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2021 is a year of special importance in China's modernization process. The ecological environment issues during the 14th Five Year Plan period should be said to have deeper levels, wider fields, and higher requirements. That is to say, the number of environmental problems that need to be solved is large, scattered, hidden deeper, and less easily discovered. This requires us to take improving the quality of the ecological environment as the core, anchor the key to precise pollution control, deeply grasp the connotation of "scientific pollution control", comprehensively implement the new development concept, adhere to a systematic approach, deeply fight the battle against pollution prevention and control, promote the formation of a new pattern of scientific pollution control, and accelerate the realization of green and low-carbon development.

 

■ Text/ Li Haisheng

During the 13th Five Year Plan period, the overall quality of China's ecological environment has improved, and the phased goals and tasks of pollution prevention and control have been successfully completed. The difference between China's proposal of "resolutely fighting the battle against pollution prevention and control" in the 13th Five Year Plan and "deepening the battle against pollution prevention and control" in the 14th Five Year Plan will bring about significant changes. During the 14th Five Year Plan period, China entered a new stage of development and put forward new requirements for strengthening ecological civilization construction and ecological environment protection. We must fully implement the new development concept, always adhere to a systematic approach, and focus on the overall work idea of "improving gas, reducing carbon emissions, strengthening ecology, increasing water, stabilizing soil, and preventing risks". We must deeply grasp the connotation of "scientific pollution control", further enhance the ability and level of scientific pollution control, promote the formation of a new pattern of scientific pollution control, and provide scientific and technological support for deepening the battle against pollution prevention and control.

Collaborate to promote harmonious coexistence between humans and nature, and embark on the path of "three lives" and win-win development

Man and nature are a community of life, and together they form a highly complex composite ecosystem. Therefore, in the process of scientific pollution control, we must work together to achieve harmonious coexistence between humans and nature, and firmly follow the path of "production development, prosperous life, and good ecology" for a win-win development.
Adhere to the laws of nature and safeguard the ecological security boundaries of natural systems
The natural system is the prerequisite and foundation for human survival and development. In the past, humans treated nature with a conqueror's attitude and traded environmental pollution for economic development, greatly damaging the foundation of human survival. Ecology is a unified natural system, an interdependent and closely connected organic chain, and ecological environment protection is a systematic project. Ecological environment governance must not treat the head and feet as they go. Only by adhering to respecting nature, conforming to nature, and protecting nature can we coexist harmoniously with nature. To study the evolution laws of natural systems and the migration and transformation laws of pollutants in the ecological environment, we need to utilize the natural recovery power and borrow the power of nature to restore nature, solve ecological environment problems from the root, and achieve the effect of treating both symptoms and root causes.
Transforming the development mode and promoting the green and low-carbon transformation of the production system
Green development is an inevitable requirement for building a high-quality modern economic system and the fundamental strategy for solving environmental problems. Under the guidance of the new development concept, we need to address structural contradictions in industries, energy, transportation, etc., and use ecological environment protection to force industrial structure upgrading and transformation, achieve industrial ecologicalization and energy greening, and promote the coordinated progress of economic development and ecological environment. Strengthen the driving and leading role of technological innovation, accelerate the transformation of green innovation achievements into real productivity, stimulate the innovation vitality and creative potential of economic transformation, and form a green new driving force for economic growth.
Cultivate green concepts and build green models for living systems
Smooth domestic circulation requires the release of strong consumption potential, and green consumption is a new driving force for promoting green development. With the continuous improvement of people's living standards, China's consumption level continues to grow. However, at the same time, phenomena such as extravagance, waste, and excessive consumption still exist, which exacerbates the pressure on resources and the environment. At present, the green lifestyle and consumption patterns of diligence, thrift, green low-carbon, civilized and healthy have not yet been widely formed. It is still necessary to guide correct consumption behavior through laws, regulations, standards and norms, publicity and education, and green culture construction. To strengthen the awareness of ecological protection and resource conservation, establish the concept of green consumption, and promote the development of green industries and products such as green tourism, organic agriculture, and green buildings. Establish incentive mechanisms, enhance the enthusiasm of the whole society to participate in ecological environment protection, and make green living a new trend.

Strengthening system governance and building a scientific pollution control support system

