To tackle the present environmental challenges, China has been promoting several transitioning strategies to improve the performance of environmental governance systems. It is then crucial for various stakeholders, including the manufacturing industries, multi-national companies, and global environmental NGOs to understand and cope with such transitions. Meanwhile, It would also be beneficial for other developing or transitioning economies to learn from China’s experience.
This project will identify the key challenges and examine the effectiveness of the transitioning environmental governance systems, thus providing both theoretical guidance and practical insights for both central and local governments during the transition. It also looks into the active roles of non-state actors in environmental governance, such as global environmental NGOs, local grassroots NGOs, national think tanks, and environmental consultancy in both public and private sectors. Key outputs of the project will include not only academic publications but also policy advisory documents to the Chinese government, as well as white-paper reports and cases studies published by UNEP.
The project is funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) with 3 million RMB (over £340,000), and Dr Lingxuan Liu is the Co-Investigator of based in Pentland Centre of Lancaster University, managing a budget of 350,000 RMB (over £39,000) for engagement, travel and field studies.