China Becomes a Global Environmental Governance Leader Huang Runqiu | Global | China
Economic Daily, Beijing, July 27th - At the "Authoritative Departmental Opening" series of themed press conferences held by the State Council Information Office on July 27th, Huang Runqiu, Minister of Ecology and Environment, stated that since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China has closely followed the times, looked at the world, assumed the responsibility of a major country, demonstrated the responsibility of a major country, and achieved a significant transformation from a participant in global environmental governance to a leader. This major transformation has five landmark achievements, including deep participation in global climate governance, leading the global biodiversity governance process, promoting global green and low-carbon development, jointly building a green "the Belt and Road" and strengthening environmental management of overseas projects.
In leading the global process of biodiversity governance, China, as the host country, successfully hosted the 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, promoting the achievement of the historic, ambitious, and pragmatic "Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework", opening a new chapter in global biodiversity governance and gaining recognition from the international community.
As one of the earliest countries to sign and ratify the Convention, China's achievement of biodiversity conservation goals is better than the global average. The area of national nature reserves accounts for 18% of the land area, and the proportion of land ecological protection red line area to land area exceeds 30%. The number of wild populations of over 300 rare and endangered wildlife and plants is steadily increasing. Take the lead in investing 1.5 billion yuan to establish the Kunming Biodiversity Fund to support biodiversity conservation in developing countries.
It is reported that China has vigorously promoted the development of renewable energy in recent years, and the total installed capacity of renewable energy generation has exceeded 1.3 billion kilowatts. The production and sales of new energy vehicles have ranked first in the world for 8 consecutive years, with a total ownership of 16.2 million vehicles. More than half of the world's new energy vehicles are driven in China.
Data shows that China provides 50% of wind power equipment and 80% of photovoltaic module equipment to the world, greatly reducing the utilization cost of renewable energy worldwide. In 2021, the global cost of solar photovoltaic installation decreased by about 82% compared to 2010, and the cost of wind power installation decreased by 35% to 40%. This not only promoted China's green and low-carbon development, but also made a huge contribution to global emissions reduction.
The environmental management of overseas projects is also being strengthened. China has issued ecological and environmental protection guidelines for foreign investment and cooperation in construction projects, which have put forward clear environmental protection requirements for project implementation. In the process of undertaking overseas projects, Chinese enterprises have introduced advanced environmental protection concepts. For example, during the construction of the China Laos Railway, in order to protect the survival home of elephants, tunnels have been extended for many times and bridges have been used instead of roads.
When talking about the central ecological and environmental protection inspection, Huang Runqiu stated that as of June this year, the first round of inspections had a clear 3294 rectification tasks, with an overall completion rate of over 97%; More than 64% of the 2164 rectification tasks identified in the second round of inspections have been completed. "After two rounds of inspections, we transferred a total of 667 issues related to accountability. A total of 9699 individuals were investigated and held accountable, including 1335 department level cadres and 4195 department level cadres, effectively playing a warning role in inspections."
This year marks the beginning of the third round of inspections. It is reported that the Ministry of Ecology and Environment will closely focus on promoting green, low-carbon, and high-quality development, deepening the battle against pollution prevention and control, and other key tasks. It plans to carry out a new round of inspections, with a sharp sword hanging high and real actions hitting hard, to promote the inspected objects to shoulder the major political responsibility of building a beautiful China, and make contributions to accelerating the modernization of harmonious coexistence between humans and nature.
