Wang Jinnan: Continuous efforts are needed to reduce pollution and carbon
China News Weekly reporter/Xu Tian
Issued in the 986th issue of China News Weekly in 2021.3.8
The blue sky, clear water and pure land defense battle, the central ecological and environmental protection inspector... In the past five years, these keywords have frequently appeared in news reports, and ecological environmental protection has been raised to an unprecedented height.
In an interview with China News Weekly, Wang Jinnan, a member of the Environmental Resources Committee of the National People’s Congress, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and dean of the Environmental Planning Institute of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, commented that the "13th Five-Year Plan" period has seen the greatest effect in improving the ecological environment and the most effective work promotion so far. Good, five years highly recognized by the people and the international community.
However, ecological and environmental protection still has a long way to go, and the task of reaching carbon peaks is arduous.
Therefore, during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, my country's ecological environment protection is still in a critical period, a critical period, and a window period. It is necessary to focus on reducing pollution and carbon, and continue to exert efforts.
Source governance should be based on carbon reduction as the "bull nose"
China News Weekly: How do you evaluate my country's work in the field of ecological environment during the "13th Five-Year Plan" period?
Wang Jinnan: In my opinion, the "13th Five-Year Plan" period is the five years in which the ecological environment has been improved with the greatest effect, the work has been promoted, and has been highly recognized by the people and the international community.
The nine eco-environmental binding indicators specified in the "13th Five-Year Plan" have all been overfulfilled. The blue sky, clear water, pure land defense war and the seven iconic battles have achieved decisive results. For example, the number of days of heavy air pollution that people are very concerned about has been significantly reduced.
In addition, ecological environmental protection is constantly guiding, optimizing, compelling, and promoting high-quality economic development.
During the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan" period, the energy structure, industrial structure, and transportation structure continued to be optimized. Carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP dropped by 19.5%. Clean energy accounted for nearly a quarter of energy consumption. The installed capacity of photovoltaic and wind energy and power generation The volume ranks first in the world. The country’s ultra-low-emission coal-fired power generation units totaled 950 million kilowatts. The world’s largest ultra-low-emission clean coal power supply system has been built, and the investigation of "scattered and polluted" enterprises has been basically completed, and 15,000 industrial furnaces have been treated. station.
The eco-environmental protection system and mechanism have also been improved.
It is also worth mentioning that my country is more deeply involved in global environmental governance.
For example, my country has fulfilled the 2020 carbon emission intensity control target that China has promised to the outside world ahead of schedule, and proposed that it should strive to achieve a carbon peak by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060.
China News Weekly: What are the remaining environmental issues during the "13th Five-Year Plan" period that need to be focused on during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period?
Wang Jinnan: During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, my country's ecological environment protection is still in a critical period, a critical period, and a window period. The ecological environment protection work still has a long way to go.
There are several reasons for this: First, the ecological environment has not yet improved fundamentally, and there is still a large gap between the goal of basically achieving a beautiful China by 2035; second, the instability and uncertainty of the external environment have increased significantly, which has greatly affected the global ecological environment protection. Governance brings risks and challenges; third, the structural, root, and trend pressures of ecological environmental protection have not yet been fundamentally alleviated; fourth, China’s industrialization and urbanization will continue to grow rapidly during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, and the ecological environment will be renewed. The increasing pressure is still at a high level, and the task of peaking carbon is arduous; fifth, the modernization of governance in the field of ecological environment and global environmental governance capabilities urgently need to be strengthened.
Therefore, during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, we still need to continue to exert efforts in several aspects.
The first group of keywords is "green development, low-carbon development, circular development".
It is necessary to accelerate the promotion of green and low-carbon development, and promote the "green recovery" and high-quality development of the economy after the epidemic with high-level protection of the ecological environment.
The second group of keywords is "source governance, system governance, and overall governance."
Source governance is to take carbon reduction as the "nose nose", carry out carbon emission peaking actions, and realize the synergistic effect of pollution reduction and carbon reduction.
System governance and overall governance mean that we must use quality targets to force total emission reduction, source emission reduction, and structural emission reduction, and promote the acceleration of optimization and adjustment of industrial structure, energy structure, transportation structure, and agricultural structure. Starting from the basin system, strengthen the protection and restoration of the ecological environment system.
The third group of keywords is "precise pollution control, scientific pollution control, and pollution control by law."
Take the blue sky defense war as an example. First, we must clarify the components of pollution, find the source of pollution, and then formulate corresponding treatment measures.
In addition to the control of fine particles, the ozone problem is becoming more and more serious. Next, my country will also focus on the coordinated control of ozone and fine particles, strengthen the coordinated control of multiple pollutants and regional coordinated governance, and basically eliminate heavy pollution weather.
China News Weekly: What changes will be made in the basic thinking and governance methods of ecological and environmental protection during the 14th Five-Year Plan?
Wang Jinnan: In terms of governance ideas, the next step is to fight an upgraded version of pollution prevention and control battles, put pollution reduction and carbon reduction in a more prominent priority position, and shift from the end of the "13th Five-Year Plan" to the "14th Five-Year Plan" to strengthen the front-end Structural adjustment and green development will reduce pollution from the source and promote the continuous improvement of the ecological environment.
With regard to the key points of governance, we will in-depth fight the battle against pollution, and coordinate the promotion of "gasification, carbon reduction, ecological enhancement, water increase, soil consolidation, and risk prevention".
For example, there has been a lot of discussion on "carbon reduction" recently. It is to take the carbon neutral vision before 2060 as the constraint, and formulate an action plan for peaking carbon dioxide emissions before 2030. China's creation of demonstration zones, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area should take the lead in achieving carbon peaks.
