# Construction of Ecological civilization#

I would like to talk about the issue of Equal Rights of Carbon (ERC). Carbon equality is a concept which refers to the equal carbon emission rights of everyone. It also refers to the same carbon responsibility shared by people in society. On this basis, carbon management and driving force of carbon reduction, which are based on consumption, are important directions to handle the climate crisis.

We live on the earth where human industrial civilization has brought a great impact on it. As a result, nowadays, people are talking about the climate crisis, the double carbon goal, "carbon reduction", and "carbon neutralization" frequently. There is a very severe problem contained in these discussions, the issue of carbon equality. Shall we talk about carbon equality and what is carbon equality?

From our perspectives, we believe that carbon equality means that every individual living on the earth has the same carbon rights. Every individual, every ethnic group, every nation and every country also have the same carbon right.

From the one perspective, it just like the voting right we are familiar with, which is called "one person, one vote", every citizen has the right to vote. From carbon perspective, how much carbon can a person discharge among his whole lifetime? Now we are talking about how much carbon he can emit alone; with the challenges of the global crisis brought by climate change, more and more harsh statements appear these days. In the future, everyone may be required to achieve “carbon neutral”. Then, due to the pressure of the climate crisis, everyone may be asked to reach the goal of "negative carbon". This means everyone's carbon consumption is required to be negative.

How much "negative carbon" does everyone need? Who should take more responsibilities? All of these are faced with a basic logic balance. Therefore, we proposed "carbon equality" as a core issue. 

[Thinking on the production side: Based on coal-fired power generation in Shanxi and steel production in Hebei to observe the carbon rights of a region]

We have thought about this issue for a long time. Some time ago, I went to Shanxi to see coal-fired power generation. Before that, I went to the United Nations Environment Conference and identified the issues related to the construction of a local coal-fired power plant in Nairobi. There were different views sparked toward these cases.

Internationally, we often think from the production side. For example, in terms of energy production, energy enterprises are required to reduce and stop the carbon emission. In terms of industrial operation, the thoughts on the production side include consideration of the carbon emission right per unit output value of an enterprise and the trade on carbon emission rights.

However, we are thinking that how many “carbon rights” doses Shanxi eventually has after exporting the electricity it generates to other province and cities, and can you generate the electricity again when you are lack of the “carbon right”. If you are forbidden to generating electricity yourself, the carbon emissions will still increase overall due to the transportation of the local coal resource, which you deliver to other province for electricity generation.  

This problem further promotes us to consider the carbon right of a region. What core carbon rights does it include? What are the carbon rights of an enterprise? How can we determine their quota and indicators in the verification, trading, distribution and planning of carbon rights as a region in the future? This is very important.

We believe that the regional carbon emission should be calculated by the reginal energy consumption but not the regional production. If the one region give their production to other provinces, the carbon consumption should not be counted as its regional consumption. 

Besides energy, what about products? For instance, steel produced in Hebei. If the steel produced in Hebei is used by itself, the carbon consumption should naturally be counted on itself. However, if the carbon consumption of the province and the products are finally used by other provinces, it should be regarded as the carbon index of other provinces. It should not include in the province's carbon rights. This is the basic carbon right.

[Thinking on consumer side: attribution and calculation of carbon emissions]

People as well. As an individual, I don't care about the carbon I make, need, consume and emit in the production process. However, as a consumer, my carbon emission should include the things which I do and emit the carbon. 

From an individual, to a unit to a region, to an enterprise, etc. 

[Take the green conference as an example: how to achieve carbon neutrality?]

We have often talked about Green Conference recently. If you are going to organize a conference, what activities and components included in the conference will emit carbon? 

The carbon emission of all the electricity you use for the meeting, such as air conditioning, projection, lighting, and all the materials you used, such as disposable mineral water and printed paper can be traced.

Many of our meetings claim that we have achieved carbon neutrality and bought the carbon target. However, what does this carbon neutralization includes? Does it include all the electricity and air conditioning used in these meetings? Does it include all the papers and handbooks at these meetings? Does it include all the carbon emission brought by traveling and flying to attend this meeting? How can all this be included in the calculation? In short, we should have a more comprehensive measurement. We should calculate the overall carbon consumption and make an equal comparison in its consumption links.

