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Topic:Environmental NGOs, Public Participation, and Governance
While China's GDP growth rate has averaged nearly 10 percent over the past 25 years, environmental degradation is costing the country 8 percent of its GDP annually, which in effect nullifies the country's economic advances. In the 1980s, the Chinese government began introducing environmental laws and welcoming assistance from international NGOs as well as from bilateral and multilateral aid agencies. Since the 1990s, China's environmental legislation has quickly moved from a focus on command and control regulation to more progressive public participation and market incentive laws. The tenth and eleventh Five-Year Plans included many ambitious environmental and energy efficiency targets.
Paralleling these progressive environmental laws has been a marked opening for civil society development, for by the early 1990s it became clear to China's top leaders that, given the downsizing of the central government and growing power of the local governments, they needed help to address a broad range of emerging social and environmental ills and keep local governments in check. Therefore, in 1994 the government passed regulations, which for the first time granted legal status to independent NGOs. Environmental groups were the first to register and now form the largest sector of civil society groups in China. By the late 1990s a handful of these NGOs--often in partnership with international NGOs--had become watchdogs of local government and industry, helped pollution victims get access to courts, undertaken subtle lobbying of the government, and worked to give rural communities the power to protect and manage their local resources. For example, in 2004, Chinese green NGOs initiated a national campaign to promote transparent decision-making in dam building on the Nu River in Yunnan Province. Click here for more information on the campaign.
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Events
Greening Business in China
Friday, July 11 2008, 9:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.
Terry Yosie, World Environment Center; Weijia Ye, New Ventures/World Resources Institute
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Seeking Solutions for Water Scarcity in China
Tuesday, April 08 2008, 9:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.
Bryan Lohmar, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service; Wang Rong, China University of Political Science & Law and the China Center for Law and Sustainable Development Research
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Efforts in Moving Towards a Low Carbon Future: China's Energy Conservation and Renewable Energy Laws
Wednesday, February 13 2008, 9:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.
Wang Mingyuan, Center for Environmental, Natural Resources & Energy Law, Tsinghua University
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Restocking China's Environmental Tool Kit
Thursday, January 31 2008, 9:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
Roger Martella, General Counsel of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency;
Debbi Seligsohn, World Resources Institute
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Greening China From the Grassroots Up
Thursday, October 18 2007, 9:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.
Daniela Salaverry, Pacific Environment; Chris LaDue, Mountain Institute
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China Environment Forum
Woodrow Wilson Center
One Woodrow Wilson Plaza
1300 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20004-3027
Email: cef@wilsoncenter.org
Tel: 202/691-4233
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