Zhou Jinfeng Interpreted the Relationship Between Ecological Civilization and C-SDGs (I) | CBCGDF was Invited to the Global Governance Youth Summit Forum (Part I)
2019/8/20 15:55:00 本站

“In 1985, China and the United Kingdom encountered some difficulties in the negotiations on the return of Hong Kong. There was a Duke of Bedford in the UK who proposed that Hong Kong should be returnee do China after the Chinese government and the British government signed the Declaration. However, he said, ‘There was one thing I didn’t sign, but I really wanted to return them to China, the Milu deer.’ More than 100 years ago, the Milu deer native to China became extinct on the Mainland. At that time, the Eight-nation Alliance invaded China and took Milu deer to Europe. The great-grandfather of the Duke of Bedford bought and raised the Milu deer at the European zoo. By 1985, he had bought more than a dozen of Milu deer, which had become to 200. He said, ‘Now China is becoming strong, I would like to return the Milu deer back to China.’ He also donated some money to China when the Chinese government decided to establish the China Milu Deer Foundation in order to complete the reintroduction of Milu deer population. At that time, the government decided to establish the Foundation by three representatives including Lv Zhengcao, Qian Changzhao, and Bao Erhan, who were then the Vice-Chairmen of the CPPCC. China Milu Deer Foundation was founded in 1985. With the change of the times, China joined the United Nations Convention on the Protection of Biological Diversity. Later, the name of the organization was approved by the State Council of the People’s Republic of China and changed to the China Biodiversity Conservation Foundation. Entrusted by the Chinese government, Hu Deping carried out the research on green development and renamed the organization as China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation (CBCGDF). As a public welfare organization and a national-level society, we have been focusing on biodiversity, illegal trade, environmental public interest litigation as well as other fields.

 

First of all, I want to talk about ecological civilization. Why talk about ecological civilization? What is its relationship with global environmental governance? What is the relationship with youth around the world? Human beings have experienced primitive civilization, agricultural civilization, industrial civilization and now ecological civilization. In the period of primitive civilization, people picked peaches and ate them. The main tools of that period were stone tools. In the late primitive civilization, Shennong clan appeared in mainland China and began to grow crops instead of simple harvesting. All over the world, from primitive civilization to agricultural civilization, began to grow and breed. The corresponding tool of agricultural civilization is iron. After the development of agricultural civilization, human beings have not enough to eat, so what did they do? People at that time began to invent fertilizers, pesticides, and machinery to expand the capacity of reclamation and production. In this way, mankind has entered the era of industrial civilization represented by steam engines. However, industrial civilization has come to the end today. People are now facing two most prominent crises; one is the climate crisis and the other is the biodiversity crisis. How serious is the crisis? When I last arrived in Hong Kong, I just caught up with the Typhoon Mangkhut. I said that people will encounter typhoons that never happen in a hundred years almost every year. People don’t understand how typhoons that are clearly rare in a century can happen every year. Because of the industrial civilization, a large amount of oil was extracted from the ground, which formed a greenhouse effect in the atmosphere, thus formed a one-way shaking of the climate. Every time the temperature rises one degree, more than 70% of the earth’s oceans will increase the energy of steam transpiration brought about by this one degree, which is unparalleled by countless nuclear bombs. This energy will turn into rain, and of course, 70% will fall into the sea; but some will increase the energy of typhoons, hurricanes, and tornadoes. This year, instead of going to Hong Kong, Typhoon Lekima made landfall in the Bohai Bay. This typhoon made Shandong Lude reach its highest peak value since its inception.

 

The extreme climate has forced human beings to leave industrial civilization and enter into ecological civilization. Haze, soil and water pollution, even Antarctic penguins cannot escape the lethal threat of chemicals and pesticides. These are extreme manifestations of industrial civilization. At my last meeting in Shanghai, a scientist did research and found that the pesticides in Chinese herbal medicines exceeded the standard severely. Originally, Chinese herbal medicine was used to treat diseases, but now the Chinese herbal medicine detected is actually very harmful to human health. These are all the ways of life that industrial civilization cannot resist, so we must change this way of life. The laws, religions, systems, and morals corresponding to every civilized age must be reformed entirely. If people still live in industrial civilization, there is no way to solve these problems. So, people must enter the era of ecological civilization.

 

The Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs) of the United Nations is a single matter of change, but its background is the change of our human civilization. Therefore, scientists from all over the world came together and signed the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs) in 2015. This is a great achievement, we should learn and understand, and form a unified action to solve this crisis. Only through unified global action, people can be able to face today’s challenges and make changes.


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(Photo credit: CBCGDF)


Original Chinese article:

http://www.cbcgdf.org/NewsShow/4854/9606.html


By / Xue Tongtong