Obstacles to linking emissions trading systems in the EU and China:A comparative law and economics perspective

De koppeling van het Chinese emissiehandelssysteem (ETS) aan het Europese systeem kan aanzienlijke economische, ecologische en politieke voordelen opleveren. Koppeling is echter geenszins een eenvoudig proces, zeker niet als het gaat om de twee grootste emissiehandelssystemen ter wereld met opmerkelijke verschillen en uiteenlopende beleidsprioriteiten. De huidige literatuur richt zich met name op de algemene belemmeringen die een rol kunnen spelen bij het koppelen van twee emissiehandelssystemen, maar gaat nog niet specifiek over de EU en China en over noodzakelijke maatwerk in de afstemming van beleid. Gezien de leemte in de literatuur en de politieke belangstelling die is geuit, beoogt dit proefschrift de discussies op wetenschappelijk gebied en op beleidsvlak te verrijken door belemmeringen voor een koppeling tussen de emissiehandelssystemen van de EU en China in kaart te brengen. Door toepassing van een vergelijkende rechtseconomische benadering heeft dit onderzoek tot doel het huidige regelgevingskader voor broeikasgasemissies in beide jurisdicties te onderzoeken. Voorts worden de belangrijkste punten van zorg voor een toekomstig verband in kaart gebracht, waaronder de heterogeniteit van systeemontwerpen (bv. de vaststelling van emissieplafonds) en de verschillen in de regelgeving (bv. handhaving van de ETS-regeling). Tenslotte worden in dit proefschrift oplossingen voorgesteld om de koppeling te vergemakkelijken en wordt besproken hoe deze bevindingen kunnen bijdragen aan de besluitvorming over cruciale vragen die in de eerste plaats moeten worden gesteld, namelijk: of, wanneer en hoe de koppeling tot stand komt

Obstacles to linking emissions trading systems in the EU and China:A comparative law and economics perspective

De koppeling van het Chinese emissiehandelssysteem (ETS) aan het Europese systeem kan aanzienlijke economische, ecologische en politieke voordelen opleveren. Koppeling is echter geenszins een eenvoudig proces, zeker niet als het gaat om de twee grootste emissiehandelssystemen ter wereld met opmerkelijke verschillen en uiteenlopende beleidsprioriteiten. De huidige literatuur richt zich met name op de algemene belemmeringen die een rol kunnen spelen bij het koppelen van twee emissiehandelssystemen, maar gaat nog niet specifiek over de EU en China en over noodzakelijke maatwerk in de afstemming van beleid. Gezien de leemte in de literatuur en de politieke belangstelling die is geuit, beoogt dit proefschrift de discussies op wetenschappelijk gebied en op beleidsvlak te verrijken door belemmeringen voor een koppeling tussen de emissiehandelssystemen van de EU en China in kaart te brengen. Door toepassing van een vergelijkende rechtseconomische benadering heeft dit onderzoek tot doel het huidige regelgevingskader voor broeikasgasemissies in beide jurisdicties te onderzoeken. Voorts worden de belangrijkste punten van zorg voor een toekomstig verband in kaart gebracht, waaronder de heterogeniteit van systeemontwerpen (bv. de vaststelling van emissieplafonds) en de verschillen in de regelgeving (bv. handhaving van de ETS-regeling). Tenslotte worden in dit proefschrift oplossingen voorgesteld om de koppeling te vergemakkelijken en wordt besproken hoe deze bevindingen kunnen bijdragen aan de besluitvorming over cruciale vragen die in de eerste plaats moeten worden gesteld, namelijk: of, wanneer en hoe de koppeling tot stand komt

Electricity Production and Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading

Producing energy by burning fossil fuels leads to the emission of greenhouse gases, such as CO2. These emissions can be reduced in a cost-effective manner by implementing an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). An ETS allows legal entities, such as power companies and/or energy-intensive industries, to buy and sell emission rights under an increasingly stringent reduction target. There are three basic design variants of an ETS: cap-and-trade (allowance trading), performance standard rate trading, and project-based credit trading. These variants perform differently in terms of effectiveness and efficiency. The number of ETSs around the world is slowly increasing, with most of Europe, parts of North America, Kazakhstan, China, South Korea and New Zealand now covered. Only a limited number of ETSs have been linked, with some linking taking place within (though not yet between) continents. Emissions trading is an emerging regulatory instrument to efficiently protect the environment, but there remains a long way to go before a global carbon price is realised

Organic Room-Temperature Phosphorescence Materials: from Fundamental Triplet Exciton Modulations to Novel Applications in Biosensing and Bioimaging

