Sites, useful links, 2014-2018, environmental law in China; http://scipeople.ru/group/327/topic/12867/ ;

https://www.chinadialogue.net/Environmental-Protection-Law-2014-eversion.pdf
**China Environmental Policy and the Textile Industry in 2018ina Environmental Policy and the Textile Industry in 2018
https://www.sgtgroup.net/textile-quality-management-blog/china-environmental-policy

**In recent years, the problem has become so severe that according to the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, only 35% of the researched sites across China have water of good quality, 32% are suitable for water supply, another 20% can be used for industrial manufacturing and agriculture but not for human contact.

Within the textile industry in China, companies have found themselves in the environmental spotlight as well.  
As the world’s largest producer of textiles, the industry has historically been one of the worst polluters in terms of carbon emissions and water pollution.  
In a January 2018 article in Devex, Kurt Kipka, senior project manager at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) attributed 1,715 million tons of carbon dioxide, accounting for 5.4% of the global total, for 2015 alone.  
Mr. Kipka also stated that these factors make the textile industry one of the top five polluting industries.  
Even China’s official data from the Ministry of Environmental Protection show that in the same year, 2015, the textile industry in China was the third largest source of wastewater and released 10.1% or 1.84 billion tons of wastewater effluent into the environment.
 
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Committing to Change

 
Since the passage of China’s original environmental protection law in 1989, China’s economy has changed drastically and rapidly.
However, the passage of a law is only as good as the commitment and enforcement that go with it.  
And while the wording was comparable to environmental laws in other industrial countries, the failure came in the lack of enforcement and accountability and in the commitment to implement a true China environmental policy.
As the crisis worsened in the early 2000’s, it became apparent that more needed to be done to address the overall issue of pollution and environmental damage before that damage became irreversible.  
As a result, changes and revisions in environmental law have increased year over year since 2014 to implement oversight and enforcement of industrial impact on the environment:

  China environmental law in 2015

 Adopted in April 2014, revisions to China’s 1989 environmental law were designed to begin addressing enforcement issues and to bring civil society and the media into the process through awareness and transparency.  
The revisions went into effect on January 1 2015, and targeted several areas:

• Clarification of Public Interest Litigation:  The 1989 law was vague in its wording for who could qualify as a plaintiff in pollution cases.  The new law clarified the process and definition of who could bring cases forward therefore increasing the likelihood that judges would hear the case.
  
• Enforcement:  Previously, fines for pollution were small and irregular in application allowing offending industries to pay the fine as a cost of doing business rather than purchase equipment to mitigate the pollution itself.  The revision allowed daily fines and removed the cap on environmental fines making the cost of non-compliance more severe.  The changes also allowed for up to fifteen days of detention for company managers who are careless in following the law or who intentionally circumvent regulations.
  
• Transparency:  The revision also expanded and strengthened the requirements for environmental impact studies and made pollution data available to the public.  It also implemented a control system for total emissions of certain pollutants and created requirements for emergency control plans.
  

  China environmental law in 2016

 As the new laws and regulations began to take hold, 2016 saw changes in participation, awareness and accountability.  
As the new Environmental Protection Law went into effect, several trends emerged:

• Local and regional Government Action:  As the revisions took hold, local and provincial governments began to increase involvement with most providing an environmental report for their region and many provinces creating environmental protection plans.  Spending by these local governments on environmental protection initiatives also increased.
  
• Law Enforcement and Courts:  As the understanding of the new laws became clearer, courts began to accept cases based on the new EPL at a rate 2.5 times the rate of previous years.  In addition, direct actions taken in over 22,000 cases brought before courts in 2016 included equipment seizures (44%), work stoppage (25%), daily fines (4%), detentions (18%) and in some cases, criminal charges (9%).
  
• The Paris Accord: In September of 2016 China fully committed to the Paris accord and set forth intentions to reduce fossil fuel use by 20%.
  
• Environmental Impact Assessment:  This change strengthened penalties and simplified the process to peg penalties to the overall value of the project cost.  Penalties could be levied for up to 5% of the total project cost, a considerable amount for large-scale projects.
  

 China environmental law in 2017

 This year saw changes to the law that began to specifically target certain types of pollution and increase penalties for non-compliance:

• Construction:  Revisions were added for construction firms requiring an environmental impact study.  Local governments were tasked with the responsibility of reviewing and approving the study and assuring compliance.
  
• Local Accountability:  Additional changes in 2017 put the focus on local government officials making them accountable for assuring full implementation of the EPL law and regulations by businesses.  Local and provincial officials could now be held directly accountable for environmental issues.
  

China environmental law in 2018

 
As 2018 dawned, additional revisions and restrictions were made to existing law to further strengthen the China environmental policy:

• Environmental Protection Tax Law:  This law replaced the emissions discharge fee and moved all tax proceeds to the local government.  Local and provincial governments may set rates applicable to their conditions to promote compliance and fund initiatives.
  
• Water Pollution Prevention and Control Law:  This law defines responsibilities for government officials along the waterway and holds them jointly responsible for pollution control and maintenance.  The law is designed to encourage officials to pool resources to work toward environmental control instead of addressing only the concerns for their specific area.  The law also vastly increased fines for illegal discharge into a waterway.
  

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