Inner Mongolia builds the foundation for development with the "stone" of integrity

General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: "A good ecological environment is the fairest public good and the most universally beneficial people's livelihood and well-being."

Every Saturday morning at 7 a.m., the 5-kilometer run in the north park of Beijing Olympic Forest Park is a common "agreement" for students in Class 11, Grade 6, Chaoyang School, Middle School Affiliated to Renmin University of China. From the sprouting of flowers and plants in spring to the stretching of green shades in summer, then running through the golden brilliance of autumn, and running towards the dazzling winter snow... On June 15 this year, they completed their 100th morning run.

The confidence of 100 morning runs is related to the blue sky in Beijing. From 2021 to 2023, Beijing's air quality has steadily reached the standard for three consecutive years. Zhou Min has lived in Beijing for more than 20 years and has experienced the entire process of Beijing's air pollution control work. In his view, the blue sky gives children the possibility to enjoy sports and feel nature outdoors.

In the past 10 years, my country has become the country with the fastest improvement in air quality in the world. The improvement of the quality of the ecological environment is not only the atmosphere, but also includes multi-dimensional improvements such as water, soil, and ecology. Compared with the "Overall Plan for the Reform of the Ecological Civilization System" proposed by my country in 2015, each goal completed as scheduled jointly outlines the picture of a beautiful China.

On this picture of beautiful China, there are not only happy pictures of children's 100 morning runs, but also the solid efforts of a group of young ecological environmentalists and seniors.

Long time work hard to overcome pollution and retrieve blue sky and clear water

The "Overall Plan for the Reform of the Ecological Civilization System" is a construction drawing for the construction of a beautiful China, and improving environmental governance is the core essence. The consensus gathered by the plan is: what the people care about and expect, what reform must seize and promote, and give the people a bright starry sky and a shallow bottom.

On June 28 this year, Jiang Nan, deputy director of the Automatic Monitoring Office of the Beijing City Ecological Environment Monitoring Center, participated in the final of the third "Big Competition" for professional and technical personnel in Beijing City Ecological Environment Monitoring. In his view, this competition is "practical and full of technological style."

Jiang Nan has worked in a monitoring position for 14 years and is a "sentry" keeping a close eye on front-end pollutants. Through their analysis, the monitoring data becomes an air quality index updated in real time every day and is transmitted to the people.

Wang Lihua, a senior engineer at the Beijing City Ecological Environment Monitoring Center, is also working with numbers all year round. In September 2012, Wang Lihua, who was in her 20s, had just entered work when she caught up with the construction of Beijing's atmospheric PM2.5 monitoring network. A tough battle was about to begin.

In 2013, the PM2.5 concentration was officially released to the public. The average annual concentration in Beijing that year was 89.5 micrograms/cubic meter. In September of the same year, the State Council issued the "Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan"(hereinafter referred to as the "Ten Atmospheric Measures") clearly required that by 2017, Beijing should control the average annual concentration of PM2.5 to around 60 micrograms/cubic meter.

This goal, known as the "Beijing 60", seemed difficult to achieve by many people at the time. According to the governance experience of developed countries, it will take 10-15 years to complete the reduction from 89.5 micrograms/cubic meter in 2013 to 60 micrograms/cubic meter, and the time left for Beijing is less than 5 years. Wang Lihua clearly remembers that at that time, many offices in the Beijing City Environmental Protection Bureau had the words "Beijing 60" posted.

According to the "Ten Principles of the Atmosphere", the combined plan for heavy pollution involves structural adjustments in many fields such as industry, energy, and transportation. In particular, goals such as total coal consumption control were once considered impossible tasks. According to the results of the first round of PM2.5 source analysis conducted in Beijing in 2013, coal-fired pollution is the second largest source. Through comprehensive policies, coal-fired power plants, coal-fired boilers, and civil bulk coal have been fundamentally managed.

In 2017, the average annual concentration of PM2.5 in Beijing was 58 micrograms/cubic meter. Beijing has achieved a phased victory, but the pace of air pollution prevention and control has not stopped. The report of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed to resolutely fight three major battles, of which pollution prevention and control is one; in March 2018, my country wrote ecological civilization into the Constitution.

