Legal, financial measures help China fight pollution: report

BEIJING -- China has stepped up law enforcement and financial support to facilitate environmental protection after its top legislature adopted a decision in 2018 on strengthening the work, according to a report.

The report was drafted after the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress researched the implementation of the decision from June to September. Lawmakers reviewed it on Wednesday at an on-going session of the committee.

China slapped a total of 162,800 administrative penalties on environmental wrongdoers in 2019, fining or confiscating nearly 11.88 billion yuan (about $1.82 billion), according to the report.

Since 2018, public security organs across the country have solved over 12,000 cases related to pollution, and courts at all levels have heard 89,000 related criminal cases and nearly 510,000 civil cases of the first instance.

In scaling up financial support, more than 1 trillion yuan of government funds went to environmental protection in 2019, up by 11.9 percent from 2018, according to the report.