In the field of governance, it will gradually expand from the governance of environmental issues such as air, water, and soil pollution, as well as conventional pollutants, to respond to global climate change, biodiversity protection, marine environmental protection, and environmental risk prevention and control. Pay more attention to the treatment of new pollutants, and pay more attention to human health and ecosystem service functions.
In terms of the scope of governance, the current focus on cities, especially cities above the prefecture level, will be extended to districts, counties, towns and rural areas.
During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, no more high-carbon projects should be invested
China News Weekly: my country’s carbon dioxide emissions should strive to reach a peak by 2030 and strive to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060.
In your opinion, how should our country achieve this goal?
Wang Jinnan: In my opinion, the core is to build a new development pattern, with low-carbon or even zero-carbon as the important goal to lead social and economic development, and achieve a high degree of coordination and unity of carbon peak, carbon neutrality and high-quality development.
The main tasks are as follows:
One is to do a good job of top-level planning.
my country’s total carbon emissions are higher than the United States and the European Union combined, and it has only been 30 years from carbon peak to carbon neutrality, and it faces tighter and greater emission reduction requirements than developed countries.
It is necessary to design a proactive carbon emission reduction path from the top level and adopt strong policy measures to promote related work.
The second is to make efforts from both local and industry sources.
At the national level, the long-term goal is to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, and strive to introduce a carbon peak action plan in the first half of this year.
In accordance with the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, a roadmap for peak peaking in different regions is proposed to clarify the main responsibility for peak peaking, completion time, and work tasks, and to promote the integration of development trends and technical levels in different fields to achieve peak peaking in different regions. Among them, electric power, Key industries such as steel and cement strive to reach their peaks as soon as possible during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period.
The third is to accelerate the transformation of the energy structure and establish a clean and low-carbon energy system.
Promote the energy revolution through carbon peak and carbon neutral work, and strive to achieve peak consumption of fossil energy such as coal, oil, and natural gas.
The peak time for coal and oil consumption should be announced as soon as possible, and the recommendations are the "14th Five-Year" and "15th Five-Year" peaks respectively.
The fourth is to give play to the role of the market and the government.
Establish different types of carbon dioxide emission total control systems, comprehensively carry out the construction of a national carbon market and a paid allocation system for allowances, and introduce carbon tax policies that incorporate environmental protection taxes.
It is also necessary to give full play to the government's main responsibility in the carbon peaking action, and include carbon dioxide emission control into the central ecological environment protection inspection, party and government leadership comprehensive assessment and other scopes.
China News Weekly: At present, because there are still nine years to reach the peak of carbon, there are still some provinces that have launched high-carbon projects in the "14th Five-Year Plan".
During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, how should economic development and low-carbon development be balanced?
Wang Jinnan: Many places believe that the use of fossil energy can continue to be substantially increased by 2030, and they are even planning the "14th Five-Year" development plan on the track of "high carbon", climbing a "new peak" of carbon emissions and reaching a "new peak" "After considering the decline, I did not realize the compelling requirements of carbon neutrality for the development of various places.
This will have a great negative impact on my country's achievement of carbon neutrality by 2060.
On the one hand, the EU’s carbon dioxide emissions reached a peak of 4.5 billion tons in the 1990s and the United States reached a peak of about 5.9 billion tons in 2007. It is predicted that China’s peak carbon dioxide emissions will reach about 10.6 billion tons, 2.4 times that of the EU. 1.8 times that of the United States; according to the EU’s goal of achieving carbon neutrality in the middle of this century, it took 60 years for its carbon peak to be carbon neutral, while it took only 30 years for my country to go from carbon peak to carbon neutrality.
my country is facing tighter and greater emission reduction requirements than developed countries.
On the other hand, the service life of equipment such as coal-fired power plants and steel companies is more than 30 years. If it is put into operation during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, it means that these equipment will continue to emit carbon dioxide until the middle of this century, resulting in high carbon emissions. The “lock-in” effect will hinder my country’s achievement of carbon neutrality; or in order to meet the requirements of carbon neutrality, these newly built equipment will be shut down and eliminated before reaching the service life, which means a huge waste of investment and even Impact on the financial system and social economy.
Therefore, from the perspective of carbon neutrality, we should now change our development concept, abandon the model of relying on investing in high-carbon projects to stimulate the economy, and shift investment to support low-carbon, green, and projects with greater development space, as early as possible To seize the position and win the first opportunity in the tide of international low-carbon technology, so as to support longer-term and healthier economic development.
China News Weekly: You are going to submit a proposal on the formulation of the "Carbon Neutrality Promotion Law" at this year's National "Two Sessions".
At present, my country does not have a special law to deal with climate change. What is the necessity of legislation?
Wang Jinnan: In recent years, legislation and amendments to China's ecological civilization construction have advanced by leaps and bounds, especially in the areas of pollution prevention and control and ecological protection, but there are no special national laws in the field of climate change or low-carbon development.
The weak legal system, low level of legislation and fragmentation that support the achievement of the carbon peak carbon neutral goal is far from meeting the actual work needs of our country, and it cannot provide strong legal support for how to achieve carbon peak carbon neutrality.
Legislation can give legal status to carbon emission peak targets, total amount and intensity control targets, clarify the legal attributes and confirmation mechanisms of greenhouse gas emission rights, and ensure the orderly advancement of China's carbon emission rights trading market. It is also a government management department. Decompose and implement carbon emission reduction targets and provide legal basis for target responsibility assessment.
China News Weekly, Issue 8 of 2021
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