The Institutional Scaffolding of Sustainable Development and its Approach in China

As a result of rapid development of the world economy since the 1960s, aggravations caused by population expansion, excessive consumption of resources and environmental pollution, have seriously hampered the development of many economies and are even threatening human existence itself. Given the pressures of these harsh realities, mankind has no choice but to re-examine its social and economic behavior and its path of development. The traditional development mode of “treating after polluting” is no longer appropriate. Since the 1980s, a new mode for development, sustainable development, has been advocated. Sustainable development is development that satisfies the current needs of society without compromising the needs of future generations. The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, held in June 1992, made sustainable development the strategy for common development in the future, and this won wide acclaim from the governments of all countries represented at the conference