China Environment and Development Review. Volume 2

Author: Research Center for Environment and Development, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-05-01
Features: In an interdependent planet, no country or civilization can achieve sustainable development alone unless the entire humanity is liberated from poverty, injustice, and underdevelopment. It can be said that the Johannesburg World Summit at the dawn of the world offered humanity the will but not the determination to take the path of sustainability, the hope but not the confidence. In short, it left behind a lingering question. Against this backdrop, China's impact on global sustainable development cannot go unnoticed: China's economy is experiencing continuous high-speed growth. This has been accompanied by rising population, resource consumption, ecological pressure, and social disparities. From a sustainable development perspective, China is entering a narrow channel. This is an unprecedented challenge. For China's sustainable development, the early years of the new century will bring extraordinary severe challenges, but at the same time, new efforts have also begun. It requires new technologies, new policies, and even more new systems and new concepts. This book is the second volume of China Environment and Development Review, focusing on systematic and comprehensive analysis and commentary on China's environment and policies. The focus of this volume is on China's ecological issues. Public interest and public resources have long been issues we have been concerned about. In today's rapidly advancing marketization process with imperfect laws, excessive profits often gained by powerful economic interest groups come at the expense of the interests of vulnerable social groups and the destruction of the ecological environment. This has been a contradiction since the reform and opening-up. Therefore, it is particularly necessary to pay attention to the voices of the vulnerable. According to the original plan, the writing process of this book was also a process of exchanges among scholars from different fields. This goal has been partially achieved and is reflected to some extent in the content of this book. The authorship of this volume has expanded from experts in the ecological and economic fields of the previous volume to experts and scholars from fields such as philosophy, law, and scholar-officials. The results of these exchanges have made the content and perspectives of the commentary in this volume broader and more open.