Towards the New Era of Ecological Civilization ——Studying the Important Statement by Comrade Xi Jinping on the Building of Ecological Civilization
Zhou Shengxian
Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, the CPC Central Committee led by General Secretary Xi Jinping has put forward a series of new thoughts and requirements on the building of ecological civilization and environmental protection from a strategic point of view and the overall situation, charting the course for the drive of building a beautiful China, realizing lasting development of the Chinese nation and working towards a new era of socialist ecological civilization.
I. Understanding the Profound Significance of Building Ecological Civilization
Comrade Xi Jinping has pointed out that building ecological civilization concerns the well-being of the people and the future of the nation. Environmental protection is not only a reward for now, but also a benefit for the future. It is important to realize that to protect the environment and control pollution is both urgent and formidable and to strengthen the building of ecological civilization is of great significance and necessity. We must do our best to control environmental pollution and build ecological civilization to fulfill our responsibility for the people and our future generations. These statements expounded the significance of promoting ecological civilization and demonstrated the strong will and determination of the Party to strengthen ecological civilization.
Building ecological civilization is an important guarantee for sustained and healthy economic development. Comrade Xi Jinping said that a good environment is fundamental to the sustainable development of human kind and society. Blue sky, white clouds, green mountains and clear water are the biggest assets to long-term development. A good environment is, in itself, the production force, the impetus for development and core competence of a region. Currently, China is the world’s biggest consumer of energy, iron & steel and alumina. In 2012, China’s total consumption of coal reached nearly 2.5 billion TCE, exceeding the total of other countries across the world. About 10.2% of the water among the 10 major river basins was rated as inferior to Grade V water quality standard. If we continue the extensive development pattern, the state of environmental deterioration will be hard to image when we achieve the goal set at the 18th National Congress of the CPC that the GDP and people’s per capita income will be doubled by 2020 compared with the level of 2010. The goal of building a moderately prosperous society will also be a dashed hope. On this issue, we have no choice but to press ahead with the building of ecological civilization, recreate the advantage of environment, accelerate the transformation of economic development pattern and improve as much as possible the quality and benefits of economic development.
Building ecological civilization carters to people’s expectation. Comrade Xi Jinping said in his trip to Hainan Province this April that a good environment is the fairest public good and the most universal welfare for the people. “Blue sky and white clouds above our heads, swimming freely in clean rivers and bumper harvest of safe fruits and vegetables in the fields……” These are the simplest understanding towards ecological civilization and most basic demand on environmental protection by the people. Since this year, some places have been troubled by serious haze and ground water pollution, causing strong public complaints. Meeting people’s expectation is our goal. We must put building ecological civilization at a more important position and make more efforts on treating the environment so as to create a sound environment for people to live and work.
Building ecological civilization also embodies the improvement of the Party’s administration. As Comrade Xi said, a major subject facing the whole Party is how to correctly perceive and properly handle the new situation and problems emerging after China’s rapid development. The people pay high attention to environmental problems. Our Party has always attached great importance to the building of ecological civilization and taken environmental protection as a basic state policy and sustainable development as national strategy. For years, we have been promoting environmental protection and achieved impressive results. In the face of the trend of sustainable development, circular economy and low carbon development and amid people’s expectation and demand for a better environment, we must take building ecological civilization a strategic task to enhance the Party’s administration, making persistent effort and producing results from time to time.
II. Mastering the Fundamental Requirement of Building Ecological Civilization
Combining the needs of new practice, Comrade Xi Jinping put forward more enriched, systematic and clearer guidance and requirements on the building of ecological civilization and provided profound answer to questions concerning the theory and practice of building ecological civilization.
