Environmental code signals China's green resolve

The promulgation of China's first Ecological and Environmental Code marks a significant development in the global legal landscape. It represents one of the most ambitious attempts worldwide in the 21st century to reconcile the metabolic rift between industrial development and the biophysical limits of our planet.

From the perspective of Third World approaches to international law, this move is an exercise of epistemic sovereignty by China and a rejection of the fragmented, reactive environmentalism of the West in favor of a proactive, holistic and State-led approach to ecological civilization.

For decades, China's environmental governance relied on over 30 separate laws and a myriad of administrative regulations. While effective during the country's rectification phase, this fragmented system often led to departmentalism, where the goals of economic growth and ecological protection were treated as competing interests.

The new code resolves these internal contradictions through a dialectical synthesis. By unifying these laws, China has eliminated the gaps where local interests or industrial lobbies could formerly exploit legal ambiguities. This codification represents an important step forward in the institutionalization and maturity of environmental rule of law in China. It is a shift from the management of pollution to the governance of the ecosystem and signals that the nation's green development is no longer merely a policy preference, but a fundamental legal principle of the state.

Perhaps the most distinctive and far-reaching feature of the code is the elevation of the dual carbon goals — peaking carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and ultimately reaching carbon neutrality before 2060 — into binding legal provisions that, when combined with policies, provide robust protection for the environment. This adds a high-quality standard to the country's development path.

In the liberal international order, climate goals are often treated as aspirational or subject to the whims of electoral cycles — as seen in the volatility of the United States climate policy. China's approach offers a clear contrast to such policy discontinuity. By embedding these macro-policy goals into a permanent legal code, China is providing strategic legal certainty.

The code also indirectly addresses a common critique from Western legal formalists that Chinese lawmaking lacks participation. The process of drafting this code, which saw over 10,000 public comments from thousands of citizens during a 45-day window, tells a different story, a whole-process people's democracy. To that end, the legitimacy of law is found in its connection to the material needs of the people.

The code, therefore, is not a top-down decree but a social contract that reflects a collective identity in which the notion of a good life is inextricably linked to ecology.

As a Brazilian scholar, I cannot help but draw parallels with the 1988 constitution of Brazil, which was a pioneer in recognizing the right to an ecologically balanced environment as a fundamental human right. However, while Brazil has often struggled to enforce these rights under pressure from international capital, China offers a model of state capacity.

The potential for cooperation between Brazil and China is immense. Brazil offers decades of experiences in environmental constitutionalism and in the protection of complex biomes such as the Amazon. China offers the technological and legal infrastructure for a green industrial revolution as an alternative to the Bretton Woods system of development that brought us to this severe environmental crisis.

Living in China for several years, one sees the green miracle not just in statistics, but in the sky. I recall the stories of the Saihanba forest farm workers in northern Hebei province, who turned a desert into a vast forest over three generations, or the restoration of the Yellow River. These are not just governance stories; they are proof of a different kind of modernization.

Much of the Western model of modernization was built on the externalization of environmental costs, often onto the colonies and the Global South. China is undertaking one of the first large-scale attempts at legal modernization in history to internalize those costs, an approach that rejects the "pollute first, clean up later" path of the 19th and 20th centuries.

The Ecological and Environmental Code of China is a message to the world. It asserts that the climate crisis cannot be solved by market mechanisms alone, but requires the firm hand of a coordinated, legal and state-led strategy.

For Latin America, cooperation with China in clean energy, electric vehicles and sustainable agriculture is not just a commercial transaction but also a geopolitical necessity. By aligning our legal and economic systems toward a green transition, we are building a community with a shared future for humanity that is grounded in the material reality of our shared planet and local realities.

We are witnessing the end of the era in which the economy and ecology were seen as a zero-sum game. Under the new code, the economy is the ecology. The law has finally caught up with the majesty of the natural world.

The author is a professor of international law at the School of Law of Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China.

The views don't necessarily represent those of China Daily.

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