Courts across China handled around 259,000 first-instance cases concerning the environment and resources, and concluded 232,000 such cases in 2023, according to the Supreme People's Court (SPC) on Wednesday.
An aerial view of Jiyang Lake Ecological Park in Zhangjiagang, Jiangsu Province, China, June 5, 2024. /CFP
The number of environmental infringement cases in China continued to decline in 2023. However, there was still an uneven regional distribution of these cases, with water pollution and noise pollution cases ranking top in terms of numbers, according to a report released by the SPC on the same day.
In 2023, there was an increase in the number of environmental administrative cases alongside a record low in the number of environmental criminal cases, the report revealed.
The number of environment and resources tribunals increased by 15.95 percent from the previous year, according to the report.
In addition, the SPC released on Wednesday 10 typical cases involving the environment and resources. These cases encompass fields such as environmental pollution prevention and control, rational exploitation and utilization of resources, biological diversity protection, peak carbon emissions, and carbon neutrality.