China Environmental Law

This is how it is supposed to work.  The developer (a branch of China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation) of the proposed Maoming paraxylene (PX) project to be built within the Maoming Oil Refinery Plant has apparently learned the lessons from Xiamen where well-orchestrated, but unsanctioned, public protests forced the relocation of a similar facility.
It is conducting [...]

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I just stumbled upon a China Daily opinion piece, “No Green Signal,” from June 16 that deals with the game that is played by the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) and developers of hydroelectric projects.  In this game MEP and the environment always lose.
Often times, work on projects suspended for environmental reasons are allowed to [...]

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I made a presentation today at a seminar sponsored by a large, international company which offers environmental consulting services in China.  The topic was “Sustainable Redevelopment of Contaminated Land.”   There was a lively audience and lots of good questions.  Now if we just had a lot of good answers we’d be making some progress. [...]

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I applaud China’s willingness to publish the results of environmental and energy audits when the results do not paint a pretty picture.  The National Audit Office (NAO) yesterday released a report containing the results of its audit of the compliance efforts of 41 major state-owned enterprises (SOE) in 2007.  It found that a number of [...]

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Where has the time gone today? Several things to report on, but they will have to wait until tomorrow. I did learn at lunch that tales of the Shennongjia’s “wild man” are well-known in China. One person told me their mother used to threaten to send them to Shennongjia when they got a little out [...]

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At the suggestion of the wise Adam Minter, I’ve decoupled today’s orginal post.  While both portions relate to the same locale, they address seperate (but equally important) issues.  Here’s one part:
Had I not read this story about Shennongjia’s quest for “ecological compensation” (which is the subject of today’s other feature) I would have missed the [...]

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There was a flurry of stories this weekend that reported as breaking news the fact that US climate envoy Todd Stern was not seeking an absolute cap on carbon emissions from China.  I was a little surprised by these reports because to the best of my knowledge Stern has never stated he was seeking such [...]

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CELB has lots more to write on the US-China climate change front, but much of it may be mooted by what comes out of this week’s meetings between US climate envoy Todd Stern and his Chinese counterparts.  I don’t think anyone is expecting a big breakthrough, but we should be able to read through the [...]

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Hats off to Zhou Shengxian, the Minister of the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP)!  He has always been fairly outspoken and frankly critical of local implementation of national environmental laws and policies, but his comments today in an interview with China Daily reveal a new level of commitment to China’s environment, and a candor not often [...]

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Todd Stern (quoted by Bloomberg):
“I don’t think that there’s any question that China and the other major economies have to be in the game,” Stern said today on a conference call with reporters. “They’re doing a lot already, but they’re going to need to do more actions and commit to them and be able to [...]

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