Beijing has won the battle to defend blue skies, and Jiang Nan and Wang Lihua have also gained growth in the 10 years of fighting pollution.

Over the years, Jiang Nan's monitoring work has undergone tremendous changes. In 2013, there were only 35 monitoring stations in Beijing, an area of more than 16,000 square kilometers. Today, on the original basis, thousands of small Weizi stations have been established to support management. The "sky and ground" integrated monitoring system that comprehensively applies automatic monitoring technology, component monitoring technology, satellite remote sensing monitoring technology and ground-based radar monitoring technology is becoming more and more perfect, and the "last mile" of refined management has been truly opened up and extended to the grassroots.

From 2021 to 2023, the average annual concentration of PM2.5 in Beijing City is 33, 30, and 32 micrograms/cubic meter respectively. From rapid reduction in high concentrations to stable compliance with low concentrations-pollution prevention and control has entered a new stage.

Looking back at the "Ten Atmosphere Measures" issued in 2013, the "Three-Year Action Plan to Win the Battle to Defend the Blue Sky" in 2018, and then to the "Action Plan for Continuous Improvement of Air Quality" in November 2023, every top-level document is at the most Critical node indicates the direction.

After training in multiple business departments, Wang Lihua has a deeper experience of environmental governance. She introduced that Beijing is working hard to build a new ecological and environmental governance system to coordinate pollution and carbon reduction. Enterprise electricity consumption, greenhouse gases, etc. are gradually being included in the monitoring scope, and potential laws and problems are explored based on big data.

During this year's National Two Sessions, when General Secretary Xi Jinping attended the CPPCC Joint Group Meeting, he recalled the blue skies in Beijing when the 22nd APEC Leaders 'Informal Meeting was held in 2014."The weather was very good in those days. Someone asked at that time, This is' APEC Blue', will it last? I replied to them, this is not a temporary blue sky, it will be a permanent blue sky in a few years."

When the members present recalled this detail, they said that the general secretary's tone was firm. That is the confidence of victory to "work hard for a long time and unswervingly carry out the reform to the end."

From the mountain top to the ocean, man and nature develop harmoniously

"I hope that the vision depicted on this silk scarf of 'clear water and clean beach, gathering fish and gulls, and harmony between the sea and the sea' will become a reality." On July 11 this year, the white paper "China's Marine Ecological Environment Protection" was released. Guo Fang, Vice Minister of Ecology and Environment, introduced it at the press conference that day while taking out a silk scarf made of three discarded plastic bottles.

These waste plastic bottles come from the public welfare beach clearing operation in Nansha District, Guangzhou. Their "gorgeous transformation" is a silhouette of my country's efforts to create a large pattern of protection and management from mountain tops to the ocean.

When the Chinese white dolphins in the Pearl River Estuary and Sanniang Bay, and the Brucelli whale in Shenzhen Bay and Weizhou Island became the city's spokespersons, Guo Fang quoted an old saying to describe it: "Everything has its harmony to survive, and each has its support to thrive."

The overall requirements of the "Overall Plan for the Reform of the Ecological Civilization System" also include "promoting the formation of a new pattern of modernization construction that harmonizes the development of man and nature."

In 2021, in Yunnan, the short-nosed family went north and then returned home. The story of being protected by humans has attracted global attention. In October of the same year, the elephants appeared at the opening ceremony of the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity held in Kunming. A short film recorded them bathing, walking, and eating crops. In the short film, a villager said: "If the crops are gone, they can be planted again. If the elephants are not protected, there will be no more."

According to David Cooper, Acting Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, China's proposition of "harmonious coexistence between man and nature" and the 2050 "Harmony with Nature" agreed by the parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity "The vision is consistent.

In order to achieve the goal of reform, in recent years, my country has innovatively implemented the ecological protection red line system to effectively protect more than 30% of the land area; strengthened the zoning control of the ecological environment to "clear the bottom line" and "draw a frame" for development; and built a global coverage The ecological protection compensation mechanism with the widest scope, the largest beneficiary population, and the largest investment; Clarify the methods for accountability of leading cadres for ecological and environmental damage, and carry out outgoing audits of natural resources... The reform of the ecological civilization system has been further advanced to consolidate the institutional foundation of green waters and green mountains.

