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Chinese economic presence in Europe is primarily discussed as a security threat with its impact on sustainability remaining a rather marginal issue. This article investigates the repercussions of Chinese capital’s surge in Europe for environmental protection and analyses the reasons behind its poor performance. We examine five key Chinese projects in Southeast Europe, a sub-region that includes countries with different forms of association with European institutions and with varying levels of development and state capacity. We find that the negative environmental impact of these projects cannot be attributed to the commonly held perception of the Chinese as inherently “bad” investors and of host states as “weak” and dependent. Rather, we identify a synergy of failures between investors, host states and regional institutions that results in poor regulation and compliance. This finding calls for the inclusion of sustainability in foreign investment screening mechanisms and the abandonment of contradictory developmental priorities in the region.

"This paper seeks to understand what government mechanisms have allowed China's wind industry to grow as fast as it has over the past ten years. Instead of formal rules and regulations, this paper focuses on specific sets of institutional conditions that have been crucial in the process of high-speed implementation of wind energy in China. Specifically, fragmentation and centralisation, together with policy experimentation and policy learning, have been fundamental for policy flexibility and institutional adaptability. The paper illustrates that there are benefits and disadvantages to these characteristics, and that inherent qualities of China's governing system that lead to rapid growth overlap with those that lead to challenges in terms of quality and long-term performance." (author's abstract)

"In representative governments, a healthy turnover of power among ruling parties is viewed as a critical sign of democratic principles. In a political environment where voters' opinion is the key political driver, the greatest challenge facing the NGO community is often that environmental concerns only represent secondary aspects of the policy-making process. This article focuses on the transformations (or lack thereof) in Taiwan's environmental governance, under different political parties, particularly during the past few years. I begin with an overview of the key issues that have characterised Taiwan's environmental movement and its battles, starting with the democratic transition of the mid-1980s, before focusing on two developmental projects - Taiwan's eighth petrochemical plant and fourth nuclear power facility - to bring to light the most significant changes and continuities in the environmental-policy realm. I pay special attention to the post-2008 period and the ensuing renaissance experienced by the environmental movement, among others. The final section considers the consequences of the KMT's second elect-oral victory - in January 2012 - for environmental policies and, in light of the article's findings, summarises what has changed and what has consistently remained the same under different ruling parties." (author's abstract)

This study traces the transnational interactions that contributed to introducing the low-carbon economy agenda into Chinese policymaking. A microprocessual two-level analysis (outside-in as well as inside-access) is employed to analyse transnational and domestic exchanges. The study provides evidence that low-carbon agenda-setting – introduced by transnational actors, backed by foreign funding, promoted by policy entrepreneurs from domestic research institutes, propelled by top-level attention, but only gradually and cautiously adopted by the government bureaucracy – can be considered a case of effective transnational diffusion based on converging perceptions of novel policy challenges and options. Opinion leaders and policy-brokers from the government-linked scientific community functioned as effective access points to the Chinese government's policy agenda.

Although Taiwan arguably needs civil and official collaboration on environmental protection, the implementation of an efficient system of environmental regulations has often been hindered by the many actors involved in the process of environmental governance (state, economic actors, civil society, media), whose interests are divergent. Consequently, there is no uniform, homogeneous authority for environmental governance but rather a variety of official and less official agents of authority whose interests and powers overlap and compete. In this paper we will introduce a case study dealing with the controversy surrounding the construction of an alternative road connecting Danshui ([Formula: see text]) with Taibei City (namely, the Danshui North Shore Road Project, [Formula: see text], Danbei daolu) to elucidate what the key influences are that govern environmental power dynamics between different agents with conflicting (or, sometimes, colluding) interests and how these multiple levels of interaction are negotiated by the various players. Our hypothesis holds that although environmental policies are, for the most part, mandated from the top, at the local level their implementation can be bypassed, altered or stalled by these various agents.

This paper outlines how the evolution of China's policy and study of the environment are reflected in the scholarly literature, paying special attention to the impact of the country's environmental developments on international relations. In particular, it examines accounts of how China has moved from an isolated national scientific and environmental control infrastructure into the centre of international environmental debates as its society has opened and the geographical scale of ecological problems has expanded. The paper also identifies the continuing inhibitors to China's ability to control environmental degradation -including lack of transparency, elite manipulation, and bureaucratic weaknesses – despite the opening of China's system to limited participation of civil society in its environmental debates.

This paper discusses environmental complaints made by citizens living close to industrial polluters in China. Data collected from a questionnaire survey in Suzhou City is used for the analysis. The results confirm a marginal level of citizen environmental complaints in the study area at present. Meaningful findings include the fact that citizens have a tendency to complain collectively, and that perception of the level of environmental information provided by companies significantly determines a citizen's likelihood of lodging environmental complaints. Therefore, the disclosure of corporate environmental information must be emphasized continuously; citizens must be encouraged to correctly understand the environmental performance of companies so that they might make appropriate complaints. Governments need to show their support for citizen-led environmental complaint initiatives. The successful cases would convince them to keep a closer eye on their neighbouring polluters.

China's Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP), has set up six regional Supervision Centres for Environmental Protection (SCEPs) in recent years. The creation of the SCEPs reflects the “green will” of Chinese government, to reverse the ever-worsening environmental situation throughout China by strengthening vertical supervision of the environmental laws and policies enforcement. A primary analysis focusing on the South China Supervision Centre (SCSC) has clearly shown, however, that the SCEPs today can only perform well in the concrete or “small” tasks – most of them designated or handed over by the MEP – rather than in the complicated or “big” issues. To make the SCEPs do more and better, the most desirable but radical policy choice is to reshape them into fully authorised regional “sub-bureaus” of the MEP.

This paper describes empirical observations gathered during a research project on the implementation of environmental protection (EP) policies in China. The project focused on local EP in both urban and rural areas. Policy field analysis was used as a conceptual framework for structuring the observations. The paper develops in three main steps discussing the following topics: 1) Collective problems within the policy field of EP show that EP issues in general are unlike those of other policy fields. Official EP policies in China today resemble those of other countries – but they are separating issues and responsibilities, making local implementation very demanding. 2) China lags behind in its willingness and ability to implement these policies – leading to implementation gaps. To explore the causes and consequences, specific sites in China are described in an extended look at local implementation structures. It was found that although policies in China are basically the same everywhere, the structures for implementing them and the quality of their implementation vary widely with regard to resources, organization, coordination, staff qualifications, personnel placement, and other aspects. 3) Not all of the challenges hampering local implementation of environmental policies were China-specific; however, some of those which are can be described as the macro-context: an ineffective rule of law, insufficient involvement of civil society, and complicated macro-structures of public administration prevent a generally high level of successful EP implementation in China.

According to the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report, global emissions of carbon dioxide have to be reduced by about 80 per cent by 2050 in order to stabilise the increase in global temperature at 2 to 2.4°C by 2100 compared with its pre-industrial level. An increase of only 2°C would bring about “acceptable” negative impacts on the eco-systems and the world economy. Without a reduction in CO2 emissions in China, however, it will be hard to achieve this goal. Currently, China is already responsible for about 50 per cent of the worldwide increase in CO2 emissions recorded over the past ten years. On the other hand, it is the industrialised countries that are mainly responsible for the greenhouse-gas emissions of earlier years. Taking the challenges of China's economic growth, its impact on future CO2 emissions and the development of China's climate policy into account, this article develops a new post-Kyoto regime based on cumulative per-capita emission rights.