Barriers to the Implementation of Environmental Policies at the Local Level in China

China's national leaders have
recently made a priority of changing lanes from a
pollution-intensive, growth-at-any-cost model to a
resource-efficient and sustainable one. The immense
challenges of rapid urbanization are one aspect of the
problem. Central-local government relations are another
source of challenges, since the central government's
green agenda does not always find willing followers at lower
levels. This paper identifies barriers to a more
comprehensive implementation of environmental policies at
the local level in China's urban areas and suggests
ways to reduce or remove them. The research focuses
particularly on the reasons for the gap between national
plans and policy outcomes. Although environmental goals and
policies at the national level are quite ambitious and
comprehensive, insufficient and inconsistent local level
implementation can hold back significant improvements in
urban environmental quality. By analyzing local
institutional and behavioral obstacles and by highlighting
best-practice examples from China and elsewhere, the paper
outlines options that can be used at the national and local
levels to close the local "environmental implementation
gap." The findings emphasize the need to create
additional incentives and increase local implementation capacities.