Professor Wen Zongguo of Tsinghua University: Providing strong scientific and technological support for the construction of a beautiful China

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Building a beautiful China is an important goal of comprehensively building a modern socialist country and an important part of realizing the Chinese dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, my country has carried out a series of fundamental, groundbreaking and long-term work to promote historic, turning and overall changes in ecological and environmental protection. The people's sense of gain, happiness and security in the ecological environment continues to increase.

In recent years, with the promulgation of the three "Ten Points" for air, water and soil pollution control and the implementation of the battle against pollution, my country has become the region with the fastest development of ecological and environmental technology and large-scale technology application in the world. The results of the sixth environmental technology forecast show that during the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan" period, the gap between my country's ecological and environmental science and technology level and the overall level of developed countries has been significantly shortened, from the past 10 to 15 years to 5 to 10 years. The scientific and technological strength of some industries in my country has developed from starting and following to running in parallel, and has become among the international advanced ranks, strongly supporting my country's ecological civilization construction and green development strategy, and also providing important reference for global environmental governance.

Scientific and technological innovation plays an important role in many fields such as pollution control, ecological restoration, environmental monitoring and resource recycling. For example, the widespread application of efficient pollutant reduction technologies, ecological restoration technologies, and waste resource utilization technologies has laid a solid foundation for the continuous improvement of environmental quality. In terms of environmental monitoring, an environmental monitoring platform based on big data and cloud computing has been established, achieving all-round monitoring of environmental factors such as water, gas, and soil. Through the analysis and prediction of real-time data, relevant departments can take timely measures to deal with environmental risks. Intelligent and precise monitoring methods make the identification and control of pollution sources more accurate, providing a scientific basis for environmental governance. In addition, in the field of ecological restoration, the innovation and application of related technologies have promoted the implementation and promotion of ecological engineering technologies. Many damaged ecosystems have been effectively restored and rebuilt, and the level of biodiversity protection has been improved. In terms of carbon emission reduction and climate change response, technological breakthroughs in the fields of clean energy, carbon capture and storage have helped us make substantial progress in reducing carbon emissions and responding to global climate change, and have contributed to achieving carbon peak and carbon neutrality. The goal provides strong support.

At present, the quality of my country's ecological environment is generally stable and improving. Ecological and environmental protection has become the core driving force for coordinated economic transformation and development and environmental protection, and is also the commanding height of the world's scientific and technological innovation and industrial development competition. Ecological and environmental scientific and technological innovation is a key means to solve complex ecological and environmental problems, build a beautiful China and promote global sustainable development. In recent years, documents such as the "Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Comprehensively Promoting the Construction of a Beautiful China" and the "Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Accelerating the Comprehensive Green Transformation of Economic and Social Development" have been issued one after another to promote green and low-carbon development of economic and social development and promote the green and low-carbon technological revolution has provided policy guarantees for accelerating the modernization of harmonious coexistence between man and nature.

In the future, a new round of technological revolution and green development concepts will profoundly change the world development pattern and bring new impetus to the economies of various countries. We should seize the window of opportunity brought by this technological paradigm shift and make reasonable adjustments to technological breakthroughs and development models to help achieve transcendence. At present, international ecological and environmental scientific and technological innovation has shifted from terminal management of a single medium to collaborative control of multiple media and multiple factors, as well as resource recycling and precise management. Developed countries have demonstrated their advantages in promoting pollution prevention and control, risk prevention and control, ecological restoration and biodiversity protection through technological innovation, and occupy the high-end market of green industries. We should attach more importance to relevant scientific and technological innovation, help improve our country's international competitiveness, and lay a solid foundation for responding to increasingly complex ecological and environmental issues and increasingly strict environmental quality requirements.

Looking to the future, ecological and environmental scientific and technological innovation should focus on moving towards "zero pollution","carbon neutrality" and "ecological integrity", highlight the systematic, regional and comprehensive nature of ecological and environmental protection under the new situation, and promote cross-media multi-goal comprehensive management, improve the quality of the ecosystem, enhance the supply capacity of ecological products, strengthen new life-cycle management models such as source reduction, harm reduction and recycling of waste, and accelerate environmental health and chemical risk management. Improve global environmental compliance capabilities and leading role in environmental governance, develop emerging cross-technologies and advanced environmental protection industries, build an environmental science and technology innovation system that faces reality and the future, adapts to the characteristics of different regions, and meets the needs of multiple entities, and promotes the construction of Beautiful China to a new level.

Scientific and technological innovation is a key means to promote high-quality economic development in my country and high-level protection of the ecological environment. To provide stronger scientific and technological support for the construction of a beautiful China, first of all, we are required to adhere to a connected, comprehensive and developing systematic perspective on ecological and environmental issues, face the governance needs under the balance of pollution emission and purification, and focus on water, soil, gas, solid waste and other fields. On the basis of single-point technological innovation in the field, we further propose to deal with climate change and make environmental governance green, resourceful and systematic. Systematic solutions to global and regional major ecological and environmental issues such as ecological and health risks of new pollutants. Secondly, there is an urgent need to re-understand the harmonious symbiosis mechanism between man and nature, break through technologies such as ecosystem monitoring and near-nature restoration, and study new ideas, new technologies, new models and new ideas for biodiversity protection, improving ecosystem quality, and restoring degraded ecosystems. Policy mechanisms, innovate systematic plans for comprehensive management of mountains, rivers, forests, fields, lakes, grass and sand, and make up for the shortcomings of biodiversity and ecological integrity restoration. Finally, it is urgent to comprehensively carry out research on digital and intelligent transformation technologies for ecological and environmental protection, optimize the overall layout of ecological and environmental big data, build a smart and efficient ecological and environmental informatization system, and break through the application bottleneck of network information technology, communication technology and automatic control technology in the field of ecological and environmental protection, thereby using digital resources to support the realization of the goal of harmonious coexistence between man and nature.

The author is a professor at the School of Environment, Tsinghua University and director of the Circular Economy Industry Research Center