On January 14-15, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment held the 2025 National Conference on Ecological Environment Protection in Beijing.   Sun Jinlong, Secretary of the Party Group of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, attended the meeting and delivered a speech, while Huang Runqiu, Minister of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, attended the meeting and made a work report.

The national ecological environment system should deeply study and understand General Secretary Xi Jinping's series of new ideas, viewpoints, and judgments on comprehensively deepening reform, deeply comprehend the decisive significance of the "two consolidations", enhance the "four consciousnesses", strengthen the "four confidences", and achieve the "two safeguards", deeply grasp the guiding ideology, overall goals, major principles, and scientific methods for further comprehensively deepening reform, and focus on promoting the implementation and effectiveness of the task of deepening ecological civilization system reform. Efforts should be made to identify problems, based on departmental functions and responsibilities, closely focusing on reform goals, and thinking about problems, ideas, and reforms in "further" and "deepening". We need to make efforts in combination with reality, go deep into the grassroots and frontline, ask more questions and solutions from the people and enterprises, and make the reform measures in the field of ecological environment more down-to-earth. We need to make efforts in institutional construction, adhere to the principle of both establishing and breaking, establish before breaking, elevate mature practices that have been tested in practice into institutional mechanisms, strengthen institutional implementation, and bridge the "last mile" of implementation.

The meeting emphasized that this year is the final year of the 14th Five Year Plan. We should benchmark the important instructions and directives of General Secretary Xi Jinping and the decisions and deployments of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, anchor the goal of building a beautiful China, be more proactive in strategy, broaden our thinking, and be more pragmatic in action. We should work hard and face difficulties, and support high-quality development with a high-quality ecological environment. We must firmly establish the concept of the overall situation, consciously plan and promote ecological and environmental protection work in the overall economic and social development, and accurately grasp the prominent ecological and environmental problems in the region and the main factors affecting the quality of the ecological environment. To enhance the awareness of the rule of law, continuously improve the awareness and ability to use legal thinking and methods to carry out work and solve problems, actively find solutions from the legal level, and effectively play the leading, regulating, and guaranteeing role of the rule of law. To enhance scientific thinking, respect natural and objective laws, clarify the causes and mechanisms of pollution problems, and scientifically formulate pollution control measures. We must practice the spirit of practicality, concentrate limited resources and strength on completing the central tasks, further consolidate the work, lay a solid foundation, and take solid steps.

The second is to adhere to precise pollution control, scientific pollution control, and law based pollution control, and to fight a number of landmark battles with higher standards. The battle to defend blue skies is being intensified, the battle to defend clear waters is being consolidated and improved, the battle to defend clean land is steadily advancing, and the treatment of solid waste and new pollutants is continuously strengthened. The third is to strengthen the coordinated governance of pollution reduction and carbon reduction, build a "1+N" policy system to promote new quality productivity in the field of ecological environment, strengthen the guarantee of environmental impact assessment services for major projects, coordinate the promotion of regional strategic ecological environment protection, continue to implement actions to address climate change, and solidly promote green and low-carbon transformation. The fourth is to firmly uphold the safety bottom line of building a beautiful China, strengthen ecological protection and restoration supervision, effectively prevent and resolve various ecological and environmental risks, and strictly supervise nuclear and radiation safety. The fifth is to consolidate the basic support for ecological environment protection, promote the improvement of the legal and regulatory standard system, accelerate technological innovation in the field of ecological environment, enhance the efficiency of law enforcement and supervision, build a modern monitoring system, strengthen financial support, deepen national action, and actively lead global environmental governance.

The meeting pointed out that the high-quality completion of the ecological environment protection goals and tasks for the 14th Five Year Plan is related to the overall construction of a beautiful China and the overall economic and social development. It is necessary to comprehensively compare the requirements for high-quality completion, deeply grasp the opportunities and challenges faced, correctly apply effective strategies and methods, focus on the "three obvious improvements, three basic elimination, and three effective guarantees", and concentrate on tackling them to ensure the successful completion of the 14th Five Year Plan. We must adhere to the coordinated promotion of high-quality development and high-level protection, pay more attention to source prevention and control, precise control, standardized guidance, market guidance, and technological empowerment, and promote the formation of a high-level regulatory system, governance system, standard system, policy system, and technical system. We must adhere to the problem oriented approach throughout our work, targeting key issues, root causes, and deep-seated problems, identifying breakthroughs and areas of strength, implementing targeted policies, and solving difficult problems. We must adhere to precise, scientific, and lawful pollution control to eliminate all forms of formalism, and resolutely prevent the use of environmental protection as a pretext for a one size fits all approach. We must adhere to the combination of rule of law, market, technology, and policy, promote complementary advantages and collaborative efforts, and form a work pattern that is both "flexible" and "manageable". We must adhere to the guiding role of deepening reform, highlight the effectiveness of reform, and continuously adapt to new situations and solve new problems with the spirit of reform and innovative means.

