Combating Climate Change in China: The Role of Public Governance and Rule of Law

摘要

Despite the fact that China is still at an early stage of development, it has already overtaken the United States as the leading emitter of carbon dioxide. There is no doubt that China's effort is a crucial factor for the global fight against climate change. The success of China's efforts will largely depend on, among other things, improvement of China's public governance mechanism and rule of law. This article begins with a brief overview of the efforts China has made to combat climate change. It then discusses more fully the legal nature of the governmental documents passed in recent years, identifies the substantial weaknesses in China's public governance and implementation of rule of law that prevent effective implementation of its climate change commitments, and the ways to overcome the weaknesses. It comes to conclusion that, to the international community, helping China improve its environment administrations' ability to enforce current environmental laws and policies is a better approach than imposing on China an emission cap, and China has to take a long-term perspective and view to its development and efforts to cope with climate change.