Introduction
In the modern world of industrialization, environmental issues have become significant issues of concern amongst the government and the public. Many policymakers and other experts in many parts of the world have focused firmly on the relationship between development and the environment. In the global convection held at Vienna, it was discovered that rapid industrialization resulted in the depletion of the ozone layer. The effects of the destruction of the ozone layer were evident through the experience of changes in climate in many parts of the world, the loss in biodiversity, and migration of population. Many international bodies have emphasized the need for the solution of complex environmental issues. This essay will address the following: The role of government intervention in environmental conservation, environmental transactional costs analysis, and industrial transformations in the developed countries, a case study of China.
Environmental governance
The primary function of governance is to facilitate control and provide a sense of direction. Governance has a well-developed architecture that includes machinery organizations through the application of customs and laws vested in the political units. Various authors have developed different definitions of the term governance. Daniel Kaufman defined the term governance as the institutions and traditions through which authority in a given country is exercised. The essential components of governance demonstrated by the author include the due process through which authorities come to power and are replaced. It also covered the aspect of the efficiency applied in the use of resources and the implementation of sound policies. The final aspect is the respect of the institutions and the people. Prof. Lamont expanded the definition of governance to incorporate the solution of conflicts by the state formally and informally. According to this scholar, the function of government is not limited to exercise control but also carries out projects to attain goals that improve the wellbeing of the citizens. Players in governance, according to him, are several, including the state, the local, and international civil societies. Governance has a huge impact on economic development and global security (Li, 2006) . From the various definition of governance explained above, the term environmental governance is referred to as the role of government and civil society at international and local levels formally and informally in the process of management and conservation of the environment, control of pollution, and resolving the conflicts arising from environmental pollution.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Imperfect market information on pollution is essential in environmental justice conservation. In the cases of incomplete information, the residents, workers, and the employees have limited information on the health and environmental hazards generated by the various products that they consume. The lack of such information hinders the consumers and residents from making trade-off decisions regarding the low price of commodities and higher wages. The market fails in determining the appropriate prices and wages to rectify the risk of distribution of environmental hazards and benefits. An interesting observation is that the costs involved in abating pollution and nature conservation benefit very few people, but the negative impacts of the pollution affect the general public (Wilks, 2008) . For a market to perform efficiently there is a great need to involve the abatement costs in the price of a commodity. What discourages the players in the production and enterprises is the free-riding market place.
Need for government intervention in matters of the environment.
The primary reason for government involvement in the control of pollution is to internalize the costs of the environment and prevent the exploitation of natural resources by private players (Wilks, 2008) . The level of government interference is based on several factors. Environmental conservation has some basis in the marketplace. The production costs have an impact on the pricing mechanisms. The intervention of the government in environmental matters is essential in facilitating the inclusion of the social costs of pollution in the price of goods. There is a need to formulate and enforce regulations to ensure that the environmental costs of pollution are incurred by the industries or companies that cause them harm. Without such regulations, enterprises and organizations maximize their profits by overproducing pollution, pushing the environmental costs of pollution to the eventual product consumer. Through government intervention, the price allocated to various final products does not force society to give up the unpolluted air at the expense of the price of the goods (Li, 2006) . The mechanisms of pricing have not directed the human behavior in the achievement of the socially optimal outcomes when handling environmental issues; there is a significant need for government intervention in the development of policies and regulations to collect market failures.
The application of property rights in environmental conservation is essential. The property rights serve more effectively in improving resource allocation and management and control of pollution. The regulations have been efficient in the fish depletion where the property rights were clearer, and the environmental harm was very easy to ascertain. Where the law of contract and tort exists, it is possible to exchange environmental property rights. The victims have the right to take to court polluters; however, such actions discourage people due to the high costs of legal proceedings or low level of bargaining power (Dominelli, 2012) .
Environmental justice in the United States
Agencies, who advocate for environmental justice, have developed the argument that people need to live in an environment that is clean and free from industrial waste. Polluted environments have an adverse effect on the wellbeing of the people. Over the last two decades, the term environmental justice has been common in the global environmental debates. The main focus of environmental justice is the process of sharing environmental burdens and benefits amongst the different people in the world. In the United States, particularly, environmental justice focuses on fairness and equity in environmental policies. This argument emerged from the realization that the environmental hazards and benefits are not equally shared across the various categories of people but rather tend to criminalize the minority in the communities. Environmental hazards emerged from the disposal from facilities with people being exposed to toxic materials from the industries.
