China’s decision to ban waste imports has exposed the deep structural flaws and interdependencies that support the global waste-management system. Western countries who have long depended on China as a destination for their garbage are straining to accommodate their own waste, while China struggles to find the labor to effectively sort and process waste amidst a “low-end population” crisis.

To achieve its goal of becoming a leading global power by 2050, China must resolve its looming water shortage, writes Charlie Parton.

Contemporary discourse around climate change, energy consumption and geopolitics typically depicts China either as a 21st century redeemer or as an inevitable tragedy. Both of these narratives tend towards the extreme.

President Xi’s new buzzword “Ecological Civilization” regarding China’s climate change efforts deserves more international attention. The phrase is an example of “environmentalism with Chinese characteristics.”

At the 19th Party Congress, President Xi announced that China had “taken a driving seat in international cooperation to respond to climate change.” But as much as Beijing has done to get its own house in order domestically, it has hasn’t always let concern over climate change inform its trade policy or diplomacy. And while China is becoming a cleaner, lower-emissions country at a national level, it has done so by "outsourcing" emissions, both internally and overseas.

China plans to stop accepting imports of solid waste materials by end of 2017. This ban is expected to improve China’s domestic environmental and food safety issues. While the U.S. recycling industry is worrying about the economic damage of this policy change, the ban could trigger a positive change in U.S. domestic recycling policies.

China seized global attention in September with the announcement that it had begun earnestly planning a ban on traditional gas-fueled vehicles. So far, no date has been set for the final cutoff, and important strategic details remain murky. But the decisiveness and finality of the announcement has animated environmentalists, investors and auto manufacturers, who sense a unique business opportunity.

Recently, the world has witnessed larger typhoons and bigger hurricanes in size and frequency. As climate risks are escalating, efforts to contain collateral damage are eroding. What is needed is joint U.S.-Chinese climate leadership.

China has reaffirmed its schedule to launch the world’s largest “cap-and-trade” market for carbon emission permits in 2017. This national carbon market is expected to lower the cost of emission reduction, as China strives to fulfill its Paris pledge of peaking carbon emission by 2030.

Like the United States, China’s falling emissions have been aided by renewable energy expansions, but are more a result of economic forces that would have existed in the absence of government effort. Germany on the other hand has made strong policy decisions that have transformed the shape of its energy infrastructure, rather than letting its energy infrastructure transform the shape of its policy. If China wishes to lead the world to two degrees, it should follow Germany’s example, not the U.S.’s.