Jin Guanping: Simultaneously promoting high-quality development and high-level protection of low-carbon | modernization | high-level
Planning development from the perspective of harmonious coexistence between humans and nature, and ensuring that high-quality development and high-level protection complement each other, is a strategic decision made based on China's national conditions and reality. High quality development is a development that meets the growing needs of the people for a better life, and a good ecological environment is an indispensable and important aspect. Through high-level protection, promoting comprehensive green transformation of economic and social development, developing green and low-carbon industries, advocating green consumption, will provide strong green development momentum for high-quality development.
The tremendous achievements in the construction of ecological civilization in the new era indicate that high-level protection is an important support for high-quality development. Ecological priority, green and low-carbon high-quality development can only be achieved through high-level protection. In the past decade, China's energy consumption intensity has cumulatively decreased by 26.4%, and the carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP have decreased by 34.4%. While the ecological environment quality has significantly improved and energy consumption intensity continues to decline, the total economic output has jumped to the level of 120 trillion yuan. High level protection has highlighted the bottom line and drawn a border for high-quality development, driving the transformation and upgrading of industrial structure, energy structure, and transportation structure, and promoting high-quality development. At the same time, the huge demand for green upgrading and transformation of traditional industries and green consumption is giving rise to the world's largest green market, promoting the construction of ecological and environmental protection projects and the development of environmental protection industries, and assisting in high-level protection.
At present, China's economic and social development has entered a stage of accelerating green and low-carbon high-quality development, and the construction of ecological civilization is still in a critical period of pressure accumulation and heavy burden. The modernization construction faces challenges such as tight resource and energy constraints, limited environmental capacity, and fragile ecosystems. The industrial structure leans towards "heavy" and the energy structure leans towards "coal", and the demand for energy resources will continue to maintain rigid growth in the future. At the National Conference on Ecological and Environmental Protection held in July this year, the relationship between high-quality development and high-level protection was ranked first among the five major relationships that need to be properly handled to continue promoting ecological civilization construction. It was further emphasized that through high-level environmental protection, new driving forces and advantages for development should be continuously shaped, and the potential and momentum for development should be continuously enhanced.
The ecological environment problem ultimately boils down to the issue of development and lifestyle. Simultaneously promoting high-quality development and high-level protection requires resolutely abandoning development models that damage or even destroy the ecological environment, and resolutely abandoning the practice of sacrificing the ecological environment for temporary and local economic growth. We must firmly establish and practice the concept that green mountains and clear waters are invaluable assets. We must take the carrying capacity of resources and environment as a prerequisite and foundation, consciously limit economic activities and human behavior within the limits that natural resources and ecological environment can bear, and promote the effective improvement of quality and reasonable growth of quantity in the green and low-carbon transformation of the economy.
Promoting the gradual shift from dual control of energy consumption to dual control of carbon emissions, as well as the green and low-carbon transformation of production and lifestyle, are specific measures to coordinate and promote high-quality development and high-level protection. Promoting the shift from dual control of energy consumption to dual control of carbon emissions helps to better balance the relationship between economic growth and energy consumption reduction, leading related industries to transition from low value-added and high energy consumption to high value-added and green low-carbon. It will also drive energy production and consumption to shift towards a more green and low-carbon direction, continuously enhancing the "gold content" of economic development.