Recent literature describing how criminal law should ideally be shaped to play its crucial role in environmental governance holds that a combination of provisions should be utilized in order to enforce not only violations of administrative norms, but also unlawful emissions. To date, environmental criminal law in China is the result of norms to be found in a wide range of provisions and statutes covering a large number of crimes. The formulation of these norms is in some cases not very precise or clear. This piecemeal system naturally leaves gaps and weaknesses in Chinese environmental criminal law, creating a real need for a comprehensive law to enforce environmental protection.