China is preparing to create an environmental code that will bring together its extensive legislation and address everything from pollution to the energy transition, in an effort to strengthen the legal framework in this domain.
The project of the “Ecological and Environmental Code” that China intends to create was presented this Thursday for deliberation at the National People’s Congress (NPC, the Legislature), which opened its annual session in Beijing on the same day, the official Global Times reported.
During a press conference held on Wednesday, the NPC spokesperson Lou Qinjian stated that “with China entering a phase of economic and social development marked by the green transition, there is a crucial need to have a stricter legal framework to protect the environment.”
The text, which contains 1,242 articles, is divided into five chapters covering areas such as pollution control, ecological protection, and green and low-carbon development.
According to analyst Changhao Wei of the NPC Observer portal, China currently has more than 30 laws and 100 administrative regulations in this domain.
This code, in addition to aggregating the various existing norms and standards, providing greater coherence, will also reformulate them to resolve inconsistencies and fill legal gaps.
Among Wei’s predictions, it is expected that the legislation will include laws addressing different forms of pollution, as well as standards aimed at protecting wildlife and coastal islands and tackling issues such as desertification.
Legislation on energy efficiency, renewable energies, cleaner production, and the circular economy will also be integrated.
“In the absence of a specific climate change law, the code elevates green and low-carbon development to a formal legal status and establishes its fundamental principles,” said Qin Tianbao, a law professor at Wuhan University who participated in drafting the project, cited by Global Times.
The project comes at a moment of strengthening the environmental commitment of the Asian country, on a day when the government’s work report was also presented, aiming to reduce carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by 17% between 2026 and 2030.
Greenpeace, the environmental organization, stated that this objective “puts an end to a long tradition of setting energy intensity targets” and places at the center the implications of climate plans on carbon emissions, and not on energy consumption.
However, the organization noted that as the Chinese economy continues to grow and energy efficiency stagnates, the speed of the reduction in carbon intensity will depend largely on how much renewable energy can be supplied.
Although China is the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, it has intensified its efforts in recent years to achieve its two climate goals: peak CO₂ emissions before 2030 and carbon neutrality before 2060.
The country has also committed, in its new climate plans for 2035, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by between 7% and 10% from the peak level reached and to ensure that non-fossil energy accounts for more than 30% of total energy consumption in China.
