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10.25.17China Shuts Down Tens of Thousands of Factories in Unprecedented Pollution Crackdown
NPR
In the gritty industrial town of Yiwu, workers prepare jeans to be dyed in a vivid range of colors.Two months ago, this factory — and this entire city, located in China's eastern province of Zhejiang — was a much quieter place. Inspection crews...
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10.05.17China Sees Difficulty Meeting 2017 Air Quality Targets: Minister
China faces difficulties in meeting its smog-fighting target for 2017, its environmental protection minister said during a visit to four heavily industrialized provinces in northern China, where the country’s air pollution problem is especially...
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09.27.17Chinese Cities Order Steel Output Cuts Earlier Than Expected to Fend off Smog
South China Morning Post
The city of Handan in the top steelmaking province of Hebei has ordered steel mills to halve output a month earlier than expected, according to media reports, the latest city to ramp up efforts to reduce the smog that blankets northern China during...
Environment
08.24.17
Testing the Limits of China’s Environmental Law
from chinadialogue
Friends of Nature, a Beijing-based non-governmental organization (NGO), filed two landmark cases against a local Environmental Protection Bureau in Yunnan this year that have revealed the current limits of one of the most hopeful provisions in China...
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08.22.17China Says Economy Unaffected by Environmental Inspections
South China Morning Post
China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection said that recent environmental inspections did not hurt the country’s economy and blamed some ”inappropriate methods” conducted by local authorities for causing short–term market dislocation.
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06.02.17Trump Hands the Chinese a Gift: The Chance for Global Leadership
New York Times
The Chinese are eager to fill the void that Washington is leaving around the world on everything from setting the rules of trade and environmental standards to financing infrastructure projects.
Environment
11.16.16
The Future of Public Interest Litigation in China
from chinadialogue
China has seen a rapid growth in environmental public interest legal challenges since January 2015, when a revised version of the Environmental Protection Law (EPL) came into effect. Nearly 100 lawsuits have been filed by both NGOs and public...
Environment
08.29.16
Environmental Law Blunted by Crippling Court Costs
from chinadialogue
Zhenhua Ltd. is a glass-making firm based in Dezhou, a city in China’s northeastern Shandong province. The factory sits amid a cluster of modern residential areas, so when the company failed to limit its emissions of polluted air and dust into the...
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06.21.16China Prosecutors Win Landmark Lawsuit Against Environmental Department
Reuters
First public interest case vs. government department producing dyes with inappropriate safeguards....
Environment
06.25.15
Growing Pains for China’s New Environmental Courts
from chinadialogue
In recent years, China has set up hundreds of new environmental courts as part of institutional reforms that aim to encourage greener growth and curb pollution, but the country will have to speed up training and recruitment to ensure judges have the...
Environment
03.26.15
China Court to Hear NGO Lawsuit Targeting Polluter’s Profits
from chinadialogue
An environmental group has filed a lawsuit for 30 million yuan (U.S.$4.8 million) to seek compensation from a Shandong chemical company for pumping out harmful substances—a legal action thought to be the first public interest litigation for air...
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03.19.15Coal Boomtowns Fade as China Declares War on Pollution
Science
China is headed towards peak coal which means cities reliant on coal mining struggle.
Environment
02.23.15
Chinese Firms Must Act Decisively on Climate Change, Report Says
from chinadialogue
Chinese companies will need to cut direct greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of their operations by up to 2.7% a year if China is to stay on track with the level of action required to keep global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius, says a new report...
Environment
01.09.15
China’s Polluters Hit with Biggest-Ever Fines
from chinadialogue
Two days before a new environmental law came into effect, six polluting companies in Jiangsu were ordered by the province’s highest court to pay 160 million yuan ($26 million) in restoration costs for illegally dumping almost 25,000 tons of chemical...
Environment
09.10.14
The Dark Side of the Boom
from chinadialogue
Just over a year ago, in July 2013, a report published in the U.S. journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, put the health impacts of air pollution in China into an unusually clear framework: residents of south China, the report said...
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08.14.14China Tells Citizens to Walk, Bike, and Snitch in “United Struggle” to Breathe Easier
Quartz
The environmental ministry has published a set of guidelines for citizens, which encourage them not only to reduce their personal environmental imprint, but to also turn in polluting and wasteful neighbors.
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09.11.13The Search for Sustainable Legitimacy: Environmental Law and Bureaucracy
Social Science Research Network
This article seeks to offer insight into a number of broader ongoing debates — about environmental regulation in developing countries, accountability and regime survival in authoritarian states, and legal development in China.