Discussion on Compensation Standards at the Regional Level Based on Pollution Footprint: A Case Study of Guangzhou

The establishment of standards in ecological compensation is a core issue in ecological compensation research. While it is more scientific to study ecological compensation standard by using the ecological footprint.The ecological footprint of regional level should not encompass all what is needed in production and living. What should be accounted, instead, is ecological footprint that cannot be avoided and must be produced or absorbed by this region, namely the pollution footprint. A model of the standards for ecological compensation is devised, based on the concept of pollution footprint and a case study of Guangzhou. Using four types of main pollutant emissions in 2010 in Guangzhou as the criteria of calculation, the per-capital efficiency of pollution footprint and pollution footprint of the three groups are calculated separately, according to the three major industrial sectors. Then the compensation of the three groups is calculated respectively by the standard set with regard to the average ecological conditions in Guangzhou. The results show that the primary and the tertiary industry, due to the transfer of pollution footprint, should be compensated 67.379 billion yuan and 1.926728 trillion yuan respectively, and the secondary industry, for more share of the ecological footprint, should pay 207.037 billion yuan in the ecological compensation. The research attempts to introduce pollution footprint theory into the research of the standard on ecological compensation. It can not only enrich the conceptual richness of the ecological footprint theory, but also provide useful empirical materials for the research on ecological compensation standard.