From targets to inspections: the issue of fairness in China’s environmental policy implementation

ABSTRACT

Using document analysis and fieldwork to analyse the issue of fairness in the implementation of China’s environmental and climate policy goals, we examine two top-down mechanisms put in place to steer implementation: binding environmental targets that have been allocated on different administrative levels since the 11^th Five-Year Plan in 2011; and central environmental inspections, which have been rolled out across the country since 2016. The evidence shows that the way in which both mechanisms have assigned responsibilities among localities is, by and large, inequitable. This inequity stems from not only insufficient differentiation based on economic and capacity criteria but also a discretionary approach to enforcement. These structural implementation defects affect the legitimacy of environmental planning and incentivise disgruntled local officials to either resort to drastic, costly and unfair measures to satisfy upper-level demands or to fake performance, thus undermining the sustainability of environmental protection and transition efforts.

KEYWORDS:

• Environmental policy targets
• target allocation
• environmental inspections
• China
• fairness

Acknowledgments

Genia Kostka would like to thank the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) [Projektnummer 401822232] for its generous support. We are grateful to Yan Liu for her outstanding research assistance and would also like to acknowledge the helpful comments made by Sarah Eaton and Xinhui Jiang.

Disclosure statement

No declaration of interest

Data availability statement

The data supporting the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, [CG] upon request, on condition that divulging them does not compromise the research participants’ privacy.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Notes

1. The scores were vaguely formulated as ‘over-complete’, ‘complete’, ‘basically complete’ or ‘incomplete’.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgesellschaft (DFG) [401822232].