Climate litigation in China is led by prosecutors… not environmental activists

Environmental and climate litigation is on the rise in China, with thousands of courts and over a million recent cases. And unlike other countries, in the Asian giant, prosecutors are the ones driving these lawsuits.

Rather than a movement led by activists and NGOs, climate litigation in China is dominated by state prosecutors seeking to enforce existing regulations.

The Asian giant is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, and its performance in this area will determine the trajectory of climate change in the world.

Around the world, national and international courts are the new battleground for pressuring governments on climate issues.

Perhaps the most notable victory came in July at the International Court of Justice, which declared that countries have a duty to address climate change.

But in China, cases tend to focus on regulatory enforcement, and NGOs and activists are often left on the sidelines.

Courts enforce government climate change regulations, which are scattered across various laws and regulations, but they don't promote changes to these environmental policies, explains Zhu Mingzhe, a law professor at the University of Glasgow.

Although many cases “contribute to the mitigation of climate change (…) they do not directly address climate change,” he summarizes.

– Laws with force –

Ahead of November's COP30 climate summit, President Xi Jinping unveiled China's first emissions targets, pledging to cut greenhouse gases by 7 to 10 percent within a decade.

The numbers are lower than experts consider necessary, but there is little chance they will be challenged in court.

Instead, "courts and prosecutors ensure that laws are effective," Boya Jiang, a climate lawyer at ClientEarth in Beijing, told AFP.

A decade ago, an environmental authority could avoid being sanctioned for failing to fulfill its environmental duties if it achieved economic growth.

Now, “she will be taken to court and there will be severe punishments,” Jiang assured.

Companies must also consider environmental impacts, he said.

Between 2019 and 2023, the courts resolved more than a million cases, according to state media, almost 20% more than in the previous five years.

There is broad public support for environmental litigation, and the government has empowered prosecutors, said Lu Xu, a law professor at Lancaster University.

It's a "politically correct" topic at all levels, he told AFP.

For example, in 2020, prosecutors in the eastern province of Huzhou won a public interest case against a company that used freon, a refrigerant gas banned for its potent greenhouse effect. The company was ordered to pay compensation.

Last year, a court ruled that a power generation company had failed to meet its coal-reduction obligations, violating China's climate mitigation goals and the environmental rights of its people.

– Marginalized NGOs –

Over 95% of potential cases are resolved before reaching court, and the mere threat of litigation is an effective mechanism for enforcing laws.

But NGOs are marginal actors who cannot sue the government or officials.

However, they can sue both private and state-owned companies. In 2017, Friends of the Earth—one of China's oldest environmental NGOs—accused state-owned companies of excluding wind and solar energy sources in favor of polluting ones.

The case was resolved in 2023 when the state grid promised to invest in increasing renewable sources.

An environmental lawyer from an NGO admits that public prosecutors have more power, but that other actors still play an important role.

According to the lawyer, who requested anonymity to avoid damaging his organization, prosecutors sometimes “consider local economic interests and pressures, so they avoid prosecuting.”

NGOs have more freedom, “so we can present the cases.”

China's new Ecological and Environmental Code, which is set to come into effect in 2026, and a climate law more than a decade in the making, could pave the way for more ambitious cases, Jiang said.

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