How to achieve the **will** for environmental protection

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How to Realize the **Will** for Environmental Protection Author: Jiang Jingyi, a researcher at the Party School of Jilin Provincial Committee. In his article \"On the **Will** for Environmental Protection,\" Comrade Xia Guang points out that the process of environmental protection \"not only relies on, but also particularly requires the ‘**’ entity to play a special and crucial role,\" and he provides a detailed explanation for this. The author agrees with these views. However, how the \"**will**\" to protect the environment can fully reflect the wishes of the general public, and how it can be truly realized, are important issues that we need to study and discuss. This article aims to provide necessary extensions and supplements to his views. **Addressing the social roots of environmental problems: As administrative agencies and representatives entrusted by the people, their role is to govern society and serve its citizens, in order to achieve prosperity, fairness, and safety for them in their social lives. However, as history entered the modern era, the relationship between the ecological environment and the economy and society began to become a **major issue of concern. This is because people have gradually come to realize that the role of the ecosystem is extremely profound and complex. Although we cannot consider changes in the ecological environment to be decisive for societal development, all evidence shows that a severe deterioration of the ecological environment poses a serious threat to human survival and development. It has increasingly become a widespread and sensitive social issue that is closely related to the interests of citizens. Therefore, natural factors are considered important variables that are inherent in social systems and continuously exert an influence on society. From this, we can conclude that changes in the ecological environment are not only a natural process but also a social one, which implies an undeniable responsibility regarding environmental protection. Our understanding and practical efforts regarding ecological and environmental issues have led us to the conclusion that in modern ** societies,** without attention to and management of the ecological environment, their ** structure remains incomplete. This is because resolving ecological and environmental issues takes place entirely within the framework of **willpower and related institutional structures. The type of institutional and systemic framework in place determines the pattern of material production and population growth, which in turn gives rise to certain ecological and environmental conditions as well as corresponding social outcomes. In fact, the management and protection of the ecological environment is a combination of a “process” and a “result”. As a process, it manifests as the will of ** and the actions of ** ； As a result, it exhibits a specific pattern of social structure, namely one in which issues such as population growth and resource utilization are addressed in a scientific, rational, and fair manner, thereby enabling coordinated development between humanity and the natural world and maintaining a dynamic balance of material transformation and energy flow over the long term. Therefore, some scholars believe that true scientific development necessarily reflects a rational connection and interaction among various components of society such as the economy, **, culture, and ecology, as well as the resulting improvement in operational capabilities. Based on this, if “development” fails to improve and enhance the relationships and capabilities among the various elements within society as a whole, then it certainly cannot be considered true scientific development. Thus, people are increasingly aware that in order to achieve the strategic goals of sustainable environmental protection, \"human society must undergo profound changes; the cause of these changes lies in the ecosystem, but the changes themselves occur at the social and economic levels, while the process of bringing about these changes takes place through **\". The book \"A New Vision for Development\" published by the United Nations proposes a new theory of development that is \"holistic,\" \"comprehensive,\" and \"endogenous.\" It emphasizes coordination between the economy and **, as well as between humans and nature. Cooperation among people, between people and the environment, between people and organizations, and between organizations and the economy is regarded as key aspects of new development. Development is seen as a comprehensive process that is based on internal factors such as ethnicity, history, culture, environment, and resources, and includes various elements such as economic growth, ****, technological level, cultural values, social transformation, natural harmony, and ecological balance. Therefore, modern ** and ** should not only pay more attention to the ecological environment; more importantly, it is necessary to, based on an innovative ** system, ensure that humanity’s modifications of nature are in line with ecological laws. This will enable the establishment of a framework that integrates environmental development, economic development, and social development. Such an approach can effectively change those traditional, dominant preferences and values, allowing society’s members to gain a greater sense of \"ecological ** efficacy.\" This, in turn, lays the foundation for creating new ways of thinking that are more conducive to the public interest and social development. Otherwise, all environmental issues will remain at the level of mere \"tools\" or \"experience,\" and environmental protection will become nothing but an empty slogan disconnected from the actual functions of ** and social development. **Deficiencies in interventions to address environmental issues: There is an increasingly deep understanding that a development approach lacking awareness of environmental protection is incomplete and inadequate, as it focuses solely on how to enhance the capacity of societal structures to acquire natural resources and produce goods, without taking into account the fact that poor economic practices can lead to damage to the ecological environment. Its epistemological root is that natural resources have no value. In fact, the utilization of environmental resources is, in its most fundamental sense, an economic process; therefore, it relies on the functions of the market for regulation and allocation. However, the ambiguity in property rights resulting from the indivisibility of environmental resources means that they can function as public goods to a considerable extent. This makes it easy for different economic entities to attempt to use the same \"free-riding\" strategy in order to avoid the costs associated with using these resources and thus maximize their own profits. Such inefficient socioeconomic outcomes, achieved at the expense of environmental resources, cannot possibly lead automatically to a Pareto optimal allocation of environmental resources. In fact, the external economic factors related to environmental resources are quite complex; as a result, it becomes difficult to determine or incur high transaction costs. Consequently, the conflict of interests between those who cause pollution and those who combat it, as well as between those who commit infringements and those who counter such infringements, often fails to resolve smoothly. The severity of the problem lies in the fact that the decline in environmental resource transactions and related conflicts of interest objectively encourages further environmental pollution and resource misuse. The \"failure\" of market mechanisms in addressing environmental issues provides the opportunity and rationale for **intervention. However, **intervention in the way resources are utilized and in transactions among relevant parties is conditional, that is**, the effects of such intervention must be better than those of market mechanisms ； **The benefits of the intervention must exceed the costs involved. However, driven by \"departmental interests,\" the **two dimensions of behavior** often create conditions for their own \"failure.