmental protection information. Based on the corporate micro data, this paper evaluates the effect of a mandatory CSR disclosure policy on the fulfillment of corporate environmental responsibility by adopting the difference-in-differences model (DID) with the release of a mandatory disclosure policy of China in 2008 as a quasi-natural experiment. The study draws the following conclusions: First, a mandatory CSR disclosure policy can promote the fulfillment of CER. Second, after the implementation of a mandatory CSR disclosure policy, enterprises can improve their CER level through two channels: improving the quality of environmental management disclosure and increasing the number of patents. Third, the heterogeneity of the impacts of mandatory CSR disclosure on CER is reflected in three aspects: different CER levels, different corporate scales and a different property rights structure. In terms of the CER level, there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between the CER level and mandatory CSR disclosure effect. In terms of the corporate scale, mandatory disclosure of CSR plays a greater role in large-scale enterprises. In terms of the structure of property rights, mandatory CSR disclosure has a greater effect on non-state-owned enterprises.

Mangrove ecological services at the forefront of coastal change in the French overseas territories.

Mangroves are located at the land-sea interface and are therefore confronted with human settlement in the coastal areas and associated pressures and uses. This unique habitat provides important ecosystem services to coastal communities worldwide, but the global decline of their surface area and their degradation over the past decades has put coastal communities even more at risk from the effects of climate change. This paper aims to present the first ecosystem services valuation of the mangroves of the French overseas Territories. We provide the economic value of mangroves for coastal protection, carbon sequestration, water purification and fish biomass production. We coupled a geospatial analysis of mangrove's distribution with the characterisation of land artificialisation behind mangroves. Then we developed a vulnerability index based on multiple indicators of exposure to environmental and anthropogenic stressors, mangroves' sensitivity to pressures, and mangroves' adaptive capacity to adjust their production functions accordingly. We estimated the monetary value of regulation and support services provided by mangroves in French overseas territories to be on average EUR 1.6 billion annually, 60% of which is carbon sequestration, 28% coastal protection, 7% water purification and 6% fish biomass production. When considering mangroves services without the vulnerability adjustment, the total value for those services would reach EUR 2 billion per year. Although much of the spatio-temporal variability in mangrove functioning could not be considered given the spatial scale of our study, these results demonstrate the value and socio-economic importance of mangroves to face and adapt from the effects of coastal change, at local and national scales, but also highlight the loss of services due to their vulnerability. This paper emphasises on the value of ecosystem services provided by mangroves to face coastal change so that a service-based approach to conservation would plead for increased national investment into their protection.

Productivity Effect Evaluation on Market-Type Environmental Regulation: A Case Study of SO2 Emission Trading Pilot in China.

Taking China's SO2 emissions trading pilot (ETP) in 2007, a large-scale market-based environmental regulation as its target, this paper reexamines the strong Porter hypothesis by adopting the method of propensity score matching-differences-in-differences. Research shows the following results: first, SO2 ETP which provides high flexibility for enterprises in the process of emission reduction, improves total factor productivity (TFP) significantly on the whole. Second, the productivity effect of market-based environmental regulation varies from the productivity level of enterprise. For example, the SO2 ETP has a significant effect on TFP only at 40-80 percent quantile of TFP, and the effect increases at first and then decreases. Third, the financing constraints and bargaining power of enterprises have significant negative moderating effects on the impact of SO2 ETP on TFP, and the moderating effects between state-owned and non-state-owned enterprises exist heterogeneity. In conclusion, it provides reference for the formulation of market-type environmental regulations and the realization of high-quality development for developing countries.

Fine Particulate Air Pollution, Public Service, and Under-Five Mortality: A Cross-Country Empirical Study.

The impacts of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) air pollution on health outcomes, especially those of children, have attracted worldwide attention. Based on the PM2.5 concentration data of 94 countries, including the least developed countries estimated by satellite observations in nearly 20 years, this paper investigated the impacts of PM2.5 pollution on under-five mortality rate (U5MR) and analyzed the role of public service in moderating the PM2.5-mortality relationship. Results indicated that PM2.5 pollution had significantly positive influence on U5MR globally. However, the effects of fine particulate pollution on child mortality were heterogeneous in terms of their significance and degrees in countries with different levels of development. A further test based on panel threshold model revealed that public service, measured by public education spending and sanitation service, played a positive moderating role in the PM2.5-mortality relationship. Specifically, when the ratio of public education expenditure in GDP of a country exceeded the first threshold value 3.39% and the second threshold value 5.47%, the magnitude of the impacts of PM2.5 pollution on U5MR significantly decreased accordingly. When the percentage of population with access to improved sanitation facilities in a country was over 41.3%, the health damaging effects were reduced by more than half. This paper fills the current gap of PM2.5 research in least developed countries and provides key policy recommendations.

Addressing the implementation challenge of the global biodiversity framework.

A Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) is under discussion for the period 2021-2030, which will replace the "Aichi Targets" adopted by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in 2010. Given the limited success in meeting most of the Aichi Targets, this new framework must adopt a different approach. A key challenge the GBF must address is its implementation at national scales. Four ways this implementation challenge can be addressed include:The framework must move away from numerical targets to pursue positive trends in biodiversity, through adopting a "vectors of change" approach;The framework should be structured to focus on ecosystems and processes;The framework should synergise more extensively with existing biodiversity-relevant global agreements to maximise leverage and reduce overlap of resource use;The framework must adopt a much stronger theory of change than is in the current GBF Draft, to serve as the roadmap governments can use in upscaling their implementation of biodiversity conservation, sustainable use and benefit sharing. Finally, the GBF must become a "learning framework", committed to facilitating and enabling governments to each meet their specific biodiversity challenges, while sharing back experiences with the global community, leading ultimately to realising the 2050 CBD vision of people living in harmony with nature.

The Impact of Business Cycle on Health Financing: Subsidized, Voluntary and Out-of-Pocket Health Spending.

Diverse types of healthcare systems in countries offer opportunities to explore the heterogeneous sources of health financing. This paper widely explores the effect of the business cycle on subsidized, voluntary and out-of-pocket health spending in 34 countries with different types of healthcare systems, by the methodology of hierarchical linear modeling (HLM). We use a panel of annual data during the years from 2000 to 2016. It further examines the business cycle-health financing mechanism by inquiring into the mediating effect of external conditions and innovative health financing, based on the structural equation modeling (SEM). The empirical results reveal that the business cycle harms subsidized spending, whereas its effect on voluntary and protective health spending is positive. Results related to the SEM indicate that the mediating effect of external conditions on the relationship between the business cycle and health financing is negative. However, we find that the business cycle plays a positive effect on health financing through innovative health financing channels. Thus, designing and implementing efforts to shift innovative health financing have substantial effects on the sustainability of healthcare systems.