Analysis of transactional environmental costs
The application of environmental costs has been used for long in describing the financial interactions between individuals and firms. The concept, however, has been extended, and its application employed in Transaction costs refers to costs connected to a contract between multiple parties in the process of exchanging in the process of governance and decision making. Parties engaging in a contract and the market determine the governing structure in the transactional costs economies. From the perspective of environmental governance, free markets define the different governing structures. Optimal governance aligns the environmental challenges to protect the environment by adopting the least social costs (Layard & Holder, 2011) . Environmental governance is a key component in four disciplines. In the economic concept, activities involved in environmental governance include the optimal use of resources, abatement of the pollution costs, application of game theory on the analysis of behavioural choices in environmental governance, and the decision making transactional costs. In the political economy, environmental governance encompasses the choices made by the public, group's interactions, and the demand and supply interaction in the governance policies. In natural sciences, environmental governance is connected to the choice of the most effective technology, epidemiology, and standards of the environment (Li, 2006) . In public administration and law sociology, environmental governance is connected to collective justice, implementation of environmental policies, and compliance enforcement.
In the analysis of the political economy, the legislators, public and the industries are believed to maximize their utility. The environmental protection agencies lack in the models because they comprise the lawmakers and offer political support. The public choice theory outlines why the involvement of the government in the issues of the environment fails. The main causes of the failure in the regulations include inadequate structures, lack of proper informational but government, and the distortion of the public choices. The model indicates a significant difference between administration and policy; the policymaking process was considered distinct from the implementation. The model outlined that one of the critical functions of the environmental protection agencies was to formulate environmental policies. This observation was made in 1984 when the decision of a lower court was overturned by the United States Supreme Court, which offered the Environmental Protection Agency the responsibility to balance the Clean Air Act (Layard & Holder, 2011) . There are various pollution control tools applied in the environmental conservation policymaking process. The tools include direct regulations, incentive mechanisms, and voluntary approaches. The direct regulations apply uniform standards across the board. The regulations do not consider individual preferences and marginal costs and marginal benefit differences. When complying with the abatement technology and pollution standards, the industries lack flexibility in the determination of how to comply with the set standards depending on their varying situations. The standards determined in the direct regulations are class-specific and do not consider the pollution costs abatement. As a result, this tool rarely achieves socially optimum outcomes.
The second tool is the incentive mechanism. The incentive mechanisms are considered stronger compared to the direct regulation in terms of economic efficiency. To achieve greater economic efficiency, economists state the importance of pollution control permits to be issued to industries. Issuing industries with such permits will encourage them to conserve the environment in their interest (Greyl & Minguet, 2014) . Collectively, the actions of the many industries will result in the achievement of social goals at the least cost possible. In the implementation of the pollution control permits, the economists tend to rely on the set environmental regulations such as monitoring and enforcement. The economist's ideas are perceived to be inadequate in addressing the modern concepts of property rights and the rule of law. The information-based instruments are part of the incentive mechanisms. The developed countries such as the United States enacted laws that encouraged industries to grant public access to the information pertaining to the dangers of the pollution by industries on the general public. These laws and regulations provided industries with the choices to comply, not to comply or extend beyond compliance. The availability of pollution information to the people would guide them in the process of making decisions on which are the most effective forms to venture in. Private enforcement, in theory, could minimize the need for government enforcements reducing the administrative pollution costs. The information-based tools have demonstrated effectiveness in China, Korea, South East Asia, and North America in reducing industrial emissions.
The voluntary approaches are adopted by various industries to help win back the public's confidence. Industries develop internal mechanisms such as a code of conduct and values which guide towards environmental protection. They can also develop voluntary programs where enterprises with common conservation efforts can join and help in pollution reduction efforts.
Environmental governance in china
Chinas growth in output has grown at a rate of more than 11.4 % since the establishment of the economic reforms according to NBS data in the year 2004 (Li, 2006) . The high rate of growth in industrialization increased the quality of life of many people in China. However, there were other negative impacts on environmental challenges. Environmental governance was perceived to be central in the efforts of bridging the gap that existed between the environment and industrial developments. China started building on its environmental governance structures in the middle 1970s following the United Nations conference that was held in 1972 in Sweden. Over the last 30 years, China has developed many environmental regulations and standards covering both pollution control and conservation of the natural environment. The role of the state in environmental conservation in china has been well stated in the constitution.
