Full Text: Report on the Work of the Government(17)

We will conserve energy, reduce emissions, and protect the ecological environment. The key to conserving energy and reducing emissions is to save energy, improve energy efficiency, and reduce pollution. We will promptly formulate and promulgate a work plan for appropriately controlling total energy consumption, and move quickly to base the energy pricing system on the market. We will use economic, legal, and the necessary administrative means to conserve energy and reduce emissions in key areas such as manufacturing, transportation, construction, public institutions, and people's homes, and in 1,000 key energy-intensive enterprises; and close down more outdated production facilities. We will tighten supervision of energy use, develop smart power grids and ensure the proper distribution of energy supplies, and implement effective administrative practices such as efficient electricity generation and distribution, energy performance contracting, and government procurement of energy-efficient goods and services. We will optimize the energy structure, promote clean and efficient use of traditional energy, safely and effectively develop nuclear power, actively develop hydroelectric power, tackle key problems more quickly in the exploration and development of shale gas, and increase the share of new energy and renewable energy in total energy consumption. We will step up the construction of energy transportation routes. We will thoroughly implement the basic state policy of conserving resources and protecting the environment. We will carry out certification of energy-efficient products and oversight and inspection of energy efficiency labeling; encourage economical use of energy, water, land, and materials as well as comprehensive use of resources; and vigorously develop a circular economy. We will strengthen environmental protection; strive to solve major environmental problems that directly affect people's lives, such as heavy metals, drinking water sources, air, soil, and marine pollution; reduce pollution from non-point agricultural sources; and put hazardous chemicals under strict oversight and supervision. We will start monitoring fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River delta, the Pearl River delta and other key areas as well as in municipalities directly under the central government and provincial capital cities, and extend the practice to all cities at and above the prefectural level by 2015. We will improve the ecology, establish a sound system of compensation for ecological damage, strengthen ecological protection and restoration, and consolidate achievements in protecting virgin forests, turning vulnerable farmland into forests and grasslands, and stopping grazing to let grasslands recover. We will strengthen grassland ecological conservation; vigorously carry out afforestation; make progress in dealing with desertification and stony deserts and in improving terraced farmland; and strictly protect river sources, wetlands, lakes, and other priority functional ecological zones. We will strengthen capacity building to adapt to climate change, and especially to respond to extreme climate events, and improve our ability to prevent and mitigate natural disasters. We will uphold the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and the principle of fairness, and play a constructive role in promoting international talks on climate change. We will show the world with our actions that China will never seek economic growth at the expense of its ecological environment and public health. We are definitely capable of taking a path of civilized development which ensures that production increases, people's living standards rise, and we live in a good ecological environment.