First, making overall arrangement on the building of ecological civilization. Comrade Xi stated that to move toward the new era of ecological civilization and build a beautiful China is a major part of rejuvenating the Chinese nation and realizing the Dream of China. While chairing the sixth study session of the Political Bureau of CCCPC, Xi stressed that we must uphold the concept of ecological civilization while promoting the building of ecological civilization, in other words, we must respect nature, accommodate nature and protect nature. We must stick to the basic state policy of conserving resources and protecting the environment and the guideline of putting conservation and protection in the first place and taking natural rehabilitation as the main approach. We will promote ecological concept, improve ecological system, maintain eco safety and better the natural environment in order to create a green geological pattern, industrial structure, way of production and life style. This is the general direction, requirement and measure that guide the building of ecological civilization. We must move toward the direction persistently, make arrangement in accordance with the requirement, refine the measure and open up a new situation for the building of ecological civilization.
Second, properly handling the relationship between economic development and environmental protection. The concept that protecting the environment is to protect production force and improving the environment is to develop production force, raised by Comrade Xi Jinping, reveals the dialectic relationship between economic development and environmental protection. It has been proved that to grow the economy without protecting the environment is no better than to drain the pond to get all the fish whereas to pursue environmental protection without developing the economy is also a fruitless approach. Economic development determines people’s living standard while environmental quality is a prerequisite for man’s survival. We must adhere to the principle of giving priority to protection and strive for economic development in the process of environmental protection and protect the environment in the course of economic development. We will continue to optimize economic development through environmental protection and make use of the reverse coercion mechanism that impels improvement of the environment and people’s well-being. By implementing stringent environmental policies, we will pass the message of environmental protection on to transformation and upgrading of economic development.
Third, deepening the concept of ecological red line. General Secretary Xi Jinping stressed that we must firmly uphold the concept of ecological red line. On the issue of environmental protection, anyone who goes one step beyond the prescribed limit will be punished. This represents a higher requirement on environmental protection. We must conduct research and review combining National Main Function Zoning and Opinions of the State Council on Strengthening the Key Tasks of Environmental Protection and prepare a comprehensive scheme for defining and maintaining the ecological red line and pay attention to enforcement.
Fourth, exploring a new path to environmental protection. Comrade Xi stressed that never should we pursue economic growth at the expense of environment. To perceive environmental problems with the concept of ecological civilization, we may find that environmental problems in nature are problems connected with economic structure, way of production and consumption pattern. We should not repeat the old path of pollution first and treatment afterwards or sacrificing environment for the sake of economic development. Rather, we must explore a new path to environmental protection. We will learn from developed countries on pollution control and make innovation based on China’s national conditions and stage of development and employ new thoughts and methods to conduct comprehensive treatment. We will also make use of the advantage of our systems to shorten the process of pollution control and support sustained and healthy socioeconomic development with minimum price of environmental resources.
Fifth, focusing on prominent environmental problems harming public health. Comrade Xi Jinping required us to make effort on prominent problems harming public health and stick to the approach that takes precautions as the major measure and employs integrated treatment. While making effort to prevent and control water, air and soil pollution, we will focus on water pollution control in key river basins and regions as well as air pollution in key sectors and regions. Environmental problems China is facing are more complicated than those in other countries and hence it is more difficult to deal with them. We must get prepared for the tough battle, achieve phased results and gradually improve environmental quality so that the people will see the resolution of the government and the hope of solving environmental problems. Meanwhile, we must also realize this is a prolonged battle.
Sixth, improving the systems on building ecological civilization. Comrade Xi Jinping affirmed that the strictest systems and rigorous rule of law will provide guarantee for building ecological civilization. Never should we take GDP growth as the biggest achievement. Instead, indicators on ecological civilization such as resource consumption, environmental damage and ecological benefits should be included in the social development assessment system and be given more weight. This will make those indicators an important guidance and restraint on promoting ecological civilization. We will establish accountability system so that people who made blind decisions regardless environment and caused serious consequences will be held responsible and even for lifetime. These requirements will keep us vigilant and demonstrate the Party’s courage and determination to promote ecological civilization.
III. Further Identifying the Key Tasks for Building Ecological Civilization
Comrade Xi said that we must integrate the building of ecological civilization into all aspects and the whole process of economic, political, cultural and social development. Building ecological civilization is a complicated and systematic program. Therefore, we must follow the thought of a systematic program and strengthen the leadership of the Party, national will and all-people action.
