Suchergebnisse

Urban environmental management and urban sustainability are highly related to spatial planning models and several other long term and strategic action plans at the local, metropolitan, regional or national levels depending also on their coordination. Local policies for urban environmental protection, GHG mitigation policies focused within city's area and therefore, urban sustainability policies undertaken by local authorities are also strongly correlated. The EU Thematic Strategy for Urban Environment sets that out and considers urban transport and construction the main sectors for climate mitigation local policies; those and also, sustainable urban design and management are the big issues considered in the EU Strategy to enhance policy cooperation at the different administrative levels in order to reach urban sustainability. Spanish local authorities (CCLL) over 50.000 people are legally dealing with environmental urban matters. Some CCLL —over and under that threshold— signed the Aalborg Commitments in favour of local sustainability; besides, some belongs to Spanish Cities for Climate Network (RECC). The paper shows absolute and relative data on those respects —in relation to the amount of municipalities and population figures, in aggregated and regional terms— in order to asses on the formal involvement degree for CCLL with local sustainability and climate GHG mitigation for urban sources. Finally, additional information is considered on the CCLL integration on Spanish regional or departmental networks for local sustainability as well as other information on local planning initiatives or cross cutting environmental issues related to urban areas.

The article deals with the endowments, framework, principles and technical options open to discusión on greenhouse gas emission reductions facing next international negotiations round opened to be prepared at the end of Kyoto Protocol first period of commitments. Some of those basic topics of post-Kyoto architecture are analysed from the EU climate strategy perspective; in order to select the EU commitment regime for 2012 onwards, major technical and political issues and arguments are under consideration by the European Commission which are also revisited. The article includes references to major climate change scientific evidence and the costs and benefits of adaptation and mitigation actions. ; El artículo aporta consideraciones sobre los datos de partida, principios, presupuestos básicos y opciones técnicas abiertas en la negociación internacional que se realizará sobre la reducción de emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero, antes del fin del primer periodo de compromiso del Protocolo de Kioto. En el contexto de los temas básicos de la llamada arquitectura post-Kioto, se tratan los principales elementos de la estrategia europea de lucha contra el cambio climático, dando noticia de los trabajos de Comisión con el fin de analizar y evaluar anticipadamente el esquema de participación más conveniente y los compromisos a asumir por la UE, a partir del 2012. Asimismo, se ofrece una síntesis de la evidencia científica disponible acerca del problema del cambio climático y se aborda el tema de la evaluación de los costes y beneficios de las acciones de mitigación y adaptación.

Sustainable development, explicit goal of the EU introduced on Amsterdam Treaty (art. 2), is a three dimension principle—economic, social and environmental—which aims to guaranty a better life quality for present and future Union population, grasping several EU internal policies, at least the environmental, economic and social policies. Environmental EC actions implemented all along the nineties —and part of the eighties—, were permeated by sustainable development objective; that principle was formally mentioned as such in the Fifth Environmental Programme and it is also the case for the EU environmental policy stricto sensu, ahead. Therefore, in this scope the principle is well established and shows a high degree of maturity in subjects as the management of natural resources, the production and the consumption of energy, etc. The economic face of sustainable development principle acquires true spread in the UE, latter on —at the beginning of XXI century— after the agreements adopted in the European Councils of Lisbon and Gotemburgo and, still more clearly, after the adoption of EU Strategy of Sustainable Development formulated by the Commission on 2001. The structural reforms suggested and stimulated in the markets (labor, financial and of several products) of the States members, from the EU institutions is one of the best indicators on the actual economic relevance of the EU sustainable development perspective. The social dimension of sustainable development principle, offers at present in the EU the minor level of progress. Nevertheless, several EU proposals recently designed by the Commission reinforce the third perspective of that principle; those recent proposals aims mainly to international eradication of poverty, or to improve the fairness in the regional distribution of growth increasing the financial resources canalized to the third world countries's growth.