Metal-free purely organic phosphors are an emerging class of room-temperature phosphorescence (RTP) materials and have attracted great attention over the past decade, owning to their potentials in a variety of advanced photofunctional applications, including organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs), chemical sensing, bioimaging, phototheranostics, and digital security. Organic phosphorescence refers to photons emitted from triplet excited states (excitons), which is associated with spin-forbidden transitions. The weak spin-orbit coupling (SOC) due to the lack of heavy atoms in purely organic materials leads to long-lived triplet excitons that are highly susceptible to oxygen quenching and molecular vibration deactivation. Therefore, organic phosphorescence is typically only observed at cryogenic temperatures and under inert conditions. This presents both opportunities and challenges in triplet exciton utilization at room temperature. The first part of this dissertation highlights the technologies we have developed leveraging the unique oxygen quenching aspect of organic RTP for in vivo tissue hypoxia imaging and in vitro phosphorimetric biodetection. Ischemia-induced hypoxia is a common complication associated with numerous retinopathies affecting more than 160 million people worldwide. Early detection and long-term visualization of retinal tissue hypoxia is essential to understand the pathophysiology and treatment of ischemic retinopathies, however, no effective solution exists to this problem. We have demonstrated a versatile lipid-polymer hybrid organic RTP nanoparticle (NP) platform that optically visualizes chorioretinal tissue hypoxia in real-time and with high signal-to-noise ratio. This represents the first non-destructive detection method. Additionally, we have extended the application of these organic RTP NPs to a highly sensitive phosphorimetric assay through the integration with a signal-amplifying enzymatic oxygen scavenging reaction and a sandwich-DNA hybridization assay on 96-well plates. The phosphorimetric sensor demonstrates sequence-specific detection of a cell-free cancer biomarker with a 0.5 pM detection limit. By re-programming the detection probe, our methodology can be adapted to a broad range of biosensor applications for biomarkers of great clinical importance yet difficult to detect due to their low abundance in vivo. In the second and third parts of this dissertation, we focus on fundamental studies of photophysical characteristics of triplet excitons and provide deeper insight into material design strategies for modulating triplet energy and accelerating light extraction more efficiently. Despite the controversial opinions on the matter of spin angular momentum conservation during energy transfer, we have shown efficient intermolecular triplet-to-singlet energy transfer (T-S ET) in purely organic luminescent materials through a pseudo-Förster resonance energy transfer pathway. The T-S ET process quenches the organic RTP emission from donor triplet excitons and sensitizes acceptor singlet excitons, which ultimately induces ambient delayed fluorescence, with the ET efficiency as high as 75.5%. Finally, we aim to address the weak SOC and molecular vibration issues simultaneously in a single material system—metal-organic framework (MOF). Organic phosphors are incorporated into highly ordered and rigid MOFs via coordination bonding to zirconium (Zr)- and hafnium (Hf)-metal clusters. The obtained MOFs are isostructural to UiO-67, and exhibit strong long-lived RTP and stable high-temperature phosphorescence (HTP) that persists up to 400K. The heavier UiO-67 (Hf) framework is found to be more effective than its Zr counterpart at suppressing molecular motions and facilitating phosphorescence emission. This work has identified critical material design parameters and structural basis for organic phosphorescence of high brightness and desirable stability, hence holds the promise to solve the long-standing efficiency roll-off issue in phosphorescence OLEDs.PhDMacromolecular Science & EngineeringUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/170023/1/yyzeng_1.pd

Examining Immigrant Experiences in Asset Building: Implications for Asset-Based Policies

The economic integration of immigrants has long interested researchers and policymakers, with late but now growing attention on their asset- and wealth-building. Current research on immigrants’ asset building has largely focused on their individual-level characteristics, and not much on opportunities and constraints related to policy arrangements. This dissertation addresses the selection, adaptation, and impacts of immigration, with a goal to expand knowledge about asset-based social welfare policy in light of immigrants’ experiences. This investigation leverages two nationally representative datasets, the New Immigrant Survey and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (1997), to understand immigrants’ asset accumulation and intergenerational wealth mobility. Employing a series of advanced statistical models—logistic regression, propensity score analysis, and hierarchical modeling, this dissertation comprises three empirical papers investigating immigrants’ settlement, legal status, financial access, and wealth building, with analyses extending to the second generation. The dissertation consists of three papers. The first paper examines how initial legal status affects lawful permanent residents’ (LPRs) asset building by investigating three types of financial assets—bank account ownership, investment account ownership, and retirement account ownership. The second paper tests the impact of being banked at an earlier stage of immigration on immigrants’ subsequent asset holding, with self-selection bias addressed by using a nationally representative data set. The third paper examines wealth trajectories of children from immigrant and native-born families from their mid-20s to their mid-30s, with a focus on the role parental financial assets play in shaping these trajectories. Overall, the results show that how immigrants fare financially in the United States largely depends on what resources they can access in the United States. Institutional-level support in asset building and quality social networks may help them to achieve better financial outcomes. In addition, the findings reveal that children of immigrants were disadvantaged in wealth growth during their young to mid-adulthood compared to their peers from the native-born families. Together, these three papers turn new ground in extending asset-building research and policy to immigrant population, an important segment of the U.S. economy and society. The findings may inform inclusive asset-building policies, immigrant economic integration programs, and immigrant tailored financial services

Credit-Building Services for Employees: An Assessment of Engagement and Outcomes

Employee financial wellness programs (EFWPs) are gaining in popularity as a strategy to address workers\u27 financial challenges and goals beyond offering health and retirement benefits. Most workers say they are stressed about their finances1 and a third are less productive at work because of this stress.2 Although employers are increasingly interested in offering EFWPs, little research has been conducted concerning these workplace financial products and services