After 40 years of reform and “opening up,” China has made remarkable economic progress. Such economic prosperity, however, has been coupled with environmental degradation. We analyze diverse long-term data to determine whether China is experiencing a decoupling of economic growth and environmental impacts, and where China stands with respect to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in terms of reducing regional division, urban-rural gap, social inequality, and land-based impacts on oceans. The results highlight that China’s desire to achieve “ecological civilization” has resulted in a decoupling trend for major pollutants since 2015, while strong coupling remains with CO2 emissions. Progress has been made in health care provision, poverty reduction, and gender equity in education, while income disparity continues between regions and with rural-urban populations. There is a considerable way to go toward achieving delivery of the SDGs; however, China’s progress toward economic prosperity and concomitant sustainability provides important insights for other countries.

CO 2 emissions are of global concern because of climate change. China has become the largest CO 2 emitter in the world and presently accounts for 30% of global emissions. Here, we analyze the major drivers of energy-related CO 2 emissions in China from 1978 when the reform and opening-up policy was launched. We find that 1) there has been a 6-fold increase in energy-related CO 2 emissions, which was driven primarily (176%) by economic growth followed by population growth (16%), while the effects of energy intensity (−79%) and carbon intensity (−13%) slowed the growth of carbon emissions over most of this period; 2) energy-related CO 2 emissions are positively related to per capita gross domestic product (GDP), population growth rate, carbon intensity, and energy intensity; and 3) a portfolio of command-and-control policies affecting the drivers has altered the total emission trend. However, given the major role of China in global climate change mitigation, significant future reductions in China's CO 2 emissions will require transformation toward low-carbon energy systems.www.pnas.org/cgi/

Coastal zone is of great importance in the provision of various valuable ecosystem services. However, it is also sensitive and vulnerable to environmental changes due to high human populations and interactions between the land and ocean. Major threats of pollution from over enrichment of nutrients, increasing metals and persistent organic pollutants (POPs), and climate change have led to severe ecological degradation in the coastal zone, while few studies have focused on the combined impacts of pollution and climate change on the coastal ecosystems at the global level. A global overview of nutrients, metals, POPs, and major environmental changes due to climate change and their impacts on coastal ecosystems was carried out in this study. Coasts of the Eastern Atlantic and Western Pacific were hotspots of concentrations of several pollutants, and mostly affected by warming climate. These hotspots shared the same features of large populations, heavy industry and (semi-) closed sea. Estimation of coastal ocean capital, integrated management of land-ocean interaction in the coastal zone, enhancement of integrated global observation system, and coastal ecosystem-based management can play effective roles in promoting sustainable management of coastal marine ecosystems. Enhanced management from the perspective of mitigating pollution and climate change was proposed.

Epidemiological investigation suggested that the current outbreak of COVID-19 virus was associated with a seafood market, and COVID-19 has been identified a probable bat origin. Similar to SARS event in 2003, such a zoonotic disease showed an animal-to-person and even more serious person-to-person spread, and posed a significant threat to the global health and socio-economic development. We analyzed the association of both outbreaks with wildlife diet in China and proposed suggestions for regulating wildlife conservation and food safety to prevent human exposure to the novel virus, including increasing social awareness of hazards in eating wild animals, strengthening legislation on eating and trading of wild animals, improving the standards for food safety, and establishing market supervision mechanism. Regulatory intervention is not only critical for China but also for other countries where wildlife hunting is prevalent to prevent from novel virus exposures. ARTICLE HISTORY

Biodiversity is essential for the maintenance of ecosystem health and delivery of the Sustainable Development Goals. However, the drivers of biodiversity loss and the spatial variation in their impacts are poorly understood. Here, we explore the spatial-temporal distributions of threatened and declining (“biodiversity-loss”) species and find that these species are affected by multiple stressors, with climate and human activities being the fundamental shaping forces. There has been large spatial variation in the distribution of threatened species over China’s provinces, with the biodiversity of Gansu, Guangdong, Hainan, and Shaanxi provinces severely reduced. With increasing urbanization and industrialization, the expansion of construction and worsening pollution has led to habitat retreat or degradation, and high proportions of amphibians, mammals, and reptiles are threatened. Because distributions of species and stressors vary widely across different climate zones and geographical areas, specific policies and measures are needed for preventing biodiversity loss in different regions.

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Industrial development has brought China both opportunities and challenges since the reform and opening up in 1978. Spatial and temporal analysis showed that rapid industrialization has made eastern China under a more serious pollution stress. The most serious effects of industrial pollution were reflected in aquatic and soil ecosystem degradation, and damage can be observed from species, population, and community to ecosystem level. Public consciousness about contaminated sites rose from 2004 leading to greater efforts in ecological remediation, monitoring, and risk governance. Considerable efforts are still needed in expanding the extent and breadth of monitoring to explore where the greatest ecological risks lie and how to control them. Ecology of industrial pollution has become a popular discipline in China and will be further developed to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Future research for a better ecological risk management should be focused on multi-media transfer and effects of mixed pollutants, mechanisms for clean energy and material flow, and integration of ecological risk with human health risk.