The article deals on supplementarity, an environmental principle traditionally fortified by the EC institutions and introduced in its strategy against climate change, as it is conceived by the National Allocation Plan of Spain, 2005-2007 (PNA-E). That document which final version dated on 2004, July, 29th includes some paragraphs related to emission reductions to be made in other countries to comply with the Spanish target. * Proyecto: CICYT. RNE 2002-2557. Observatorio Medioambiental ISSN: 1139-1987 2004, núm. 7 221-247 Ana Yábar Sterling La extraterritorialidad en el control de emisiones de CO2, y el Plan nacional. It also offers a synthesis on the present EC understanding on that subject, considering the amendments done by European Parliament on the «Link Directive Project» which essentially focus on that, aiming to convert emission credits (CER's and ERU's) derived from project mechanisms of Kyoto Protocol - Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Joint Implementation (JI)- onto European emission allowances created by Directive 2003/87/CE. The article next, but from the same point of view discuss the initial version of two very recent law projects intending to incorporate to Spanish legislation the 2003/87/EC Directive and the PNA-E. The main conclusion derived from the article is that PNA-E does not takes into consideration the actual EC understanding of the above mentioned principle and as a result, does not integrate it onto its «basic scenario of compliance» (+15% of base year emissions, in 2008-2012); so, a deep revision in the scenario, main assumptions and behavioural prospects are suggested to be included in the future Spanish PNA, 2008-2012, alerting on the risk to do nothing on this subject for the fulfilment of the Spanish commitments against the climate change. ; El presente trabajo centra su atención en el principio de suplementariedad en la lucha contra el cambio climático, tradicionalmente defendido desde las instituciones comunitarias, y en su recepción e interpretación en España, tal y como ello puede deducirse de las referencias a la extraterritorialidad en materia de control de las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero que se efectúan en el Plan Nacional de Asignaciones 2005-2007 (PNA-E), documento cuya versión final corresponde al 29 de julio de 2004. También ofrece una síntesis acerca del estado de situación de dicho tema en la UE, tras las enmiendas introducidas por el Parlamento Europeo al «Proyecto de Directiva de vinculación» que incide de lleno en el mismo, al pretender la convertibilidad entre créditos por emisiones de los Mecanismos de Desarrollo Limpio (MDL) y Aplicación Conjunta (AC) del Protocolo de Kioto (RCE's y URE's), por los derechos de emisión europeos derivados de la Directiva 2003/87/CE; posteriormente y desde esta perspectiva, se analiza el contenido de dos borradores de Real Decreto Ley presentados al Consejo de Ministros de España, el primero, destinado a transponer la citada Directiva —creadora del sistema europeo de comercio de derechos de emisión (SECE)— y el segundo, para convertir en norma jurídica el PNA-E. El trabajo, tras justificarla, obtiene como principal conclusión que el PNA-E no participa de la visión comunitaria actual de la suplementariedad, cuando hace referencia al cumplimiento del compromiso español de control de las emisiones en el periodo 2008-2012 (+15% de emisiones netas respecto a las del periodo base) y sugiere una revisión a fondo del «escenario básico de referencia», supuestos de comportamiento de los agentes y previsiones de emisiones, de cara al próximo PNA-E —cuya presentación está prevista para junio de 2006—, alertando sobre el alto riesgo que no hacerlo supondría para el cumplimiento de los compromisos españoles de lucha contra el cambio climático, en el contexto internacional.

Green Taxation and Environmental Sustainability explores the critical issue of how taxes can be applied across relevant environmental areas – including transport, nuclear power, and water and waste management – to achieve sustainability. Containing topical chapters written by environmental experts, the book covers a number of key issues, including: interaction of biofuels and EU state aid rules; territorial differences for transport fuel demand; electric vehicles, taxation and electricity transmission; public policy issues on the disposal of high-level radioactive waste in Japan; landfill and waste incineration taxes; and many other topics. This insightful study will appeal to policy makers in government, as well as to students and academics in environmental law, environmental economics and environmental sustainability.

This original and timely volume provides unique insights and analysis on the pressing question of how to achieve environmental sustainability while fostering economic growth. The emphasis of the book lies in finding critical solutions to global climate change including chapters on environmental fiscal reform and unemployment in Spain, EU structural and cohesion policy and sustainable development, ecological tax reform in Europe and Asia, Australia's carbon pricing mechanism, and many other timely topics. This insightful volume will appeal to policy makers in government as well as academics and students in environmental law, environmental economics and environmental sustainability.