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October 9, 2022, Beijing Beihai Park under blue sky and white clouds. Photo by Wang Fei, reporter of Beijing News
The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China mentioned that we adhere to the concept that green waters and green mountains are gold and silver mountains, adhere to the integrated protection and systematic governance of mountains, rivers, forests, fields, lakes, grasslands and sands. The ecological civilization system is more sound, and the ecological environment protection has undergone historic, turning point and overall changes. Our motherland's sky is bluer, the mountains are greener, and the water is clearer. This has also become the fundamental guideline and action guide for carrying out ecological and environmental protection work in the future period.
On October 21, representative of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China and member of the Party Leadership Group of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, Deputy Minister Zhai Qing said at a press conference with the theme of "Building a Beautiful China in Harmonious Coexistence between man and nature" that in the past decade, my country's ecological civilization construction and ecological environment protection have undergone historic, turning point and overall changes. These changes are mainly reflected in the "three unprecedented" of determination, strength and effectiveness.
There is great determination: Strict ecological environment law enforcement is always the same
Ten years ago, my country's total economic output has surpassed Japan and ranked second in the world.
However, the world's development pattern has also entered a process of rapid changes and reorganization. my country's economic and social development not only needs to cope with the external pressure of changing international environment and endless crises, but also face the inherent challenges of tightening domestic resource and environmental constraints, serious ecological degradation, and concentrated outbreak of various social contradictions. Environmental problems that have emerged in the industrialization process of developed countries over the past two hundred years have occurred intensively in my country in terms of structural, composite and compression.
Since 2012, the leaders of the Party and the state have accurately grasped the new world, national conditions and party conditions, stood at the height of the sustainable development of the Chinese nation, and put forward the overall requirements for vigorously promoting the construction of ecological civilization, emphasizing the importance of putting ecological civilization construction in a prominent position and including it in the overall layout of socialist modernization construction.
Looking at the policy reports of ruling parties around the world, it has elevated environmental protection, pollution control, ecological construction, green development, etc. into ecological civilization theory, and has become the governance line and guiding principles of the ruling party. Its strategic height is unique and its determination is unprecedented.
In the past ten years, especially during the large-scale investment period of environmental governance infrastructure, strict ecological and environmental law enforcement will inevitably put pressure on the economic development of some places. Especially in recent years, due to the impact of international geopolitical and the new crown pneumonia epidemic, economic and social development has faced severe challenges. Many people are worried that pollution prevention and control and ecological environment protection will intensify downward pressure on the economy, and propose whether environmental law enforcement can be relaxed, slowed down, and breathed a sigh of relief.
In response to such voices, the CPC Central Committee, the State Council, and the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and other relevant departments have repeatedly responded, "Ecological and environmental protection work will maintain the strategic determination of unchanged direction and strength"; the orders and regulations reiterate that "never re-take the old path of developing temporarily and locally at the expense of the ecological environment."
is the firm attitude of the whole country that makes those who are lucky or want to relax and dare not step beyond the line. Thoughts are the guide to action, and unprecedented great determination stimulates unprecedented great power to promote the continuous improvement of ecological environment quality.
On April 26, 2022, the cruise ship sailed through the Canal Business District of Tongzhou District, Beijing. Under the guidance of 's new development concept , the ancient Grand Canal has brought new vitality. Photo/Xinhua News Agency
The intensity is so strong: the ecological and environmental protection capacity has been comprehensively strengthened
In response to the public's expectations for a better environmental quality, my country has made comprehensive efforts in terms of ideology, law, system, organization and style, and strengthen ecological and environmental protection in all aspects, regions and processes.
At the national level, a number of ecological and environmental laws and regulations have been revised and issued to make the Environmental Protection Law truly "grow teeth". The newly revised "Environmental Protection Law" in 2015 introduced strong punishment measures such as daily fines, closure and rectification, and pollution-entry, which greatly increased the cost of environmental violations and effectively curbed the situation of laxity in law without following law enforcement.
In local areas, we will fully implement the problem of "the party and government share the same responsibility, one post, two responsibilities" and "manage development and environmental protection, and manage the industry and environmental protection", and solve the problem of leading cadres at all levels not paying attention to environmental protection in the past, and resolutely implement the environmental protection responsibilities of local party committees and governments.
