Green Transformation and Development

The basic connotation of green is briefly analyzed. It is believed that green symbolizes life, health, hope, harmony, peace, balance, friendliness, tolerance, wealth and permission. This paper briefly analyzes the origin of green development, and holds that green development mainly comes from the reflection on traditional development, the influence of sustainable development thought, the proposal of green economy, and the sublation and abandonment of the traditional culture of the unity of man and nature in the new period. This paper briefly analyzes the basic connotation of green development and holds that green development is characterized by resource conservation, environmental friendliness and ecological conservation. This paper briefly analyzes the basic characteristics of green development and holds that green development generally has the characteristics of humanization, ecology, rationalization, economy, high efficiency, cleanliness, low carbon, safety, high technology and low cost. The relationship between green development, circular development and low carbon development is briefly compared. This paper briefly analyzes the necessity and basic ideas of promoting green development in China.

This paper briefly illustrates that China should fully draw on international experience in promoting green development, especially the successful practices and beneficial experience of the United States, the European Union, Japan and the Republic of Korea in promoting green development, especially in developing green economy and green society. These experiences are particularly reflected in vigorously developing green energy, green consumption, green investment, green technology, green facilities and green legislation. Of course, China’s efforts to promote green development must be based on China’s national conditions, in particular, in line with the stage of industrialization and urbanization, and in line with the overall trend of green development in the world. At the same time, China’s ecological progress, including green development, is expected to provide a useful and powerful experience and model for green development in the world.

China’s green development is undoubtedly an inevitable trend. China’s green development has, is and will continue to be under pressure from both domestic and international sources. In China, the biggest pressure is the strong constraint of natural resources, including water, land, energy and biological resources. Secondly, the strong constraint pressure of natural environment, including atmospheric environment, water environment and soil environment. There are also enormous pressures for ecosystem degradation, including biodiversity loss, soil erosion, shrinking wetlands and river discontinuity. From the international perspective, China is under the pressure of international environmental friction, international trade friction, international green barriers, China’s resources and environment threat, and internal pressure to improve China’s international image. From the subjective point of view, China as a whole has entered the development stage of upper middle income, with the growing middle class and the general improvement of people’s living standards. The yearning for a better life, including blue sky, green earth, clear water and beautiful scenery, is growing day by day. This will undoubtedly put pressure on the Chinese government to pursue green development, and it will also be a powerful driving force for green development. China’s green transformation and development is to recognize the pressure, change the enormous pressure into inexhaustible power and continue to effectively promote green development.

In the process of green transformation and development, China is facing many serious pressures and has many powerful driving forces. From the perspective of the central government, the impetus for promoting green development is mainly reflected in three aspects: First, promoting green development is an inevitable requirement for improving the governance capacity and level of the country. A government that cannot even solve the problems of domestic resources, environment and ecology is not one with high governance capacity and level. Second, promoting green development is the inherent requirement for improving the national image and establishing the status of a responsible major country. Third, promoting green development is an inevitable requirement for improving the country’s comprehensive competitiveness. Competition in the field of resources, environment and ecology is also an important content. In the eyes of local governments, green transformation and development are also the inevitable requirements of enhancing regional competitiveness, improving regional living environment and investment environment, establishing the image of serving the people and resisting environmental mass incidents in the new era. At the same time, enterprises are also motivated to participate in green transformation and development. Green development contains huge business opportunities, enterprises fulfill their social responsibilities and enterprises successfully “go global”. From this perspective, green transformation and development is a process jointly promoted by multiple parties and a process of constant release of power.

China’s green transformation and development cannot be plain sailing; the resistance in the process is also obvious. From the perspective of the present and the future, the obstacles to China’s green transformation and development are mainly reflected in four aspects: First, it is the lag of the concept of development, especially the one-sided understanding of development. Second, it is the incompatibility between national governance system and green development. Third, the national governance mechanism is incompatible with green development. Fourth, there is a lack of basic capacity for green development, especially in scientific and technological support and infrastructure. These aspects can be attributed to the resistance of the development concept, the resistance of the governance system, the resistance of the governance mechanism and the lack of basic capacity. We must attach great importance to these obstacles and focus on changing development concepts, reforming governance systems, innovating governance mechanisms and strengthening capacity building to remove them and ensure the smooth progress of green transformation and development.