The meeting emphasized that 2025 is a crucial year for comprehensively implementing the task of deepening the reform of the ecological civilization system and advancing the construction of a beautiful China.   Accelerate the formation of a new pattern of building a beautiful China guided by the modernization of harmonious coexistence between humans and nature.

The meeting determined to focus on the following eight key tasks by 2025. One is to implement important measures to deepen the reform of the ecological civilization system, promote the improvement of the ecological civilization basic system, ecological environment governance system, and green and low-carbon development mechanism. The second is to comprehensively promote the construction of a beautiful China, deepen the implementation mechanism for promoting the construction of a beautiful China, coordinate the construction of the Beautiful China pilot zone, and systematically plan the ecological environment protection work during the 15th Five Year Plan period. The third is to deepen the battle against pollution prevention and control, continuously promote the defense of blue skies, clear waters, and clean land, and innovate the treatment of solid waste and new pollutants. The fourth is to actively promote green, low-carbon and high-quality development, strengthen the guarantee of major planning and project environmental impact assessment services, actively respond to climate change, further develop the national carbon market, and cultivate and strengthen green productivity. The fifth is to strengthen the unified supervision of ecological protection and restoration, coordinate the maintenance of national ecological security, strictly prevent and control ecological and environmental risks, ensure nuclear and radiation safety, and firmly guard the bottom line of ecological and environmental security. Sixth, we will focus on strengthening ecological environment inspection and law enforcement, deepen the third round of central ecological environment protection inspection, coordinate the implementation of basin and provincial inspections, and strengthen ecological environment law enforcement and supervision. Seventh, we will promote the innovation of ecological environment technology and the construction of monitoring systems, deeply implement major national science and technology projects, promote the digital transformation of the national ecological environment monitoring network, and build an integrated monitoring network of sky, earth, and sea. Eighth, accelerate the improvement of the modern environmental governance system, perfect the ecological environment regulations, standards, policies and institutional system, promote the national action for ecological environment protection, deepen international cooperation in the field of ecological environment, and strengthen the construction of the ecological environment protection cadre team.

The meeting requested to focus on promoting high-quality development of party building in government agencies and leading the steady and far-reaching development of ecological environment protection.     We must continue to rectify formalism to reduce the burden on the grassroots, strictly refine and reduce meetings, coordinate and standardize various inspections, checks and assessments, and guide party members and cadres to actively take action. We must deepen the comprehensive and strict governance of the Party, adhere to the spirit of reform and strict standards in governing the Party, firmly promote the rectification of discipline and anti-corruption, persistently implement the spirit of the Central Eight point Regulation and its implementation rules, strictly rectify the "four winds" to the end, and continuously build an iron army for ecological environment protection.

At the meeting, the ecological environment departments of Hebei Province, Jilin Province, Jiangsu Province, Shandong Province, Gansu Province, Guizhou Province, and Hainan Province made exchange speeches, while the ecological environment departments (bureaus) of Anhui Province, Zhejiang Province, Chongqing City, Hubei Province, and Guangdong Province made written exchanges.

Zhao Yingmin, member of the Party Group and Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, presided over the opening ceremony. Yu Huiwen and Guo Fang, members of the Party Group and Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, Liao Xiyuan, leader of the Discipline Inspection and Supervision Group of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Supervisory Commission stationed in the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, and member of the Party Group of the Ministry, Dong Baotong, member of the Party Group and Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, Ren Yong, Chief Engineer of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, and some senior leaders and cadres attended the meeting.

Representatives from relevant departments of central and state organs, as well as relevant central enterprises; The main responsible comrades of the ecological environment departments (bureaus) of each province (region, city), the ecological environment bureau of Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, and the military facility construction bureau of the Logistics Support Department of the Military Commission; The responsible comrades of the stationed discipline inspection and supervision team, as well as the main party and government officials of various departments, dispatched agencies, directly affiliated units, and relevant units of the organization, attended the meeting. Officials at or above the level of department head in various departments of the government shall attend the meeting as observers.

Photography | Wang Yajing and Zeng Zhen