China’s current environmental situation represents a direct result of the country’s rapid industrialization, which happened on a scale without precedent. Chinese environmental problems have a threefold root cause, caused by separate but interrelated issues. These elements are China’s lack of funding for its environmental regulatory agency, significant reliance on conventional coal-fired power, and single-minded emphasis on economic growth, experts explain. In this way, experts stress that one of the root causes of China’s environmental challenges is that the country’s environmental regulatory agency (the Ministry of Environmental Protection) is underfunded. For these reasons, the Ministry does not have the adequate funding to monitor, report, and penalize environmental polluters. The severe environmental damages caused by Chinese rapid industrialization both in China and across the Asia-Pacific have found officials unprepared, leaving the country without adequate systems, experts suggest. Moreover, data show that China’s pollution has been linked to new smog problems in neighbouring countries as Japan. In addition to this, U.S. coastal cities such as Los Angeles and Seattle have argued that their air quality was strongly affected by smog that crosses the Pacific Ocean. In this context, experts show that another root cause of Chinese environmental matters is the country’s reliance over the last 30 years on conventional coal-fired power. According to a recent study, more than half of China’s air pollution can be attributed to coal use alone. In order to overcome these issues, China is moving away from its highest-polluting sources of energy, using cleaner supplies and promoting the use of fossil fuels. For these reasons, some experts have argued that China is driving the world in developing alternative energy and in developing cleaner versionsof existing technologies: its actions can be seen as “an area of achievement that is objectively good for the world as a whole”. In relation to that, Chinese environmental policy represents a positive signal of the government’s ability to respond to environmental and energy problems in a constructive way. The gLAWcal Team EPSEI project Tuesday, 20 November 2014 (Source: NBR)