Finance is an important means of government administration. Promoting green transformation and development requires a strong government push, which must rely to a considerable extent on fiscal means. To promote green transformation and development, the primary task is to promote green fiscal transformation and implement green finance. In short, green finance is the finance that supports resource conservation, environmental friendliness and ecological conservation. In implementing green finance, China should draw on the experience of foreign countries in green taxation, green procurement and green budget. It is necessary to sort out, adjust and improve the existing green fiscal means. We will work hard to build a green fiscal system featuring green taxation, green procurement and green budget with Chinese characteristics.

In the process of establishing and improving the socialist market economy system, finance is undoubtedly an important means and an important field. Development is inseparable from finance, and green transformation development is also inseparable from finance. What green transition development needs is green finance. Green finance, in short, refers to the finance used to support production and consumption activities such as resource conservation, environmental friendliness and ecological conservation. From the comparison between China and foreign countries, it is not difficult to find that China still has a large gap in green finance. We need to fully learn from the experience of other countries in government guidance, legislation and management, and financial product innovation. In view of the existing problems in China’s green finance, the future development of green finance can be specifically promoted from the following aspects: set up a special green bank; formulate green loan incentive policies; establish green credit system; improve environmental information disclosure; green insurance system; establish information sharing network, etc.

Development is inseparable from consumption, and green development is inseparable from green consumption. There are many interpretations of green consumption, but in short, green consumption is consumption based on resource conservation, environmental friendliness and ecological conservation. China is in the process of rapid industrialization and urbanization, and is also in the process of the general and significant increase in the income of the people. Consumption growth is inevitable, and it is also the internal driving force for development, especially economic development. However, it should be noted that due to various reasons, Chinese government and household consumption have many aspects incompatible with green development. Accelerating green consumption transformation is an important basis for ensuring green transformation and development. Therefore, we should accelerate the green consumption transformation from the aspects of building green consumption social atmosphere, establishing and perfecting green consumption system, issuing green consumption policy, perfecting green product standard and increasing the supply of green products and services.

Green transformation and development must rely on solid support of green technology. Green technology is the technology used to support resource conservation, environmental friendliness and ecological conservation and a science and technology to realize sustainable utilization of resources, improvement of environmental protection and ecological restoration, including green energy technology, green transportation technology, green building technology, green manufacturing technology, green agriculture technology and green service technology. China attaches great importance to and invests heavily in the research and development and promotion of green science and technology. However, compared with the demand for science and technology for comprehensive and in-depth promotion of green transformation and development, there are still many problems in the development of green science and technology. Therefore, we should promote the development of green science and technology from the following aspects: establish and improve the green standards and labeling system, the green technology verification system, the green technology intellectual property rights protection system, the green technology tax incentive policy, the green technology innovation investment and financing mechanism and the green technology achievements procurement system, and establish the green technology innovation investment fund.

China is in the process of rapid urbanization. This process will continue for several more years, but it may be deviated, retarded or even stalled due to resource and environmental reasons. A large number of cities in China are already facing increasing and increasingly serious ecological and environmental problems, such as serious shortage of water resources, serious pollution of the air environment, serious shortage of urban garbage disposal capacity and serious shortage of urban green space. China’s traditional urbanization model is no longer sustainable. We must pursue a new type of urbanization featuring resource conservation, environmental friendliness, ecological conservation and spatial optimization. Therefore, efforts should be made to promote the development of new-type urbanization in terms of legalization of the concept of green development, differentiation of green development path, social participation of green city management, provision of key supporting technologies and enhancement of key influencing fields, so as to provide strong support for green transformation and development.

China’s transformation and development has its particularity. At present and in the future, party committees and governments at all levels are still the main subjects to promote green transformation and development. Therefore, mobilizing the enthusiasm of party committees and governments at all levels to accelerate the green transformation and development is essential. As for how to mobilize the enthusiasm of party committees and governments at all levels, assessment is essential. It should be noted that China’s traditional assessment system focusing on economic indicators has been far from meeting the needs of ecological civilization construction, the needs of the “five-in-one” overall pattern and overall goal, and the needs of green transformation and development. Here, focusing on the relationship between assessment and green development, the paper mainly discusses issues such as why assessment, who will assess, who will be assessed and how to assess. It is believed that it is inevitable to reform the cadre assessment system. The key is to reform the cadre assessment target system, increase the targets and indicators of resources, environment and ecology, and reduce and weaken the targets and indicators of economy. In addition, it is necessary to establish and improve a system for assessing the performance of officials in office, off-office auditing and holding them accountable for life, which is consistent with the goals and requirements of green transformation and development.