Taking the reform in the sea-related field as an example, in the 2018 institutional reform, the responsibilities of marine environmental protection were integrated into the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, and three ecological environment supervision and management agencies in river basins and sea areas were established, which opened up land and ocean, connected ecology and environment, and built a comprehensive management system for coordinating land and sea and linking rivers and seas. Inter-departmental cooperation will be stronger and inter-regional coordination will be smoother.

Our country has also established a natural reserve system with national parks as the main body. Among them, Sanjiangyuan National Park is the highest national park in the world and the largest in China.

The young Tibetan boy Cai Lang Dajie witnessed the changes in his hometown of Maduo County, Guoluo Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province. That is where the Yellow River Source Park of Sanjiangyuan National Park is located. Grassland degradation has occurred due to long-term overloading. In order to protect the local natural environment, the herders who have lived here for generations moved dozens of kilometers away and laid down their grazing whip.

Ecological experience activities have brought new vitality to Maduo, which is more than 4000 meters above sea level. As an "indigenous" in the local community, Cai Lang Dajie joined the Yellow River Source Park franchise project and enthusiastically introduced the rivers and animals he was familiar with to people coming from afar. His other identity is an ecological caretaker here. Picking up garbage on the ground is the habit of thousands of caretakers like him.

Thousands of miles of Yellow River flows eastward into the sea. The magnificent intersection of rivers and seas has the largest newborn wetland natural vegetation area along the coast of my country. It is an important global breeding ground for Oriental white storks and black-billed gulls, and is protected in the form of a national park. Yellow River Estuary National Park is the country's first land-sea national park, and all creation tasks have been basically completed.

The Yangtze River and Yellow River breed Chinese people, and it is urgent to protect the mother river. Today, the water quality in the main stream of the Yangtze River has remained in Class II for four consecutive years and the main stream of the Yellow River has remained in Class II for two consecutive years. Ecological protection and high-quality development in the Yellow River Basin have become major national strategies. The recently launched third round of reform and innovation for the second batch of central ecological and environmental protection inspections focuses on the protection of the Yangtze River and coordinates river basin inspections and provincial inspections for the first time.

Our country adheres to the strictest system and strictest rule of law to protect the ecological environment. The central ecological and environmental protection inspection has really hit the nail, and the newly revised environmental protection law has "grown teeth." The Ecological and Environmental Code is expected to become my country's second code after the Civil Code.

Looking at various places, Qihe County, Shandong Province, is located on the north bank of the Yellow River, and a professional environmental resource trial court named after "Yellow River Ecology" has been specially established; Xiamen City, Fujian Province, legislated for non-resident islands and to protect a natural coastline of only a few hundred meters...

"Birds know best whether the ecology is good or not." Zhang Jinhai, a representative of the National People's Congress and an employee of the Dongying City Wetland City Construction Promotion Center, told reporters that in Dongying, it is normal for rare white swans to fly into urban wetlands to play and forage for food. Even the picky Oriental white storks are "settling down and giving birth" near the city.

Huang Zhiquan, a member of the Xiamen City Bird Watching Association, has developed bird watching into his own career. He founded a nature education institution to take children to watch birds, catch the sea, and go deep into Xiamen's natural ecology. In his view,"only by understanding can we better protect it."

Pursuing green, new productivity is green productivity

On July 9, the "Interim Provisions on the Control and Management of Ecological Environment Zoning" was issued. This is one of the N documents in the "1+N" policy system to promote new quality productivity in the field of ecological environment.

General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out during the 11th collective study session of the Political Bureau of the 20th CPC Central Committee that green development is the background of high-quality development, and new productivity itself is green productivity.

One consensus on new quality productivity is that innovation plays a leading role, getting rid of the traditional economic growth method, and promoting economic development from "whether there is or not" to "whether it is good or not" or "whether it is high or not" whether it is "high or not."

