The 2024 "Earth Hour" China Home City Event was successfully held in Ordos

On March 23, the 2024 "Earth Hour" China's home city event was successfully held in Ordos, Inner Mongolia, an important node city of the Yellow River Basin's ecological protection and high-quality development strategy. The theme of the event was "Innovation, Connection, Sharing - I Dedicate an Hour to the Earth", which aimed to call on all sectors of society to take practical actions to help the goals of "nature for good" and "dual carbon", and contribute to the promotion of global environmental and climate governance. Pei Xiaofei, spokesperson of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and director of the Department of Publicity and Education, attended the event and delivered a speech.

In her speech, Pei Xiaofei pointed out that achieving carbon peak and carbon neutrality is a major strategic decision made by the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at the core after careful consideration, an inevitable choice to solve outstanding problems of resource and environmental constraints and realize the sustainable development of the Chinese nation, and a solemn commitment to build a community with a shared future for mankind. The 2024 Earth Hour China Home City Event was held in Ordos, Inner Mongolia, demonstrating China's determination and achievements in tackling climate change and promoting green and low-carbon development. He emphasized that everyone is a protector, builder and beneficiary of the ecological environment, and hoped that everyone will contribute to the construction of a better home on earth with practical actions.

Du Huiliang, deputy secretary of the Ordos Municipal Party Committee and mayor, mentioned in his speech that in recent years, Ordos has deeply practiced Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization and the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping's important instructions when he inspected Inner Mongolia, focused on two major events, and resolutely shouldered the major mission of ensuring national energy security, building an important ecological security barrier in northern China, and promoting green development. At present, Ordos is accelerating to become a world-class new energy industry, green manufacturing cluster and an important source of technological innovation in the field of "double carbon" and energy.

Zhou Fei, Deputy Director-General of WWF-Switzerland, pointed out that at the end of last year, at the 28th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the international community reached the "UAE Consensus", which for the first time formally included relevant expressions such as reducing the use of fossil fuels in the General Assembly resolution, proposing to "accelerate efforts to gradually reduce coal-fired power without emission control measures". This is a milestone that is seen as the beginning of a gradual phase-out of the fossil fuel era, meaning that humanity will eventually end up relying on fossil fuels in the future.

Fan Mingshi, a member of the party group and deputy director of the Department of Ecology and Environment of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, said that at present, Inner Mongolia has built a series of policy systems for carbon peak and carbon neutrality, and is promoting the transformation from "dual control" of energy consumption to "dual control" of carbon emissions. The ecological environment system of the autonomous region will always keep in mind the "great power of the country", comprehensively strengthen the "six overall plans", deeply practice ecological priority and green development, promote carbon reduction, pollution reduction, green expansion and growth, accelerate the formation of green and low-carbon industrial competitive advantages, and promote the organic integration of high-quality development and high-level protection.

In the theme sharing session of the event, nearly 100 government representatives, industry experts, and enterprise representatives in the fields of climate change and energy transition gathered together to discuss the path of green, low-carbon and high-quality development. Zheng Jinyang, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, shared the innovation and industrial development trend of hydrogen energy technology from a regional and global perspective, and Pan Jiahua, a member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, made a strategic analysis of the 2035 nationally determined contribution target in the process of transitioning away from fossil fuels from the perspective of the UAE Consensus. Representatives from all parties discussed and shared topics such as "local practice of low-carbon development", "green transformation" and "climate innovation", and jointly discussed the situation, existing challenges, accumulated experience and future innovative solutions for the low-carbon development and construction of beautiful cities.

In the afternoon of the same day, the guests and media reporters went to the Ordos Zero Carbon Industrial Park for experiential research. With a high proportion of clean energy consumption as the core goal, the park adopts large-scale renewable energy development, large-scale electrochemical energy storage construction, high-proportion industrial waste energy utilization, Internet of Things smart energy management and energy and carbon management and other measures to provide industry demonstration for the large-scale project promotion, industrialization technology improvement and key mode breakthroughs of green microgrids in the industrial field.

Starting at 8 o'clock in the evening, the "Earth Hour" lights-out ceremony with Inner Mongolia characteristics was officially held. Yan Shidong, Deputy Director of the Publicity and Education Center of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, attended the lights-out ceremony and delivered a speech, calling on everyone to take action, starting from extinguishing unnecessary lights, starting with the "I Dedicate an Hour to the Earth" ecological and environmental volunteer service, to promote innovation, strengthen connections, promote sharing, and jointly build a better and more sustainable beautiful China. Ji Rimutu, Deputy Mayor of Ordos City, attended the event and delivered a speech.

At the lights-out ceremony, the National Ecological and Environmental Volunteer Service Network initiated by the Publicity and Education Center of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment was officially established. Olympic champion Deng Yaping recited the "Ten Rules of Conduct for Citizens' Ecological Environment" revised in 2023 by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and other five departments with the children, calling on everyone to be active disseminators and exemplary practitioners of the concept of ecological civilization. The guests counted down together at the event site to witness the lights off of the landmark buildings in Ordos City for one hour at the same time.

Light painting artist Wang Sibo and local citizens jointly created light painting works in Ordos Museum, Library, Grand Theater and other places to express their support for the event.

Earth Hour encourages individuals, communities, businesses and governments to turn off their lights for one hour from 20:30 to 21:30 on the last Saturday of March every year to express their concern for nature and support for environmental protection. Ordos City, Inner Mongolia, is an important node city in the ecological protection and high-quality development strategy of the Yellow River Basin, and the holding of this event fully reflects the confidence and determination of Ordos City to unswervingly accelerate the green and low-carbon transformation, and shows the progress and achievements of Ordos City in the construction of a beautiful China from the perspective of the participation of the whole society.

The "Earth Hour" China Home City Event was co-sponsored by the Publicity and Education Center of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, the Beijing Representative Office of the World Wide Fund for Nature (Switzerland), and the People's Government of Ordos City, and undertaken by the Ordos Municipal Bureau of Ecology and Environment.