Progressing Towards Environmental Health Targets in China: A Systematic Review of Achievements in Air and Water Pollution under the “Ecological Civilization and the Beautiful China” Dream

Abstract

Despite the positive effect of industrialization on health and quality of life indicators across the globe, it is also responsible for the release of chemical toxins into the environment and has nurtured numerous environmental disasters with severe health effects. China alone produces more than a third of carbon emissions in the world and currently has the second highest number of pollution-related deaths, after India. There is no issue that underscores the challenges of environmental crisis in China than the gradual acceptance of the existence of the cancer villages. These are entire towns that have been completely written off as so polluted that simply living there is synonymous with high rate of cancer risk. For years, residents and advocacy groups in villages such as Wuli, Yanglingang, Yangqiao and additional 459 identified cancer villages have waged a desperate war to turn the attention of government to the high risk of stomach, liver, kidney and colon cancer in these areas located near heavy industrial complexes. China responded by promoting an ecological civilization and a beautiful China dream as its sustainability blueprint in 2012. Today, this blueprint has been engraved into the national ideology for socio-economic and political orientation. This review therefore revisits the progress made towards environmental health targets under China’s sustainable development strategy. The study systematic explores the extant works on air and water pollution since the “Ecological Civilization and the Beautiful China” Dream.