Environmental Risks in China and Their Countermeasures

Xia Guang

Policy Research Centre for Environment and Economy, Ministry of Environmental Protection, China

Abstract: The 13th Five -year Plan period (2016-2020) is a crucial period for environmental protection in China and represents the last chance for the achievement of the environmental objective under the goal of building a well-off society in an all-round manner. During this period of time, China ’s environment is confronted with the following major risks: risks of environmental quality, human health, ecological security, balanced regional development and international influence. The overall conclusion is that the tendencies of changing eco -environment are complex, problems remain outstanding, and some risks have abated while others have intensified with possible improvements in the future. Future prospects mainly depend on the intensity of actions taken. It is suggested that environmental protection strategy of  “overall optimization ” be adopted for the 13th Five -year Plan period, i.e. environmental protection requirements should be incorporated into political, economic, social and cultural spheres, so that these areas with major influence on the natural environment will improve and transform towards an environmentally friendly direction and ultimately help achieve the objective of improving eco -environment and people ’s welfare. In order to fundamentally reverse mainstream understanding on environmental protection, it is suggested to define the “contradiction between environmental pressures arising from growing economic development and China ’s limited and fragile environmental capacity” as a major contradiction of Chinese society.

Keywords: China, ecological environment, risk, environmental protection strategy, overall optimization, major contradiction of Chinese society

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