Codification and Prospect of China’s Codification of Environmental Law from the Perspective of Global Environmental Governance

Global environmental governance is the fundamental way to solve the human environmental crisis. With China as the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, the development of China’s environmental law is a key component of global environmental governance. In order to better realize the construction of an ecological civilization, the compilation of China’s Environmental Code has been officially put on the work schedule of the legislature. The compilation of the code is a sincere action, showing that China has taken the initiative to assume its own responsibility for environmental governance. In the past 50 years, China’s environmental legislation has achieved a great leap forward: from nothing to something, from something to something more comprehensive. Aside from this progress, defects such as the internal imbalance of the environmental law system, the backwardness of some environmental legislation ideas, and the inability of environmental legislation and its academic research to fully match China’s national conditions also exist. With the helping hands of conditions and times, it is most appropriate for China to start the compilation of the Environmental Code now. Environmental Codes such as the Swedish Environmental Code, the French Environmental Code and the German Environmental Code (Draft of the Committee of Experts) provide many empirical references for the compilation of China’s Environmental Code. China will make important an contribution to world environmental governance again—an Environmental Code in line with international standards while maintaining native characteristics.