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Download China's fast growing civil society made a splash on Sunday at the Rio+20, or the UN Conference on Sustainable Development, by releasing the country's own report on its sustainable development records over the past 20 years. Titled China Going Green: A Civil Society Review of 20 Years of Sustainable Development, the report acknowledges the positive contributions of China's environmental, social and economic development since the adoption of Agenda 21 at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. That includes progress made in government policies, environmental laws, environmental agencies, non-governmental organizations, renewable energy and public awareness and strategies in seeking green development, according to the report, which covers everything from poverty reduction, gender and public health to climate change, water resources and desertification. However, the report contained some warnings. "The overall condition of China's environment continued to deteriorate over the past two decades," Professor Zhang Yisheng, a senior researcher said in the report. Ma Jun, executive director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, said that environmental pollution in China has become a serious problem not just for the current generation, but for future generations. "Despite the efforts, we still haven't seen a turning point," he told a packed room at Rio Centro, the venue for Rio+20, where leaders of some 130 countries will come for the summit from Wednesday to Friday to sign a joint declaration on global sustainable development. | 
