China Environmental Law

The impact of this blog on environmental policy in China is truly astounding. The ink was barely dry on “. . . and throw away the key” when word reached us that three men were sent to prison in Foshan, Guangdong Province for the illegal disposal of hazardous wastes. The People’s court of the Nanhai district [...]

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One of the first things I noticed when I moved to China two and half years ago was the absence of birds.  Of course, having moved to the middle of Shanghai you wouldn’t expect to be in prime bird habitat, but still it was a little disconcerting. The small patch of green outside of our [...]

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Ah power from the sun, what could be more natural (except perhaps power from the wind which is also a little more iconic-the wind turbine being more inspiring than the solar panel)? Here in China, however, solar has a real image problem. Even though it is one of the major global centers of PV panel production (and [...]

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I attended a workshop today sponsored by the Shanghai Energy Conservation Supervision Center, with the endorsement of the Shanghai Economic Commission (SHEC) . Chen Jinhai from the SHEC made the opening remarks and he reiterated a theme I have been harping on for some time: the achievement of energy efficiency and pollution reduction goals are [...]

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Hey what’s everyone so excited about? Oh, it looks like I correctly guessed the acronym for the new, improved SEPA.  It will be known as the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) in English. Even though it’s clear my specualtions on this issue were instrumental in the final selection, I’m sorry I got involved. I really don’t like MEP, but [...]

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I know you have been waiting patiently for us to return to the topic of China’s water pollutant discharge standards. As you will recall there are two referenced standards in Article 9 of the new Water Pollution Prevention and Control Act amendments that a discharger needs to meet:

standards for water pollutant discharge, and
the total control [...]

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For those of you keeping score at home, last year was a good one for China in terms of achieving its energy efficiency and pollution reduction goals. The goals for 2010, I’m sure you remember, are to cut the energy consumption used to generate a unit of GDP by 20 percent and major pollutants emissions by 10 percent from 2005 [...]

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As I’ve noted previously, the new Water Pollution Prevention and Control Act amendments have not significantly changed the way water pollution is addressed and controlled in China. Rather, they have taken the provisions of the 1996 amendments and certain significant regulatory enactments and merged them into a more cohesive structure. The first three chapters of the [...]

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On this otherwise slow newsday in China (well, slow on the environmental front anyway unless you count the air pollution from burning stores and cars and lead emissions from. . . –but we don’t cover that kind of news here), let me give you this little essay.
Many ATMs in China ask if you would like to “print [...]

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The Water Pollution Prevention and Control Law amendments become effective June 1, 2008. They represent the second time the law has been amended since its initial promulgation on May 11, 1984 (the first set of amendments came into effect on May 15, 1996).   A draft version of these amendments was presented last fall for public comment. I [...]

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