First, we will start from the macro strategy and do a good job in top-down design. Building ecological civilization is a groundbreaking cause which calls for a good top-down design and overall arrangement. We must also have guarantee measures in places to form a resource-saving and environment-friendly geological pattern, industrial structure, way of production and life style. We will define and implement a target indicator system and assessment measure for building ecological civilization. By accelerating the implementation of main function zone strategy and planning land development pattern, we will create a rational pattern for urbanization, agricultural development and ecological safety and leave more space for natural rehabilitation. We will create an economic pattern decoupling from resource consumption and pollution discharge, where all fields and each link will reflect the requirement on energy conservation. We will follow the mass line that emphasizes the wisdom and efforts of the people and relies on the people for pollution prevention and control. All-people action will be promoted to encourage the government, enterprises and the public to jointly build ecological civilization.
Second, we will consider the whole process of reproduction and develop comprehensive environmental economic policies. All fields of production, circulation, distribution and consumption make use of resources and have an impact on the environment. It is impossible to provide fundamental solutions to environmental problems if environmental policies are implemented in one or a few of the fields. We must design related tax by taking environmental protection as an important factor and establish and improve environmental taxation policies. In accordance with the principle that developers will be responsible for protection and beneficiaries will pay for compensation, we will establish eco compensation mechanism for development zones and protected zones, the upper reaches and the lower reaches and areas enjoying ecological benefit and areas of ecological protection. We will establish a pricing mechanism for resource-based products that will better reflect market supply and demand, resource scarcity and cost of environmental damage. Policies such as green credit, paid use of pollution discharge permit and emission trading will be deepened.
Third, we will strengthen institutional development and build incentive and restraint mechanism conducive to the building of ecological civilization. We will set up the legal system for ecological civilization building, establish science-based and convenient process for legislation, amendment and abolishment and improve the legal system. We will strengthen law enforcement supervision and make effort to solve such problems as not unfulfilling environmental obligations, high cost of compliance and low cost of violations. We will carry out joint law enforcement on the regional level and cross-region law enforcement to enhance the efficiency. Regular supervision and inspection of law enforcement will be strengthened and accidents on environmental pollution and damage strongly complained by the public will be dealt with seriously and solved as soon as possible. Special environmental campaign on rectifying illegal polluters and safeguarding public health will continue. We will launch a large scale environmental safety inspection and properly handle environmental emergencies. We will work actively with organization and supervision departments to change the phenomena that some local areas still aim at sheer economic growth in the course of development.
Fourth, we will play the role as the main player and promote new development of environmental protection with new thoughts and new measures. Environmental protection is the main platform for building ecological civilization and we will continue to explore a new path to environmental protection in line with the basic requirement of low cost, good benefit, low emissions and sustainability. First, environmental protection will serve to optimize economic development and promote economic transition and upgrading. Under current economic situation, we must watch closely and curb energy wasting, heavily polluting and resource guzzling industries, redundancy and overcapacity projects. We will use environmental protection as the main engine and instrument for maintaining economic growth, transforming economic development pattern and adjusting economic structure, optimize regional distribution through environmental capacity, optimize industrial structure by environmental management, optimize the pattern of economic growth through environmental cost and promote industrial upgrading through environmental standard. Second, we will strive to improve environmental quality by working hard on the three key tasks. We will focus on prevention and control of PM2.5 to deepen air pollution control; center on drinking water safety by strengthening pollution control of key river basins and ground water pollution and press ahead with contiguous rural environmental treatment and soil pollution control with a view to solving rural environmental problems. Third, we will accelerate strategic transformation of environmental management by taking advantage of ecological system reform. Aiming at improving environmental quality, we will establish and improve the environmental management system in order to meet the new demand of building ecological civilization. Environmental management will have to be changed from passive response to active prevention and control, from controlling regional pollution to regional joint prevention and control, from mere control of primary pollutants to co-management of both primary pollutants and secondary pollutants and from simply control specific pollutants to synergetic control of multiple pollutants.
(This English version is for your reference only.In case any discrepancy exists between the Chinese and English context, the Chinese version shall prevail.)