China has more than 600 environmental courts across the country, which are equipped to handle a wide variety of climate cases and disputes, on civil, criminal, and administrative levels. The judges of China's environmental courts have been trained by environmental experts.
The Asian Development Bank states that: “Environmental courts, as well as tribunals with expertise in environmental matters, have been increasingly recognised for their accomplishments and further potential in promoting ecologically sustainable development”.
Recent research into the effect of these environmental courts on ‘corporate green innovation’ found that the courts have a stimulating effect on green innovation quality. This effect was more pronounced in Chinese state-owned firms.
The study, which looked at ‘Chinese heavily polluting firms’ from 2003 to 2020, also found that environmental courts ensure less collusion between local governments and force them to implement environmental protection subsidies and administrative penalties.
In the context of the Chinese economy, these results are positive. Strong enforcement of environmental laws at the local level is needed in the decentralized governance system, where local authorities may be prone to prioritising economic development at the cost of the environment.
These findings are in line with earlier research, which found that “the establishment of environmental courts significantly contributes to the level of green innovation”. Moreover, environmental justice in China “pushes polluters to engage in green innovation through the mechanism of pollution control”. However, this earlier research also found that these effects were insignificant in ‘resource-based’ cities that rely on polluting industries for development.
In 2021, China adopted the Kunming Declaration at the World Environmental Justice Conference, which binds its signatories to halting and reversing nature loss by 2030.
In July 2023, China’s Supreme People’s Court issued a landmark document that encouraged environmental courts across the country to pick up cases related to “energy conservation and emission reduction, low-carbon technology, carbon trading and green finance, and to promote climate change mitigation and adaptation”.
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