ABSTRACT
Climate change has been described as the most challenging environmental issue of our time. It is an environmental issue that cuts across almost every area of human activity, forcing social actors from governments to businesses to reconsider the way we live, work and produce goods and services. Responses to climate change include both mitigation (reducing the emission of greenhouse gases [GHG]) and adaptation to the impacts of climate change that are already underway or anticipated.1 This chapter examines the legal and regulatory developments in China that have emerged in response to climate change. In this regard, many of these developments are on the mitigation front and driven by the central government. China’s mitigation strategy is principally centred on energy policy, particularly energy effi ciency and conservation, and renewable energy, and the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).2 The urgency of adaptation has been recognized, but given the highly localized nature of adaptation measures, the central government has sought to devolve responsibility to local government to develop and implement adaptation programmes.
