Building a remarkable global city is not only the need for Shanghai’s economic transformation and development，but also an important carrier for China to form a new comprehensive opening pattern. By comparing the evolution of major global city environmental policies and regulations，it is found that global city environmental policies and regulations are closely linked to economic and social development，focusing on the implementation of environmental policies and regulations，and multi-sector efforts to promote global city environmental governance. Commonality，while each city has different emphasis on environmental legal system according to the actual situation of its economic development. The evolution of Shanghai’s environmental governance policies and regulations can be divided into three stages：start-up，development and maturity. Each stage has different environmental regulations and policies. Although some achievements have been made，there are still some gaps with global cities such as New York，London，Tokyo，and Paris. Therefore，Shanghai should improve the construction of environmental policy and regulation from the aspects of guiding ideology，formulation and improvement，implementation and institutional guarantee.