New Civil Procedure Law，which formally established the public interest litigation （PIL）system，took effect from January 1，2013 onward.Nonetheless，no breakthroughs have been made in environmental PILs，which suffered a “cold spell” instead.This paper offers a brief review of environmental PIL cases handled by local courts from 2007 through 2013，with a focus on analyzing the obstacles to their handling such cases and the debate on changes made in the Environmental Protection Lawto the qualifications of parties in environmental PILs.To explore the direction of PILs，it then analyzes environmental PILs that the courts rejected in 2013 as well as the progress of environmental PILs and other environmental lawsuits involving the disclosure of environmental information or environmental crimes that they are hearin.