In the western intellectual circles, a popular view is that "a civilization is progressing, stagnant or declining, or the per capita energy consumption is increasing, leveling off or decreasing;" Or the efficiency of energy development and utilization is improved, leveled or decreased; Or the impact of energy development and utilization on the environment and society is reduced, leveled or increased. " This elegant remark has a heavy meaning. It tries to explain that "the fruit of civilization hangs on the vine of energy", and the side effects of energy development and utilization are enough to affect the progress of civilization.
Since the reform and opening up, China's economy has grown rapidly, but at the same time, it has paid a huge price for resources and environment. The contradiction between economic development and resources and environment is increasingly acute, and the masses have a strong reaction to environmental pollution. This situation is directly related to the unreasonable economic structure and extensive growth mode, and is closely related to the unscientific concept of development and ruling philosophy. If we don't adjust the economic structure and change the development mode in time, the existing resources may be unable to support and the environment may be unable to accommodate, and the economic development of "good and fast, good words first" will be unsustainable. In addition, in order to cope with global climate change and international pressure, it is urgent to further strengthen energy conservation and emission reduction and control pollutant emissions.
In recent years, China's rapid economic growth and obvious tendency towards heavy chemical industry have greatly improved China's energy demand and consumption capacity. The data shows that the per capita energy consumption in China in 2005 was roughly 1.8 tons of standard coal. At the same time, in recent years, the growth rate of energy consumption in China has been maintained at a high level of 10%- 15%. According to this trend, China's per capita energy consumption should be above 2.2 tons this year. This figure is roughly at the level of world per capita consumption. Specific to Shanghai, in 2005, the city's total energy consumption was about 85 million tons of standard coal. According to the growth inertia, this year should be close to 654.38 billion tons of standard coal. Even if calculated by180,000 permanent residents, it means that Shanghai has reached the energy consumption level of developed countries such as Japan and Britain.
In addition to the grim situation of "energy saving", the completion of this important task of "emission reduction" is not optimistic. In fact, according to the current economic growth inertia, China's demand for fossil energy will continue to grow, and it is difficult for enterprises or institutions to reduce emissions immediately. Under the background of economic globalization, China's existing development model has been unable to cope with the pressure of carbon dioxide emission reduction. Therefore, in order to establish a good national image and corporate brand, we must be brave enough to undertake the corresponding binding responsibility of emission reduction, which inevitably requires changing the mode of economic development, optimizing the industrial structure, strictly controlling the energy use and pollution emissions of enterprises, accelerating the popularization and application of advanced and applicable technologies, and eliminating backward production capacity.
The traditional growth mode of extensive economic is firstly the dislocation and waste of energy; The backward production technology is first manifested in the low energy efficiency; Mistakes in economic decision-making and management will lead to energy loss; All irrationality in production and life includes irrationality in energy utilization. At present, the situation of energy conservation and emission reduction is still very grim, mainly because the scientific cadre performance evaluation system has not been fully established and the scientific enterprise development concept has not been truly established. In some places, the assessment of cadres still regards GDP growth as a hard task, and energy conservation and emission reduction as a soft indicator; Some enterprises still only pay attention to the acquisition of economic benefits, but ignore the control of environmental costs and resource and energy losses. Based on this, the Central Economic Work Conference proposed to realize the development of "good and fast, giving priority to good words", which not only put forward higher requirements for energy conservation and emission reduction, but also provided greater impetus for us to break through the bottleneck of energy and environment. Without energy conservation and emission reduction, it is impossible to achieve scientific development.
To promote scientific development and realize all-round energy saving and emission reduction, we can make efforts in the following aspects: First, give ordinary workers appropriate skills and opportunities to continuously improve this level. This is the cornerstone of economic development and the most widely used energy-saving and emission-reduction measures. Secondly, encourage, support and popularize scientific and technological research and development activities and all kinds of innovation, creation and entrepreneurship activities to the maximum extent, improve the overall independent innovation ability of the national economy and promote the growth of modern service industry. In fact, the real realization of energy conservation and emission reduction goals and national energy security ultimately depend on the improvement of scientific and technological level and the enhancement of independent innovation ability. The implementation of this comprehensive measure is essentially to replace natural capital including energy and environment with human capital, and to replace the traditional mode of economic growth that deprives nature with all-round development of human resources, which is the basic idea advocated by Scientific Outlook on Development. Finally, it is necessary to establish a scientific, reasonable and effective assessment, reward and punishment system, strengthen corporate responsibility and strengthen the execution of the government and its staff.