INTRODUCTION After more than thirty years of remarkable economic growth since the policy of reform and opening up adopted in 1978, according to IMF (International Monetary Fund), China became the worlds second largest economy by nominal GDP (Gross Domestic Product) in 2010 and the largest economy by PPP (Purchasing Power Parity) in 2014.The rapid economic growth is accompanied ballooning energy consumption.In 2007, China became the worlds largest emitter of greenhouse gases, surpassing the United States.According to the estimate by Liu (2015), Chinas carbon emissions in2012 were almost equivalent to the carbon emissions from both the United States and the European Union combined (Liu, 2015).In short, China made tremendous efforts to promote economic growth, industrialization, urbanization and globalization while suffering from a wide variety of environmental problems.Its widely recognized that Chinas environmental problems are among the most severe of any major country, and are mostly getting worse (Liuand Diamond, 2005;Bao, 2004;Bao et al.2012;Chen et al.2011).6The pressing environmental challenges are not only causing serious economic losses and social conflicts within China, but also spilling over into other surrounding countries (Li et al.2013;Zhu et al.2014).