The Chinese leadership has put its primary focus on economic development to support its huge population; the increased economic activities have resulted in the degradation of the air, water, and soil, which are some of the environmental challenges faced by China and many other countries of the world today. Research in the year 2000 indicated that china possessed 16 out of 20 of the most polluted cities in the world (Shi & Zhang, 2006) . An estimated 700 million people in China lack access to clean water, with nearly three-quarters of the water flowing in china's cities being contaminated and unsuitable for both fish rearing activities and human consumption. One-third of the agricultural land in China is affected by acid rain. In the process of accounting for ecological and environmental loss, more than 8% of the GDP in China is offset by environmental degradation and pollution. The natural resource endowments such as forests in china have remained among the lowest in the world. Compared to the United States, China has only 16% of forested land, while the United States has 24% forested land (Shi & Zhang, 2006) . As a result of globalization and soil erosion, cultivated land remains below (0.106) compared to the world average of 0.25 hector per capita. One of the significant challenges many countries in the world are facing today is access to clean water for human consumption. In Northern China, for instance, where an estimated 46% of the people in China live, the rate of water supply is 770 cubic meters per capita while the national wide water supply per capita is 2,300 cubic meters. This indicates that water supply in northern china is only a quarter of the world average. More than 60 million people in china have hardships when accessing water for their daily needs. Forecasts estimate that the water supply in China is projected to fall to 1700 cubic meters from 2200 cubic meters by the year 2030 (Shi & Zhang, 2006) . This implies that China will meet the World Bank's definition of a water-scarce country. Over the same period, the demand for water is projected to rise to 400 billion tons annually from 120 billion tons annually. The existing water resources have been exacerbated by agricultural and domestic runoff. Industrial pollution accounts for 70% of the national total, according to SEPA. This figure emphasizes the need for control of industrial pollution in the industrialized nations of the world. The increasing number of cars in developing and the developed nations account for more than 60% of the air pollution in the major cities of the world. The urban population continues to increase; for instance, in China, the annual rate of growth of the urban population was 1.86% between the years 1999 and 2000. The increase in the population indicates an increase in water waste discharge from the cities. In the year 2000, the municipal water wastage in china stood at 22.1 billion tons, which exceeded the industrial water waste by a difference of 2.7 billion tons (Shi & Zhang, 2006) . The difference is projected to increase in the coming years as the rate of population increase in cities continues increasing steadily. The percentage of industrial water waste treated was 70%, while the treated domestic water waste was 53.6%. These figures indicate the environmental stress that the developed and the developing countries face
The following challenges have encouraged the regulatory authorities in china to employ various mechanisms to mitigate the negative impacts of environmental pollution. There have been intensive campaigns for various industrial enterprises to comply with the set standards of discharge. In the recent developments, an estimated 1.3 billion enterprises paid for the pollution levies, especially the industrial enterprise that violated the standards of discharge enhanced by SEPA in 2004. A good number of the industries coming up in china are now pursuing environmental conservation beyond the regulations set by the government. This is evident from the many numbers of ISO 14001 certified companies in china. In October 2005, 32 companies received appreciation and recognition by the SEPA as being friendly to the environment (Shi & Zhang, 2006) . Nongovernmental organizations and civil societies have continued to put considerable pressure on the companies that have continued to pollute the environment to comply with the prevailing regulations. There have been interesting changes in the role of the state and non-state actors in the environmental decision-making process and industrial environmental management.
Transformation of industries in china
Chinas industrialization process has changed over time in history. Between 1953 and 1978, the industrialization in china was based on the model developed by the Soviet Union. Heavy industries and state-owned industries dominated the sector. Data from the NBS in 2003 indicate that the industry contribution to the GDP in China rose from 17.6% to 44.4% between 1952 and 2002. Heavy industries constitute the highest polluters, between 1996 and 2003; there was a rise in heavy industries from 57% to 65.8% (Shi & Zhang, 2006) . During the same period, china experienced significantly increasing levels of competition at both the international level and domestic levels. The large scale industries in 2001 accounted for 51.14% of industrial value-added higher than 43.4% in 1996 (Shi & Zhang, 2006) . The economies of scale of both pollution abatement costs and pollution prevention are affected by the scale of industries. To increases efficiency in monitoring processes, small and medium-sized enterprises have become privatized. The medium SOEs have undergone restructuring into joint-stock companies. This has made it easier for regulators to enforce and monitor industrial enterprise compliance.
Conclusion
The environmental justice efforts have emphasized on the redistribution of costs resulting from the pollution of the environment. There has been more emphasis on environmental costs but less regard on the environmental benefits. However, both policies are effective in the development of environmental policies. Very limited studies have focused on the question of whether the environmental benefits have been effectively distributed in favor of the people with low quality of life. The need for sustainable development has attracted the attention of international bodies, and laws have been enacted to guide the relationships between the state and the non-state actors. International law focuses on equality and sovereignty of all the states and advocates for equal treatment of all the members of the international community. The rampart economic inequalities posed by environmental problems continue being solved through the use of policies.
References
Li, W. (2006). Environmental governance: Issues and challenges. Envtl. L. Rep. News & Analysis , 36 , 10505.
Shi, H., & Zhang, L. (2006). China's environmental governance of rapid industrialization. Environmental politics , 15 (02), 271-292.
Wilks, S. (Ed.). (2008). Seeking environmental justice (Vol. 46). Rodopi.
Dominelli, L. (2012). Green social work: From environmental crises to environmental justice . Polity.
Layard, A., & Holder, J. (2011). Seeking spatial and environmental justice for people and places within the European Union. In Law and Ecology (pp. 183-204). Routledge.
Greyl, L., & Minguet, A. (2014). A legal guide for communities seeking environmental justice. EJOLT Report , (17), 109.
