Han Zheng, member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, Vice Premier of the State Council, and Chairman of the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED), attended the 2019 Annual General Meeting of the CCICED in Hangzhou and delivered a speech. The theme of this annual general meeting is “A New Era: Towards a New World of Green and Prosperity”.

Green development has become the trend of the world today, representing the people's yearning for a better life and the direction of human civilization and progress, said Han Zheng. China's ecological civilization development has entered a fast lane, and a beautiful China with a blue sky, green mountains and clear rivers is coming into the view of the world. At the opening ceremony of the Beijing World Horticultural Exposition, Chinese President Xi Jinping clearly put forth five proposals in his important speech on building the foundation of ecological civilization and green development. China will unswervingly put the new concept of green development into practice, form a new pattern of harmonious development of man and nature, and make new contributions to global ecological security.

With green development as the guide, China will actively build a modern economic system, accelerate the development of industries of energy conservation and environmental protection, vigorously develop clean energy, improve the utilization of clean energy, and promote resource conservation and recycling in all aspects, said Han Zheng. Focusing on improving the quality of the ecological environment, we will resolutely fight the battle against pollution, and maintain the strategic resolve to strengthen the construction of ecological civilization, so as to ensure the realization of the staged goals for ecological environmental protection by 2020. Taking the harmonious coexistence of man and nature as our guide, we will strengthen the protection of ecosystems, strictly abide by the red line of ecological protection, continuously optimize the development pattern of land space, and adhere to priority in protection and natural recovery to coordinate ecological protection and restoration. Taking the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity in ecological environment as our goal, we will deepen the reform of the ecological civilization system, improve the ecological environment supervision system, and establish and improve the economic policy system and the legal system in ecological environmental protection, so as to make better use of market-oriented and rule-of-law methods to govern ecosystem. Taking global green prosperity as our common ground, we will work together to address global ecological and environmental challenges, be a good host for the 15th Conference of the Parties to the 2020 Convention on Biological Diversity, promote the construction of the Belt and Road Green Development International Alliance and Eco-Environmental Big Data Service Platform to jointly implement the UN Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The Chinese government fully affirms the tremendous efforts made by the CCICED to promote China's sustainable development, said Han Zheng, and it will support the CCICED to continue to play an important role. I hope that members of the CCICED and experts will put forward more forward-looking and operational policies in China's ecological environment protection and green low-carbon cycle development.

Provincial Party Secretary Che Jun attended the meeting. Minister of Ecological Environment Li Ganjie and Governor Yuan Jiajun delivered a speech. Provincial and Hangzhou officials Chen Jinbiao, Zhou Jiangyong, Wang Shuangquan, Peng Jiaxue, Xu Liyi, former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Deputy Chairman of the CCICED Hurghson, and Vice-Chairman of the CCICED Xie Zhenhua and Solheim attended the meeting or participated related activities.

In his speech on the 3rd June, Yuan Jiajun pointed out that over the years, sticking to its blueprint, Zhejiang has been firmly practicing Xi Jinping's thoughts on ecological civilization, and embarked on a journey to green development by carrying out the idea that “Green mountains and clear rivers are invaluable assets”. Taking the joint construction of a Beautiful China demonstration zone as our opportunity, and starting from the construction of an ecological civilization demonstration and the construction of Zhejiang as a greater garden, we will fully implement the new policy of ecological civilization, strive to win the battle against pollution, and spare no efforts in constructing Zhejiang as a National Park，a Tang Poetry Corridor in Eastern Zhejiang, and a "Picturesque Fuyang" in the new era. Zhejiang is willing to deepen its pragmatic cooperation with the world in the areas of pollution control, environmental protection, clean energy utilization, etc., so as to realize the joint construction and sharing of ecological civilization.