Economic benefits help to build ecological civilization

In order to make the building of China's ecological civilization more sustainable, it's necessary to take economic considerations, said Hao Jiming, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a professor at the School of Environment, Tsinghua University.

Hao said this at the first session of Beijing-based International Ecological Economy Promotion Association's academic and expert seminar. He shared his own experience to Xingtai city, Hebei province, in which the local thermal plants that burned coal were shut down to minimize air pollution and carbon emission years ago yet found it difficult to continue business. Hao and his team helped them to continue running the machines and also recycling carbon dioxide so as to achieve the same performance of minimizing pollution, which latter attracted investment and revived the local factories.

Hao stressed the importance of economy combined with ecology and called for boosting policy innovation and providing information for all sides to cooperate. "We breathe together and work together," he said.

His sentiment was echoed by Li Chunshan, director of the Institute of Process Engineering, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who said that they have always been devoted to a new model that combines fundamental and applies sciences and makes it more convenient for them to serve the industry. "Ecological economy has already become a global concern," he said. "We need to study how to propel sustainable development via technological innovation and cross-subject cooperation so as to cope with major challenges such as global climate change and shortage of resources."

Liu Hongzhi, secretary general and vice president of IEEPA, expressed the willingness of the organization to honor its obligation to push on the combination of economic development and ecological protection. The IEEPA is committed to combine the two aspects and promote harmony between them, she said, drawing a blueprint for the sector's contribution to realizing China's dual-carbon goal in the future.