At the same time, the three major defense battles of blue sky, clear water and clean land were launched, and seven landmark major battles including "diesel truck pollution control, urban black and odorous water body control, comprehensive control, Yangtze River protection and restoration, water source protection and agricultural and rural pollution control", and carried out four special actions: "banning foreign garbage from entering the country, cracking down on illegal transfer and dumping of hazardous waste , strengthening waste incineration power generation industry to meet standards, and supervision and inspection of the "Green Shield" nature reserve".
In terms of innovating the mechanism and organizational form of ecological environment protection, it has coordinated the implementation of multiple rounds of central environmental protection inspections around key tasks and other key areas of the pollution prevention and control battle, and promoted the resolution of a large number of "hard" problems in the ecological environment that have been long-term and have not been solved.
Moreover, environmental protection capabilities are comprehensively strengthened in terms of vertical transformation of environmental protection institutions, construction of environmental monitoring networks, construction of environmental monitoring and law enforcement capabilities, ecological and environmental science and technology support, and improvement of environmental protection law enforcement hardware facilities.
In order to tackle many hard bones in the ecological environment field, party committees and governments at all levels insist on controlling pollution according to law, scientific pollution control, and precise pollution control. The great investment and strict measures are taken are unique in the world. Regarding the highly-watched large-scale air pollution problem in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei and key surrounding areas, since 2017 alone, 50,000 key environmental protection forces have been coordinated for five consecutive years. It took more than 1,300 days to carry out 105 rounds of pollution prevention and control supervision and assistance, and promoted the solution of more than 280,000 air pollution problems. Behind all the achievements of
, all vividly interpret the unprecedented efforts to strive to win the battle against pollution and resolutely curb the spread of pollution in the past decade.
May 15, 2022, a scene of Hutuo River in Shijiazhuang, Hebei. In recent years, the ecological environment governance of the largest water system in North my country, Haihe , Haihe basin has achieved remarkable results. Photo/Xinhua News Agency
The results are great: becoming a global leader in ecological civilization construction
After ten years of continuous efforts, the national ecological environment quality has been comprehensively improved, and the air quality index, which is most closely related to public life, has improved significantly, and the people's sense of gain, happiness and security in the ecological environment quality.
As of the end of 2021, among the surface water assessment sections of 3,641 countries in my country, the proportion of sections with excellent water quality (Class I-III) is 84.9%, which is close to the level of developed countries; the area of nature reserves at all levels and types in the country has accounted for 18% of the country's land area, and the number of more than 300 rare and endangered wild animals and plants has recovered and grown; the green and low-carbon transformation and development has achieved obvious results, and in the past ten years, the average annual economic growth of 6.6% has been supported by an average annual energy consumption of 3%.
, the pollution problem that can best move the public's nerves and arouse strong concern is haze pollution. People are still scared of the long-term and large-scale severe haze pollution that occurred ten years ago.
According to the "Environmental Status Bulletin" released by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, in 2013, among the 74 cities monitored in accordance with the newly revised " Environmental Air Quality Standard " (GB3095-2012), the proportion of cities meeting the standards reached only 4.1%. By 2021, the annual average concentration of PM2.5 in Beijing has dropped by 63% compared with 2013, reaching the second-level air quality standard.
The achievements in ecological environment governance in the past decade have been unprecedented, and have promoted my country to become an important participant, contributor and leader in the construction of global ecological civilization.
United Nations Environment Programme Acting Director Joyce Msua once said: "China has shown unparalleled leadership in responding to domestic air pollution. While promoting the continuous improvement of its own air quality, it is also committed to helping other countries strengthen their actions. China leads the way and inspires global actions to save millions of lives."
Everything past is the prologue.The successful experience in ecological civilization construction and ecological environment protection in the past decade will provide useful reference and powerful impetus for the in-depth battle against pollution prevention and control in the new era, the realization of the goal of carbon peak and carbon neutrality as scheduled, and the implementation of high-quality development of green and low-carbon transformation.
At present, we must still stick to our original aspirations, directions and efforts, and continue to write an unprecedented new chapter for the realization of harmonious coexistence between man and nature, and contribute China's strength to the building of a community with a shared future for mankind and a clean and beautiful world.
Written by / Yang Pingjian (Chinese Academy of Environmental Sciences)
Editing / Xu Qiuying
Proofreading / Zhao Lin
