Environmental Challenges, Opportunities, and Policy Implications to Materialize China’s Green Belt and Road Initiative

• Main Author: Tiantian Zhai
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-09-01
• Series: Sustainability
• Subjects: belt and road initiative; environmental challenges; environmental opportunities; green belt and road; comprehensive environmental protection mechanism; China
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/18/10428

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), announced in 2013, is an unprecedented mega-project that aims to improve connectivity between China and over 70 countries through infrastructure investment and regional cooperation. It has unparalleled potential to bring about positive economic development across vast regions of the world but, at the same time, may inevitably come with considerable environmental challenges. Even so, opportunities exist to prevent or mitigate environmental risks and realize China’s promise of a green BRI. China has proposed to construct a green BRI. The existing environmental law framework of host states, green development practices by China and BRI participating countries, and the role of bilateral investment treaties (BITs) as well as multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) all increase the odds of a green BRI. This article contributes to existing BRI-related literature by examining the environmental challenges and opportunities of the BRI and providing suggestions on building a comprehensive environmental protection mechanism. It is suggested to stringently implement environmental norms and green BRI policies, make greater use of BITs and MEAs, bring together various actors, mobilize all available resources, and establish an efficient environmental dispute settlement and environmental remediation system.