How to compare the carbon consumption of two different meetings? Who consumes more carbon and who consumes less carbon? What is the volume of our carbon consumption? Considering the number of people attending the meeting, if we really talk about equality and take the number of people as the basic benchmark, what is our carbon consumption and how to make comparison? If you want to be more precise, the computer you use also has carbon consumption. We all know that AI also has carbon consumption, and the storage space also has its consumption. Of course, the carbon consumption is relatively small. However, as a concept, we should also think about it clearly. We need to hold a meeting. We can make a comparison when we need to make choices. Is the carbon consumption of our meeting more responsible and in fit the standards of green meeting than them?

[Carbon equality among different provinces]

This is a meeting. In fact, an individual is the same. Using Shanxi, a major energy province, as an example. What is the quota of its total carbon and the carbon right given to it? Can it be equal to the carbon rights given by Shanghai according to GDP? It should not be calculated in that way. 

[Carbon Equality: everyone has equal carbon rights]

Why it is necessary to talk about "carbon equality"? We are not talking about carbon equity. For example, we often say common but differentiated responsibilities, which is also called shared responsibilities. When it comes to this concept, we often talk about the issues of equality along the industrial development process. 

Today, the electricity we consume is compared with the cumulative amount of carbon emissions made by the development of industry in the history of developed countries.

We are not going to discuss that problem today. What we are talking about today is "carbon equality", not "carbon equity" or shared responsibility.

When it comes to "carbon equality", we do not talk about history, nor do we talk about the future. Let's talk about today, the time each of us has equal carbon rights today.

[Response to debate: is it OK to burn charcoal in Africa? Is it OK to use thermal power?]

Then, if the carbon consumption exceeds the global carbon consumption, you will make more efforts on the current carbon engineering and climate campaign. You need to consider to reduce your carbon emission. Compared with those African countries that live a simpler life, we have much higher carbon emission than them. So can they burn charcoal? Yes, they can. As individuals, their carbon consumption is low. Only in this way can there be a concept of equality. But should he consume carbon? We know that the global carbon content is very high. Can we install a solar water heater for him? So that he can directly take a hot bath with solar energy without burning wood, which will effectively reduce carbon emission. This is equality, interaction and cooperation.

We are facing the common challenges of mankind in the world today. We should keep the concept of carbon equality in mind. And we should make our efforts and contributions.

Someone argued that they didn't use electricity. Now the most reliable and stable electricity here is thermal power. Then, can they use thermal power? This is a very complex problem. I am not a supporter of thermal power. But I think if we need to let him use clean energy, which may be good. However, we must remember their equal rights on the issue of carbon. We must have additional support and global support to jointly meet the challenges of mankind.

[Carbon equality will become the mainstream in the future | the driving force to solve the climate crisis]

This is what I want to express today. In the future, it is not enough for us to really rely on the government and the global agreement to promote carbon reduction. Carbon management based on consumption and driven by carbon reduction are the important direction to solve the climate crisis.

We know that many countries around the world have signed the United Nations Framework Convention on climate change at the United Nations level for a long time. However, when Mr. Maurice Strong talked with me about his climate trading and climate market (the climate market in Chicago, Tokyo) ambitiously a few decades ago, we know that these ideas are great, and the scheme is very reasonable and correct. However, when you asked developed countries to support developing countries in carbon transformation, you will find those early markets eventually declined.

We are still promoting the Paris climate agreement today, and we have more ambitious plans, which we think are very great and correct. The contribution of national autonomy (many countries have to make contributions independently) are very great. However, we believe that carbon equality and equal carbon rights will be a theme in the future. The change on the consumer side will become a major attraction in the future.

For example, when a coffee drinking organization talked to us. We asked them to reduce money with cups, and they realized it. We now require milk tea shops to reduce disposable paper cups. Does the paper cup have carbon? There's carbon in the head. If every consumer strongly puts forward such a desire and request, we think this is another important direction, from the consumer side and personal side to promote carbon reduction.

We place great emphasis on "Human Based Solutions" (abbreviated as HBS), and we especially emphasize equal and consumer driving. This kind of drive will gradually become a great drive. Why? Because people - everyone - are rapidly experiencing carbon crisis, climate crisis, biodiversity crisis and the crisis of our only blue planet habitat. With the actions of our people, we call for carbon reduction. We call for carbon peak, carbon neutralization and even negative carbon to guard our homeland, form the community of human destiny and the community of life on earth, and build the harmony between man and nature. There is no doubt that this is a new and major direction. I hope we can work together.

(This article is arranged according to Dr. Zhou Jinfeng's oral statement.)

Author: Linda

Translator: Michelle, Calvin Zhang

Original Chinese article: https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1707779159657693706

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