\" One dimension is “intervention when **intervention is not needed**,” and the other dimension is “no intervention when **intervention is needed**.” On environmental protection issues, the former often manifests as distortions in the market price mechanism of resources caused by arbitrary interference ； The latter is characterized by a monopoly over environmental resources and their abuse, along with a lack of necessary public regulation. Regardless of the dimension, it mainly occurs in the two areas of “policy” and “management”. “\"Policy failure\" is primarily manifested in inadequate measures to control and narrow the gap between private costs and social costs; this not only directly harms environmental benefits but can also undermine the formulation and implementation of fiscal, exchange rate, financial, price, income, and other policies ； “\"Management failure\" is primarily manifested in the fact that the desire for political achievements among local officials leads them to sacrifice the environment in order to ensure GDP growth, thereby causing their actions to diverge from their intentions. What is even more noteworthy is that, in the absence of appropriate systems, **any intervention in environmental management will lead to a game among polluters, those affected by pollution, and environmental protection authorities, thereby giving rise to rent-seeking behavior. Polluters are likely to obtain substantial economic benefits at relatively low rent-seeking costs, thereby shifting the external costs caused by their misuse of environmental resources onto others or society. Under market economy conditions, if **is referred to as the “visible hand,” then “rent-seeking” is the “invisible foot”; and once the “visible hand” is stepped on by that “invisible foot,” **failure becomes inevitable. Our analysis of the market and the reasons for its **failures here is not meant to outright reject the effectiveness of market mechanisms and **interventions; rather, it aims to urge people not to make binary decisions when choosing strategies for environmental protection. Because the more the choice leans toward market mechanisms, the more likely the system is to face market failures” ； The more interventionist the choice, the more likely its system is to face \"failure.\" To truly realize the **will** for environmental protection, it is necessary to effectively integrate market mechanisms with **intervention**; the fundamental solution lies in creating new institutional arrangements. The assumption of the \"rational economic actor\" within the institutional framework allows us to identify the consistency behind various irresponsible behaviors, and attributes the differences in individual behavior to structural differences and gaps in the institutions, thereby enabling us to focus our efforts on institutional development as a means to address environmental issues. **Pathways for addressing environmental issues: From the perspective of implementation strategies, in the process of environmental protection, as part of a country’s institutional framework, it is necessary to consider the value of ecological resources, as well as ecological and economic security from a strategic standpoint. The traditional national economic accounting system must be adjusted and improved to establish a \"national economic account system that takes environmental factors into account.\" Environmental costs, environmental benefits, natural assets, and expenditures related to environmental protection should be incorporated into this system, so as to reflect more comprehensively the ecological, economic, and social values of nature. While maintaining the ecosystem’s capacity to support economic development, such an approach can guide economic growth in a sustainable direction, fostering a positive cycle between economic production and natural regeneration. This will enable coordinated growth in economic, environmental, and social benefits, thereby ensuring that economic activities have a minimal impact on natural resources and the environment, and contributing to a sustainable cycle and development of the human-nature complex system. Of course, as with all public administration processes, **in the implementation of environmental protection, given that it represents the most important and direct source of professional interests, it tends to prioritize the direct responsibility relationship between superiors and subordinates, which exposes the drawbacks of indirect supervision in the principal-agent relationship. To this end, institutional arrangements for environmental protection only have practical significance when they are widely accepted by various interest groups; therefore, the creation of such institutions must be the result of repeated bargaining and public choice among all societal interest groups. Especially during periods of social transformation, if **mandatory institutional change is imposed, its fundamental implication is the elimination of the need for innovative experimental arrangements. It should be noted that although various social groups act in accordance with the principle of maximizing their own interests, they are not always passive; if they are not allowed to engage in negotiation and make choices, it will not only prevent these groups from reaping additional benefits from innovative efforts in economic development, but **environmental protection and an increase in the overall economic volume will also not be possible. Therefore, the coercive functions of ** should not be reflected in the process of institutional formation; instead, the focus should be placed on the \"supply\" and \"implementation\" of institutions after the basic institutional framework has been established, so as to carry out environmental protection more effectively. In short, all the analyses lead to the conclusion that the fundamental purpose of implementing environmental protection is not only to achieve harmony between humans and nature but also to ensure a balance of interests among people. Therefore, the modern integration of environmental interests essentially involves a process of reaching compromises and achieving balance by coordinating the bargaining among different interest groups. Futurist Toffler pointed out: “The heavy burden of decision-making will ultimately have to be shared through broad **political participation; otherwise**, the system cannot be maintained.” Admittedly, the existing \"imbalance\" has received widespread **attention from society; however**, the more an action affects interest groups, the more these groups feel it is **relevant to their own goals**, and the more actively they strive to influence **decision-making**. To ensure that ** and ** truly become public forces belonging to society as a whole, rather than representatives of a few powerful interest groups, it is necessary to establish effective mechanisms in modern society that allow for the widespread participation of members of society through institutionalized channels. This will help strengthen the social forces dedicated to environmental protection, thereby preventing interest groups from influencing decisions based on their own economic interests. Through effective public oversight of **, such self-interested and expansionist behaviors can be curbed, thus providing a solid foundation for overcoming the conflicts of interest and social unrest arising from ecological crises. (end)