What will China's environmental policy be going forward?

Recognizing the environmental challenges the country faces, the Chinese government is hoping to build an environmentally-friendly society, and has set very ambitious environmental goals. By 2020, China plans to significantly improve environmental quality and ecological conditions. Still, China's economic goal is to double its GDP by 2020, and we've seen from the past two decades that economic goals tend to be well surpassed while environmental goals are left largely unattended to. (PBS, 2006)

China is also increasingly assuming responsibilities on the world stage by participating in environmental treaties. Public awareness for the environment has improved and China has been pushing hard for cleaner production and sustainable development. China is also designing and adopting a green accounting system that includes environmental costs in the calculation of gross domestic product (or Green GDP).