Search

The scholarly work on China's environmental regulations in the context of “central–local” relations is dominated by the preference for a centralized approach. This article examines a centrally imposed and executed verification programme of locally reported pollution data, a rare and sustained central effort to enforce an environmental policy, namely the national pollution reduction target system. The programme was established in 2007 to curtail perceived widespread data falsification and to enhance the quality of emission data, the basis for assessing local compliance with targets. Based on an analysis of official documents and interviews with environmental officials and industry representatives, this article found that the verification programme appears to have reduced the overreporting problem with emission data, enhanced local monitoring and enforcement capacity, and to a certain degree deterred violations due to the increased frequency of national and local inspections. Nevertheless, significant challenges remain. Verification is highly resource intensive, it has involved little external oversight and public participation, the central authority has exerted significant yet unchecked discretionary powers, and poor data quality has remained an issue. Over time, the verification programme appears to have turned into essentially a “numbers game.” All those challenges indicate that a centralized enforcement approach is arguably ineffective in addressing China's long-standing problem of weak environmental policy implementation. This study also sheds lights on the classical “principal-agent” theory in the study of public bureaucracy. Not only does the principal distrust the agent, which is the main concern of the theory, but the agent also distrusts the principal. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In order to further analyse the hazards of environmental pollution caused by municipal solid waste pollution in China, and put forward the legal countermeasures of preventing and controlling solid pollution, this paper reviews the specific causes of urban solid waste pollution in China, and analyses the harm of four aspects, such as air, water, soil and landscape, caused by the pollution of municipal solid waste. The results show that the main causes of municipal solid waste pollution are, a large population, imperfect laws and regulation system, single disposal of solid wastes and poor public understanding of recycling of solid wastes. Municipal solid waste, mainly pollutes the atmospheric environment, water environment, soil environment and surface landscape. Specific legal countermeasures are proposed based on four aspects: strengthening industrial solid waste control and formulating specific control measures, perfecting the legal system for municipal solid waste control and encouraging classification recycling of garbage, enhancing the construction of a legal liability system for medical wastes and perfecting regulations for the management of electric and electronic wastes, strengthening government supervision and administrative enforcement of solid wastes. The conclusions can provide positive references to strengthen municipal solid waste disposal, relieve municipal solid waste pollution, explore control laws, and achieve an urban ecological balance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]