Green sci-tech innovation drives carbon goals
A photoelectric-type oil recovery for carbon neutrality in Yangzhou City, Jiangsu Province, Mar. 24 Photo:CFP
Achieving the goals of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality on schedule is foreseeable based on China’s high-quality socioeconomic development. Green and low-carbon sci-tech innovation will solve practical dilemmas inherent in total carbon emission control and socioeconomic development. It is also the key to the construction of a low-carbon circular economy system under the new development philosophy, as well as the path must be taken to build an ecological civilization and actively respond to global climate change.
Green and low-carbon sci-tech innovation can boost the green and low-carbon transformation of traditional industries and expand emerging industries, and cultivate new drivers of high-quality development. It can internally enhance the resilience of industrial and supply chains and externally promote the in-depth integration of digitalization, green industrialization, and provide all-round support for the realization of our carbon goals.
Innovation-driven model
Green and low-carbon sci-tech innovation is vital to the green industrial transformation. At the micro level, green sci-tech innovation penetrates an enterprise’s whole production process. Promoting the rapid and large-scale application and iterative upgrading of green technology can effectively promote the green industrial transformation. Meso level advancement involves the green transformation of product supply and the rapid development of green industry. Changes on the macro level are linked to the overall transformation of China’s socioeconomic development.
The low-carbon industrial transformation assists resource-based enterprises as they eliminate path dependence and realize sustainable development. It is also conducive to coordinating synergy of energy conservation and efficiency improvement, pollution reduction and carbon reduction, and effectively promoting the realization of the carbon goals. The low-carbon transformation drives a shift in development mode from one driven by factors of production to an innovation-driven model. To use low-carbon sci-tech innovation to transform from old to new growth drivers, and promote the application of advances in science and technology in order to consolidate the foundation of sci-tech innovation, we need to focus on cultivating market players with support and motivation.
First, we must expand the group of green and low-carbon technology enterprises, promote the integration and innovation of universities, scientific research institutes, and enterprises, comprehensively strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights, accelerate the training of green technology R&D and management talent, and promote the effective transformation of R&D achievements. Second is to build green industrial clusters and cultivate new driving forces in the fields of high technology, high efficiency, and low emission. Third is to promote the green transformation and upgrading of key industries.
Supply chains’ resilience & digitalization
The in-depth implementation of green and low-carbon sci-tech innovation requires smoothing over blockages in all links of production, supply, storage, and marketing chains, coordinating the security of the supply chain, extending the industrial chain, and increasing added-value to help enhance the independence and resilience of the industrial and supply chains.
Enhancing the resilience of industrial and supply chains is for deep integration of the innovation chain and industrial chain. First, green and low-carbon sci-tech innovation focuses on the weak links and technological bottlenecks in the industrial chain, realizes the improvement of production technology, upgrades production equipment, innovates production modes, and recycles resources based on the overall allocation of innovation resources. Then, green innovation breaks through the pain spots and blockages in the industrial chain, steadily promotes the green and modern development of industrial and supply chains, and pays equal attention to energy conservation, efficiency improvement, pollution reduction, and carbon reduction. Green sci-tech innovation not only helps to improve the enterprises’ own carbon asset management ability, but also helps improve monitoring and control over carbon emission. The improvement of carbon emission data quality supervision and management capacities will boost the construction of trading markets.
The deep integration of digitalization and green development is reflected in three aspects. Firstly, emerging technologies such as big data, artificial intelligence, and 5G are deeply integrated with green industries to help energy enterprises realize digital management, reduce energy consumption costs, and improve production efficiency. Secondly, the employment of big data, cloud computing, and block chain technologies is conducive to building a closed-loop low-carbon management system for the supply end, the logistics end, the data end, and the consumption end. Lastly, we should promote market-based allocation of data factors of production, fully tapping into data’s innovative value, to predict demands precisely through real-time data collection.
Luo Liangwen is a professor from the Economics School at Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, and Ma Yanqin is from the Economics School at Wuhan Business University.
Edited by ZHAO YUAN
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