China Review News (CRN) recently reported that the 11th National People’s Congress Standing Committee held a seminar focusing on environmental protection issues. Since 1996, major environmental emergency events increased at an annual rate of 29 percent. Since 1995, the Ministry of Environmental Protection has directly handled 927 emergency events. In 2011, major emergencies suffered a 120% increase over 2010, especially in incidents involving heavy metals and dangerous chemicals. Experts suggested in the seminar that the country needs to establish an environmental public interest litigation system and also to pass an Environmental Damage Compensation Act. It is widely recognized that the government’s current environmental information lacks sufficient transparency and that environmental regulations are incomplete and vague. In the past decade, only one percent of the environmental conflicts were resolved through legal channels. Even today, much large scale environmental damage remains unresolved.
Source: China Review News, October 27, 2012
http://www.zhgpl.com/crn-webapp/doc/docDetailCNML.jsp?coluid=7&kindid=0&docid=102283121