China’s suffocating smog threatens public health and its industrial emissions have a severe regional and global impact. To tackle its toxic air, water and soil pollution problems, China is waging a high-profile “war on pollution” reinvigorated this week in Premier Li Keqiang’s NPC pledge to “make our skies blue again.” China is ploughing billions of dollars of investment into areas such as renewable energy and enforcement campaigns whilst attempting to shift away from the carbon-heavy industries that powered its economic rise. What’s going to work? Ma Jun from the Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs will take a closer look at China’s green policies and ask what solutions are most likely to produce results.

Ma Jun began his career in 1993 working for the South China Morning Post, where his research on China’s environmental problems spurred him to publish the 1999 book China’s Water Crisis. In 2004 he was selected as a Yale World Fellow. Upon returning to China, Ma Jun founded the non-profit organisation the Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs (IPE) in Beijing in 2006. As Director of IPE, Ma Jun has led the development and launch of China’s first environmental public database, the China Pollution Map, as well as the Blue Map (Weilan Ditu), a mobile app that helps the public use “micro-reports” against environmental violations and polluted rivers. The Green Choice supply chain program he and colleagues initiated has motivated more than 3000 suppliers of major global and local brands to openly address their violation problems. In 2006, he was awarded as China’s “Green Person of the Year” and was named as one of TIME Magazine’s World’s 100 Most Influential People. Ma was also honoured with the Magsaysay Award in 2009 and Goldman Prize in 2012 for his environmental protection work in China, as well as the 2015 Skoll Foundation Award for Social Entrepreneurship for his innovative approach to “lifting the veil” on China’s pollution problems.

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