Since the new era, my country has supported an average annual economic growth of more than 6% with an average annual energy consumption growth rate of 3%. Energy consumption per unit of GDP has dropped by 26.8%. It is one of the countries with the fastest reduction in energy consumption intensity in the world. The installed capacity of hydropower, wind power, solar power, and biomass power generation ranks first in the world, and the carbon emission intensity has dropped by more than 35%, reversing the rapid growth of carbon dioxide emissions.

The blue ocean of green and low-carbon transformation calls for young people to join. In May 2022, the "Work Plan for Strengthening the Construction of a Talent Training System for Carbon Peak and Carbon Neutralization Higher Education" issued by the Ministry of Education proposed to cultivate talents in energy storage and hydrogen energy, carbon capture, utilization and storage, carbon finance and carbon trading, etc. Cultivate talents in short supply.

On the eve of Environment Day on June 5th this year, the "Implementation Plan on Establishing a Carbon Footprint Management System" jointly issued by 15 departments requires vigorously cultivating product carbon footprint professionals and improving relevant vocational systems; and encouraging ordinary universities and vocational schools to open courses related to product carbon footprint. etc.

Now and in the future, more and more young people are finding their youthful direction in the construction of the national "double carbon" goal. People's pursuit of a green and low-carbon lifestyle has become a new track for Xu Yuanhong born in the 1980s.

When Xu Yuanhong, president of Beijing Ai Classification Environment Co., Ltd., gave up his glamorous career in an office building and wanted to collect waste as a business project, his father couldn't understand. Twenty or thirty years ago, my father collected waste to provide Xu Yuanhong to go to college, but he wanted to return to this business?

But Xu Yuanhong firmly told his father that this industry is not what it used to be and has potential for development.

Xu Yuanhong saw the background that the country had set up the banner of ecological civilization, and the consensus gradually formed in society was that ecological and environmental issues were ultimately issues of development methods and lifestyles. Establishing and improving a green, low-carbon circular development economic system and promoting the comprehensive green transformation of economic and social development are the basic strategies to solve my country's ecological and environmental problems. Then waste reduction and resource recycling are the essence of a green lifestyle.

His company has grown from a bungalow of more than ten square meters to a building, from the initial three people to nearly a thousand employees, creating a "two barrels and one bag" classification model for domestic waste in Beijing City, and then iterating to a "one-bag" door-to-door recycling convenience service to realize the recycling of recycled materials and reduce carbon emissions.

As early as 2015, Yang Weimin, then a member of the Central Leading Group for Comprehensively Deepening Reform, said that the core of establishing and improving the environmental governance system is "co-governance". Environmental governance requires the joint participation of the government, the market, individuals and society, each playing a different role. Co-governance is also one of the principles in the reform plan.

In 2017, a group of young people spent a year developing "CD Check-in" Mini programs. As the world's first product based on AI recognition to reduce food waste, users can redeem prizes by sharing their "CD" actions.

In the innovation of "Generation Z" youth, the "CD check-in" version continues to iterate. Cheng Zhenwang, co-founder of the "CD Check-in" Mini programs, told reporters that they are building a "China Smart Grain Saving Alliance" and gradually increasing social mobilization efforts. Through the multi-wheel drive model of "government + public welfare + enterprise", as of now, the platform has a total of 11.248 million users, driving a grain saving of 4645 tons and an estimated carbon reduction of 17970 tons.

The new "blue cycle" marine plastic waste management model explored and formed by Taizhou City, Zhejiang Province, won the United Nations "Guardian of the Earth Award" in 2023. This model uses blockchain and big data technology to open up paths for marine plastic pollution control, high-value resource recycling and common prosperity for fishermen. The "blue cycle" model is not only promoted in many provinces across the country, but has also received widespread attention internationally, and is being used in Singapore, France, Germany, South Korea, Japan, etc.

Unremittingly exploration, like children's perseverance for 5 kilometers, wading a road of ecological and environmental reform with Chinese characteristics. Guo Fang said that these experiences are both "Chinese" and "world". China is willing to communicate and learn from other countries, jointly protect the "blue homeland" on which mankind relies for survival, and leave blue seas and blue skies for future generations.