China Environmental Law

The Panyu waste incineration plant protest in Guangzhou last week was important for a number of reasons, but one of the most thoughtful takes on the event comes from an unlikely source, the Communist Party of China’s Guangdong Party School.
In an article entitled, “Confronting pollution: ‘expel it’ or ‘manage it’”? (I’d welcome a better translation, [...]

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In September President Hu Jintao announced at the United Nations that China would reduce the amount of its carbon emissions per unit of GDP by a “notable margin.”  We now have China’s definition of notable.  It means 40-45% reduction from 2005 levels by 2020 (at the high end, that’s 3% off 2005 emissions per year).  [...]

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[Reprinted in full from The Economist, Economist Debate: "This house believes that China is showing more leadership than America in the fight against climate change" Please read and vote your conscience which will no doubt be in perfect harmony with the position expressed below]
China and the United States can and should do more to lead the world [...]

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As I write, a protest is taking place in Guangzhou, against plans to build a waste incineration plant.  I don’t know much about the facts of the case, such as where is it in the planning process, has an Environmental Impact Assessment been performed, was the public consulted, were there hearings, etc.  But the demonstration [...]

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I just finished reviewing the US-China Joint Clean Energy Agreements, and I barely have the motivation to type.  I know how much effort people of goodwill put into the work of securing substantive agreements in these areas.  The Chinese side while not positively obstructionist was, for the most part, not very interested in engaging in [...]

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The climate portion of Obama’s China visit has come and gone.  In its wake it left several separate MOUs which are, quite frankly, a little flimsier than I had hoped, but represent progress nonetheless.  I’ll address them later.  For those who bothered to read to the end of the US-China Joint Statement, there was also [...]

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President Barack Obama has backed a plan by the host of next month’s climate change talks in Copenhagen to seek a political deal and leave legally binding decisions for later, a U.S. official said on Sunday.
Obama backs two-step plan to reach climate deal, Reuters (Nov. 14).
Obama says the goal at the Copenhagen meeting should be [...]

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Greenpeace issued a report several weeks ago, during my hiatus, that I have just had an opportunity to review.  Poisoning the Pearl is based on the results of wastewater samples conducted by Greenpeace investigators of several facilities operating in the Pearl River Delta.  The results were discouraging, but predictable.

All the facilities sampled were found [...]

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This may be old news, but I just came across a site that has the artwork I saw featured in the Shanghai People’s Square metro station several weeks ago.  They were produced for the China Environmental Protection Foundation.
They are definitely worth closer inspection, and made a tremendous impact when they were featured on the subway [...]

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Several weeks ago the China Environment News (CEN) ran a story about the human impacts of a dam built on the on the Lancang River in Manwan, Yunnan province in 1986.  The article claims that in contrast to the promises of the dam developers, the Yunnan Huaneng Lancang River Hydropower Development Co., Ltd., that living [...]

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