A research team led by the Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy (YCELP) and the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) at Columbia University completed in late 2011 the first steps in a large-scale effort to track progress in the governance and management of China’s environment.[1] The effort, published in the report Towards a China Environmental Performance Index, proposed a framework for aggregating diverse environmental health and ecosystem impact data from across China’s 31 provinces, and for comparing these data to the national and subnational environmental policy goals of the Chinese government. MORE 

It may not be coincidental that soon after NBA Knicks' Jeremy Lin dazzled the nation with a seemingly infallible jump-shot, China's vice president, heir apparent and avid basketball fan Xi Jinping made an official U.S. visit.

But while Lin -- a Harvard graduate raised with Chinese and American values by a "Tiger Mom" -- has proven remarkable on the court, China and the U.S. as players in the environmental arena have performed more like junior-varsity playground scrappers. MORE 

In the end, we determined that it was not possible to produce an aggregate index by province–but the process revealed the steps that would be necessary to fulfill that vision.

Given China’s burgeoning economic growth, rapidly expanding industries, large population and growing consumer class, many in the environmental field have an intense interest in how the nation will address its environmental problems. The country has made some impressive energy and resource efficiency gains, and environmental issues are an important part of the government’s efforts to build a “harmonious society.” MORE 

Beijing’s air quality dominated international headlines when discrepancies arose last October between official monitoring data and U.S. Embassy measurements.

Pictures of stifling haze and smog posted and circulated online by netizens depicted extreme pollution. The U.S. Embassy’s monitor indicated that the air quality was “hazardous” and “beyond index, but “the Chinese government’s official Air Pollution Index indicated that the air was only “slightly polluted.[1]” MORE