The announcement by China that it will implement a national emissions trading scheme confirms the status of this instrument as the pre-eminent policy choice for mitigating climate change. China will join the dozens of existing and emerging schemes around the world - from the EU to California, South Korea to New Zealand - that use carbon units (otherwise known as emissions permits or carbon credits) to trade in greenhouse gas emissions in a multi-billion dollar global carbon market. However, to date, there has been no consensus about this pre-eminent policy instrument being regulated by international economic law through the World Trade Organization, international investment agreements, and free trade agreements. Munro addresses this issue by evaluating whether carbon units qualify as 'goods', 'services', 'financial services', and 'investments' under international economic law and showing how international economic law applies to emissions trading scheme in diverse and unexpected ways. Further, by engaging in a comparative assessment of schemes around the world, his book illustrates how and why all emissions trading schemes engage in various forms of violations of international economic law which would not, in most instances, be justified by environmental or other exceptions. In doing so, he demonstrates how such schemes can be designed or reformed in ways to ensure their future compliance.

Advances in Civil Engineering and Environmental Engineering focuses on the research of civil engineering and environmental engineering. The proceedings feature the most cutting-edge research directions and achievements related to civil engineering and environmental. Subjects in the proceedings include: Civil engineering technology Civil engineering surveying Geological engineering Structural engineering Tunnel and bridge engineering Environmental protection materials Pollution control project Building environment and equipment engineering The works of this proceedings can promote development of civil engineering and environmental engineering, resource sharing, flexibility and high efficiency. Thereby, promote scientific information interchange between scholars from the top universities, research centers and high-tech enterprises working all around the world.

Due to the impact of the epidemic in recent two years, the world economy has suffered great fluctuations. "Digital Finance", "Internet Finance" and "Science and Technology Finance" have gradually become hot spots in the industry, while enterprise development is also facing more challenges and difficulties. How should enterprises face the new situation and transformation? Economic and Business Management 2022 discusses the topics below: Economics: Marketing; Finance and Securities; Regional Economic; Tourism Economy; Economic Theory; Ecological Economy; Resources Economy; E-Commerce/Ebusiness; Finance and Tax. Business Management: Human resources; Market management; Sales management; Business management; Quality Management; Production management; Cultural system and mechanism; Fund management. The book is of interest to academics and professionals involved or interested in the fields mentioned above.

A comprehensive look at the world of illicit trade Though mankind has traded tangible goods for millennia, recent technology has changed the fundamentals of trade, in both legitimate and illegal economies. In the past three decades, the most advanced forms of illicit trade have broken with all historical precedents and, as Dark Commerce shows, now operate as if on steroids, tied to computers and social media. In this new world of illicit commerce, which benefits states and diverse participants, trade is impersonal and anonymized, and vast profits are made in short periods with limited accountability to sellers, intermediaries, and purchasers. Louise Shelley examines how new technology, communications, and globalization fuel the exponential growth of dangerous forms of illegal trade—the markets for narcotics and child pornography online, the escalation of sex trafficking through web advertisements, and the sale of endangered species for which revenues total in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The illicit economy exacerbates many of the world’s destabilizing phenomena: the perpetuation of conflicts, the proliferation of arms and weapons of mass destruction, and environmental degradation and extinction. Shelley explores illicit trade in tangible goods—drugs, human beings, arms, wildlife and timber, fish, antiquities, and ubiquitous counterfeits—and contrasts this with the damaging trade in cyberspace, where intangible commodities cost consumers and organizations billions as they lose identities, bank accounts, access to computer data, and intellectual property. Demonstrating that illicit trade is a business the global community cannot afford to ignore and must work together to address, Dark Commerce considers diverse ways of responding to this increasing challenge.

To mitigate two major environmental concerns of global warming and air pollution, renewable energies with uncertainty are increasingly deployed in power systems, which challenge the system's secure operation. A single system usually has limited adjusting ability. In contrast, integrated energy systems such as electricity-gas, electricity-traffic, electricity-heat, and transmission-distribution coordinated systems enhance the regulating ability of renewable energy accommodation and environmental protection. The operation of integrated energy systems will meet three essential requirements: low-pollution attribute, robustness, and cooperativity. However, the diversity of uncertainty conditions, the complementarity of new energy accommodation among systems, the conflict of interest between systems, and the dispatch autonomy of systems challenge the requirements mentioned above. The main goal of this Research Topic includes: 1. Propose more effective trading mechanisms or control strategies for carbon and air pollutant emissions. 2. Fully use complementary effects between electric power, natural gas, heat, hydrogen, and traffic systems. 3. Realize the coordinated operation of integrated energy systems with limited information interaction and ensured dispatch autonomy. 4. Improve the robustness of integrated energy systems under diversified uncertainty conditions. 5. Apply data-based reinforcement learning methods for the dynamic decision of smart integrated energy systems under complex environments.

The application of sustainability practices at the system level begins with the supply chain. In the business realm, incorporating such practices allows organizations to redesign their operations more effectively. Emerging Applications in Supply Chains for Sustainable Business Development is a pivotal reference source that provides vital research on the models, strategies, and analyses that are essential for developing and managing a sustainable supply chain. While highlighting topics such as agile manufacturing and the world food crisis, this publication is ideally designed for business managers, academicians, business practitioners, researchers, academicians, and students seeking current research on sustainable supply chain management.

The accelerating global climate change risk highlights the importance of a quick transition towards a “cleaner” world. Although steady progress has already been made globally, substantial improvement cannot be achieved without sufficient financial support, especially during the post-COVID-19 recovery period, where countries worldwide have to prioritize the economic recovery which might limit the support for climate change mitigation and adaptation. Firms are the main greenhouse gas emitters and their contributions to the green transition thus are of vital importance to achieving a low-carbon transition. However, firms normally lack motivation to make green efforts, even worse, the business lockdowns and the supply chain disruptions during the pandemic have further weakened their already minimal commitment to mitigating climate change risks.

A special volume in the Chinese Research Perspectives on the Environment series, this English-language volume is an edited collection of articles selected from the Chinese-language Annual Report on Actions to Address Climate Change (2012): Climate Finance and Low Carbon Development. This volume provides information on how China views the challenge of climate change and seeks to rectify the extraordinary confusion found in the West on China’s green energy future and its larger perspectives on this extraordinarily crucial topic. Contributors in this volume provide a bigger picture of international negotiations on climate change; discuss China’s national actions on green energy and sustainability and how national policies are implemented at the local level; and examine challenges and potential of developing green energy resources in China.