What is a low-carbon economy, its purpose and approach?

In recent years, energy shortage and environmental pollution have become the focus of world attention. Changing the traditional economic growth mode of high energy consumption and high pollution, vigorously promoting energy conservation and emission reduction, developing a low-carbon economy marked by low energy consumption and low emissions, and realizing sustainable development are becoming the common choices of economic development in all countries of the world. As a large developing country, China's energy and environmental problems are particularly prominent. In 2007, the report of the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China first put forward the concept of "building an ecological civilization, basically forming an industrial structure, growth mode and consumption mode to save energy and resources and protect the ecological environment", which pointed out the direction for sustainable development and made people pay more attention to the rise of low-carbon economy. The essence of low-carbon economy is the problem of high energy utilization efficiency and clean energy structure, and the core is the fundamental change of energy technology innovation, system innovation and human survival and development concept. The development mode of low-carbon economy provides an operable interpretation for energy saving and emission reduction, developing circular economy and building a harmonious society. It is an all-round innovation and practice to implement Scientific Outlook on Development and build a conservation-oriented society, completely in line with the development ideas put forward in the report of the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, and it is a global revolution involving modes of production, lifestyles and values. The process of human survival is the process of consuming energy and discharging substances harmful to the environment to nature. Carbon dioxide is the inevitable product of human consumption of energy and resources, and it is also the chief culprit of greenhouse effect and environmental problems. With the increase of population and the rapid expansion of activity energy, human activities have endangered the foundation of their own survival. According to statistics, as the largest energy consumer in the world, the United States consumes 30% of the world's energy with 6% of the world's population. However, China's energy consumption per unit GDP is eight times that of Japan, and its population is several times that of the United States. According to this development model, we lack lasting innovation ability, and environmental degradation and energy shortage will be the biggest bottlenecks for China's development in the next 50 years. It has become an irreversible trend to save energy and reduce emissions, realize low-carbon development and build an ecological and civilized society. The stern review, led by Nicholas Stern, the former chief economist of the World Bank, pointed out that the annual 1% GDP investment in the world can avoid the loss of 5% ~ 20% GDP in the future, and called for the global transition to a low-carbon economy. In July, 2007, the United States Senate put forward the Low-carbon Economy Act, which indicates that the development path of low-carbon economy is expected to become an important strategic choice for the United States in the future. Germany hopes that in 2020, the domestic low-carbon industry will surpass its automobile industry. The transition to a low-carbon economy has become the general trend of world economic development. How to develop low-carbon economy? A: "Accelerate the establishment of a low-carbon economic system" As a country with high energy consumption, we need to find the source of huge social waste and environmental pollution in China from the internal laws of energy conservation, emission reduction and low-carbon development. We must abandon the specific technical problems that only focus on the "use" level, such as building energy conservation and efficient utilization of coal, while ignoring the chronic diseases existing in the "body" level, such as the negative impact of consumption-driven economic growth theory, the spatial layout of urban and rural areas, and the huge waste of national lifestyle. Therefore, only by innovating thinking, changing ideas, adhering to the combination of body and function, and starting from the perspective of overall situation and system theory, can we correctly understand and accelerate the development of low-carbon economy. 1. Advocate the concept of green consumption and green management, and form a low-carbon lifestyle. We must change the concepts of the public and society and do everything moderately and reasonably. For individuals, it is necessary to cultivate the concept that saving is a virtue and completely change the bad habits such as food waste that run counter to energy conservation and emission reduction; For enterprises, it is necessary to implement the concept of green management and establish a clean production mechanism and a lean production model; The state guides enterprises to incorporate environmental protection costs into production costs, helps enterprises to establish corporate citizenship awareness, and solves the misconception that energy conservation and emission reduction are not effective. 2. Solve the huge waste hidden in the spatial pattern and social development pattern. Effective energy conservation and emission reduction must be based on the relative concentration of industries, which can produce specialized division of labor, improve efficiency and save energy; At the same time, it promotes cluster innovation and constantly produces new technologies and processes, thus reducing material consumption. 3. Cultivate vein industry and establish a complete industrialization system. At present, people's understanding of circular economy system is still superficial, which is basically understood as waste residue utilization and tail gas recovery. The real circular economy system should be like the human body system. If the industrial manufacturing system is compared to the arterial system of the human body, then the recycling of our waste industrial products should be like the venous system of the human body. Recycling of industrial products-"vein" industry should be a huge industry. 4. Vigorously develop low-carbon technologies to solve the problems of independent innovation achievements and lack of talents. Low-carbon technologies include new technologies to effectively control greenhouse gas emissions in the fields of renewable energy and new energy, clean and efficient utilization of coal, exploration and development of oil and gas resources and coalbed methane, and carbon dioxide capture and storage. It is necessary to strengthen the ability of independent innovation, encourage enterprises to develop low-carbon technologies and low-carbon products, integrate existing low-carbon technologies in the market, and rapidly promote their application. The accelerated development of low-carbon economy urgently needs the support of a large number of cutting-edge scientific and technological talents and achievements. Take the current situation of talents in the field of new energy as an example. At present, no more than 50 people in China wind power industry have received long-term professional and technical training. Today, two years after the implementation of China's Renewable Energy Law, only North China Electric Power University has established a renewable energy college. In addition, the traditional evaluation and certification system of innovation achievements has some embarrassing realities that the existing scientific system can't explain and the achievements can't be recognized. The major scientific and technological achievements in the future are likely to come from self-taught scientific workers. In the face of the results that cannot be explained by the existing scientific system, we should adopt the method of "non-knowledge principle" combined with empirical research to identify them. 5. Accelerate the construction of cultural and creative industries. Cultural and creative industries are at the high end of the value chain of technological innovation, research and development, and are high value-added industries and low-carbon consumption green industries. Vigorously developing the cultural and creative service industry can create huge wealth for the society and avoid the problems of excessive energy consumption and environmental pollution. 6. Control urban pollution from rain and sewage diversion. There are basically no rain and sewage diversion facilities in county-level cities across the country. Although the investment in rain and sewage diversion facilities in large and medium-sized cities is large, the implementation is not thorough enough, which leads to a large number of labor achievements of sewage treatment plants being "rejected by one vote" by the rain and sewage diversion measures that cannot be fully implemented. 7. Starting from China's energy structure and grasping the main aspects of contradictions, we can improve the efficiency of energy conservation and emission reduction. The main forms of energy consumption in China are electricity consumption, rural heating and urban central heating consumption, and electric energy consumption, of which about 68% of energy is converted from various energy sources and consumed. However, the problems of low operating efficiency and serious energy waste generally exist in China's power system, especially in the two links of power distribution and power consumption. The total energy saving potential is 65.438+0.2 billion kilowatts, accounting for 20% of China electric power. Focus on promoting major independent innovation projects in the field of power distribution and electricity consumption, which can greatly improve the efficiency of energy conservation and emission reduction. 8. The core of the road to low-carbon economy is to establish a renewable energy system in China and even the world, so as to finally realize the leap from "high carbon" era to "low carbon" era and truly realize the harmonious development between man and nature.