In recent years, China has continuously increased its investment in science and technology, and the scientific level of environmental pollution control, protection and restoration, and environmental management has been continuously improved. However, overall, the comprehensiveness and systematicity of ecological environment governance are still insufficient, and the technological support capacity urgently needs to be improved. Therefore, it is urgent to establish and improve a scientific pollution control support system of "source prevention process control law enforcement supervision".
Strengthen source prevention
On the one hand, clarify the causes of the problem and prescribe the right medicine. Through system analysis, conduct research on mechanisms and laws, propose targeted solutions and technical methods, and fundamentally solve problems. The detailed analysis of the emission sources of each city in the Beijing Tianjin Hebei and surrounding areas in the atmospheric research project enables targeted prevention and control of regional air pollution. On the other hand, pollution emissions can be controlled from the source through planning, policy, and resource utilization assessments. For example, non-point source pollution is a systemic problem that needs to be solved through policy innovation at the source, ecological methods, and the promotion of water-saving irrigation, integrated water and fertilizer management, and conservation tillage technologies. More than 1.4 billion people and 1.4 billion mouths consume 1.3 trillion kilograms of grain every year, which is behind the consumption of tens of millions of tons of fertilizer and pesticide. Research from the root, research and development of green fertilizer and pesticide, and implementation of the Clean Your Plate Campaign can achieve twice the result with half the effort.
Promote process control
By controlling environmental pollution and ecological damage throughout the entire process of production, distribution, circulation, and consumption, implementing full process control can not only promote the improvement of resource utilization efficiency and pollutant reduction efficiency, but also achieve a "win-win" situation of economic, social, and environmental benefits. Through the "benefit incentive" mechanism of clean production, the contradiction between environmental protection and economic development can be effectively resolved, and enterprises can be continuously promoted to self improve and achieve green upgrading. Taking non-point source pollution control as an example, we should actively promote interception technologies for ecological channels, ecological main channels, and other processes, as well as treatment technologies for artificial wetlands. At the same time, we must adhere to the combination of voluntary and mandatory measures, establish a comprehensive indicator system for process control, and incorporate green development requirements into ecological environment standards.
Service Law Enforcement Supervision
Develop information-based and efficient regulatory and law enforcement tools, create an intelligent monitoring, early warning, and data analysis platform, and use technological means to solve problems such as insufficient human and material resources in grassroots governance. On the one hand, applying technological means to facilitate local environmental law enforcement while further improving law enforcement efficiency, enhancing the pertinence, scientificity, timeliness, and precision level of environmental law enforcement. The essence of environmental governance issues is a social management problem, which requires balancing the relationships among all parties, focusing on establishing mechanisms, all parties working together, strengthening joint prevention and control, and promoting the formation of multiple responsible entities for governance. On the other hand, it is necessary to establish and improve the supervision mechanism of social organizations, so that they can play a stronger role in ecological environment supervision.
 

Taking into account all aspects, implementing systematic governance, and fighting the battle against pollution prevention and control well
 

During the 14th Five Year Plan period, we must deepen the battle against pollution prevention and control, consolidate the achievements of ecological environment protection, but also face complex situations and many challenges. To this end, it is necessary to adhere to problem oriented, goal oriented, and result oriented approaches, vigorously promote technological innovation and collaborative governance, and effectively support scientific pollution control.
Strengthen the leading role of green technology innovation
Give full play to the leading role of green technology in promoting industrial quality improvement, efficiency enhancement and upgrading, and carry out comprehensive green transformation of traditional economic production modes, technology types and industrial forms. There is still a significant gap between China's ecological environment research capabilities and the overall requirements for pollution reduction and carbon reduction, and a large number of core bottleneck technologies and applicable feasible technologies urgently need to be broken through. In view of this, on the one hand, we will carry out technological breakthroughs in key areas and critical links to support the overall goals and tasks of improving ecological environment quality, preventing and controlling ecological environment risks, and implementing intelligent ecological environment supervision. On the other hand, innovation is not only about the innovation of scientific principles, process technology, and governance technology, but also includes management innovation, model innovation, process innovation, law enforcement innovation, and innovation in the dissemination of green culture. It is necessary to comprehensively improve the support capacity and service efficiency of science and technology for ecological environment protection.
Accelerate the construction of a modern diversified environmental governance system
Adhering to diverse governance is a distinctive feature of the modern environmental governance system. Building a modern environmental governance system with diverse governance means adhering to the leadership of the Party, promoting the formation of environmental governance synergy among various entities such as the government, enterprises, social organizations, and the public, achieving synergy, functional complementarity, and resource sharing among different governance entities, and jointly promoting effective regional environmental governance. After entering a new stage of development in the battle against pollution prevention and control, the contradictions involved have deeper levels, wider fields, and wider scopes. The number of environmental problems that need to be solved is large, scattered, hidden deeper, and less easily discovered. Firstly, it is necessary to establish a modern environmental governance system that is jointly governed and shared by the whole people as soon as possible, fully tap into the enthusiasm and consciousness of all governance entities, and form a new pattern of ecological environment governance. Secondly, we should highlight the concept of social governance and pay more attention to the construction of environmental governance systems at the urban and rural community levels. Under the leadership of the Party and the government, we should strengthen the community's environmental autonomy and shift ecological environment governance to the grassroots level.
Promote the collaborative innovation mode and mechanism of science and technology
Collaborative innovation is a large-scale integrated innovation model that focuses on knowledge value-added, and is carried out by enterprises, governments, knowledge production institutions, and intermediary organizations to achieve significant technological innovation. Its goal is to achieve complementary advantages among all parties, accelerate the promotion and application of technology, and collaborate on industrial technology innovation and the industrialization of scientific and technological achievements. It is a new paradigm of technological innovation today. In combination with the deepening of the battle against pollution prevention and control during the 14th Five Year Plan period, and in response to the medium and long-term goal of building a "Beautiful China", we will organize scientific and technological breakthroughs to tackle major regional and watershed ecological and environmental issues. On the one hand, we will promote the collaborative innovation model of interdisciplinary integration, cross industry integration of multiple technologies and industries, and integration of industry, academia, research and application. We will plan ahead and change the situation where scientific research output lags behind governance needs and runs slowly. Promote the integration and transformation of scientific research achievements, and solve the "island phenomenon" of scientific research and application. On the other hand, further optimizing the allocation of technological resources, breaking through the development constraints of "individual combat" in scientific research institutes, forming an overall force to support ecological environment management, and constructing a national ecological environment technology "one game" pattern.

Author's Introduction
Li Haisheng: President of the Chinese Academy of Environmental Sciences, Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee, and Director of the National Joint Center for Air Pollution Prevention and Control
Reprinted on the 7th edition of the Study Times on May 19th
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