The theory of everything (green)

Beijing is gearing up to make its green goals legally binding.

On April 30, the legislature (NPCSC) released the draft Ecological and Environmental Code for public comment.

Some context: China has a hodge podge of over 30 environment-related laws.

• The NPCSC wants to streamline this legal patchwork into a unified code, which it reviewed for the first time last week.

The draft code clocks in at over 1,000 articles, focusing on:

• Pollution prevention and control
• Ecological protection
• Green and low-carbon development

Specifically, it:

• Revises, merges, and retires 10 existing laws, including the Environmental Protection Law and Air Pollution Law
• Creates a legal framework for areas of climate policy that are not currently governed by statute, like decarbonization

The code's section on green and low-carbon development could be a game changer for China's green economy.

• The articles will legally oblige the government to speed up China's green transition and provide legal and regulatory frameworks governing clean manufacturing, recycling, energy conservation, and international climate cooperation.

Get smart: A unified code will make enforcing, tracking, and expanding China’s green and low-carbon push easier.

• It also means companies not complying with environmental standards are more likely to be caught and punished.

What happens next: After public comment, the code will go through another round of legislative deliberation.

• But the code is considered a “foundational law,” meaning it can only be passed into law by a meeting of the full legislature (NPC), which is not expected to meet until March 2026.