Since 2003, China, whose total energy consumption has decreased in previous years, has to cope with the sudden shortage of energy supply. Power generation is increasing at a rate close to twice the GDP growth rate, but there are still 2 1 provinces in China with power outages to varying degrees. In 2004, China's power supply and demand situation was still tense, and power rationing still accompanied the whole year.
Domestic mineral resources have been unable to support the rapid development of the economy. The import of iron ore has increased by more than 30%, making it the largest importer of iron ore in the world, which has led to the rising price of iron ore in the international market. More than 50% of the raw materials needed for domestic electrolytic aluminum production depend on imports. As the international alumina price is driven by China's demand, electrolytic aluminum production enterprises that rely solely on imported raw materials begin to lose money.
These two seemingly sudden economic phenomena in 2003 highlighted the resource bottleneck faced by China's economic development. At the same time, the problems of deterioration of ecological environment and weakening of environmental carrying capacity are increasingly apparent, which have increasingly become the bottleneck restricting economic and social development. It has become the primary problem of local economic and social development in China during the Eleventh Five-Year Plan period to study the problems of resource constraints and environmental carrying capacity and find effective ways to get rid of environmental and energy constraints and realize sustainable economic and social development.
First, the future "Eleventh Five-Year Plan" period of China resources and environment data forecast.
In the coming Eleventh Five-Year Plan period, the task of environmental protection and ecological construction in China is still arduous, and it still faces severe challenges from population, resources and ecological environment.
Column 23 "Three Population Peaks" is the primary challenge for China's sustainable development in the future.
(1) Population: The peak in 2030 is 65.438+47.6 million people.
The total population with a huge base in China will continue to grow, and the task of improving the quality of the population is still very arduous, and the problem of population aging is becoming increasingly prominent. Since 1990s, the birth rate and natural growth rate in China have dropped from190 to 65438+2 1.06‰ and 14.39‰ to 16.03‰ and 9.53‰ in 1998. According to the forecast of the National Bureau of Statistics according to the medium-term plan (the total fertility rate of women is 1.9), the total population of China is1.32 billion in 2005,1.408 billion in 20 15 years, and will reach1.4 billion in 2030. The huge population pressure will last for a long time in the first half of 2 1 century.
2 1 century, the proportion of the elderly population in China has risen rapidly, which is called one of the most prominent economic and social problems. According to international standards, the number of elderly people over 65 will reach 89 million in 2000, 654.38 billion in 2005, 654.38 billion in 2065.438+05 and 290 million in 2040. China has entered an aging society in 2000, that is, the proportion of people over 65 years old will exceed 7%, it will reach 9.35% in 20 15, and it will reach15 of the total population in 2040. According to China's actual dependent population, that is, the population over 55 years old, 1995158 million, about 200 million in 2005, 265 million in 2065, 438+0.05 and 440 million in 2040, accounting for 30% of the total population. How to provide basic social security for the elderly for hundreds of millions of retirees and ensure the pension payment for retirees and those about to enter the retirement ranks is one of the long-term tasks for the future development of China, and its challenge is unprecedented in the history of human development.
Column 24 Comparison of Resource Consumption Structure and Resource Cost in China
(2) Resources: Only six mineral resources can meet the demand in 2020.
China is one of the major resource-rich countries in the world, but the proportion of major agricultural resources in the world total is far lower than that of population. The proportion of high-quality energy such as oil and natural gas in the world total is very low, and only hydropower and coal resources have a high proportion, which has certain advantages. Since the Tenth Five-Year Plan, the population of China has continued to grow, and the per capita possession of major resources has further declined. China's per capita income is moving from a low level to a medium level, the consumption of various resources per capita is expanding rapidly, and the contradiction between population and resources will become more acute. Industrialization and urbanization will obviously accelerate and experience resource-intensive and energy-intensive development processes. At present, unreasonable utilization of resources, serious waste and destruction, low efficiency of energy utilization, low level of comprehensive utilization of resources and insufficient protection directly aggravate the contradiction between supply and demand of resources.
During the Eleventh Five-Year Plan period, water problem will become the biggest resource bottleneck restricting China's economic and social development, which is manifested in three major problems: water shortage, water pollution and flood disaster. China's per capita fresh water resources are less than the world's per capita level 1/4. The problem of water shortage in northern areas and cities will be more prominent. At present, the total annual water shortage in China is 36 billion cubic meters, including 30 billion cubic meters for agriculture and 6 billion cubic meters for cities. However, the utilization efficiency of water resources is low and the waste is serious, and the comprehensive water use efficiency of agriculture is only 0.3-0.4. Water environment is deteriorating, water pollution is serious, groundwater is seriously overexploited, land subsidence and seawater intrusion. The continuous destruction of water environment has seriously threatened people's life and health, and the deterioration of water quality has also aggravated the water shortage crisis. Drought and flood disasters are serious and economic losses are huge. 198 The direct economic loss caused by the flood disaster reached 300.7 billion yuan, accounting for 3.8% of GDP in that year.
The cultivated land area will continue to decrease, and the pressure on grain production will increase. In 2000, the per capita arable land will be reduced to 1.5 mu, and in 2005, the per capita arable land will be reduced to 1.45 mu. If imports are not taken into account, the per capita grain output of 400 kilograms will need to be 540 billion kilograms, which is 40 billion kilograms higher than the highest output during the Ninth Five-Year Plan period.
Box 25 China has become the country with the most serious soil erosion in the world.
There was a large surplus of low-quality energy such as coal, and many coal-mining cities entered a recession, but the development cost was high at that time, including external uneconomical costs, such as environmental pollution and environmental damage; Clean, efficient and high-quality energy sources such as oil, gas and heat are seriously insufficient, and the demand will increase substantially, and the contradiction between supply and demand will become more prominent.
China Land and Resources Bulletin issued by the Ministry of Land and Resources in 2003 pointed out that the proven resource reserves of crude oil, coal and other energy minerals and ferrous metal minerals in China have declined to varying degrees. After an annual output of 50 million tons of crude oil for 27 consecutive years, Daqing Oilfield dropped to 48.4 million tons for the first time. According to the bulletin, at the beginning of 2003, there were 158 minerals with proven resource reserves, including energy minerals 10, metal minerals 54, non-metal minerals 9 1 0, and other water and gas minerals 3. According to the data of China Mining Association, among the 45 main minerals in China, only 24 can meet the demand in 20 10, and only 6 can meet the demand in 2020.
(III) Environment: The area of soil erosion increased by 6,543,800 square kilometers annually.
Soil erosion is becoming more and more serious, which has become the most prominent ecological and environmental problem. The overall situation of soil erosion in China is: small area control, large area aggravation; Upstream loss, downstream siltation; The disaster is getting worse and worse, a vicious circle. At the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the area of soil erosion in China was1160,000 square kilometers, and now it has reached 3.67 million square kilometers, an increase of 2 16 times, accounting for about 38% of the national territory. The average annual soil erosion area in China is100000 square kilometers.
Desertification land is expanding constantly, and it is one of the most serious countries in the world. China's desertified land covers an area of 2.62 million square kilometers, accounting for 27% of the country's land area, equivalent to 14 of Guangdong Province, and it is still expanding at a rate of 2,460 square kilometers per year, equivalent to losing the area of a medium-sized county town every year.
Column 26 Environmental Protection Administration Exposes Top Ten Polluted Cities in China
Grassland degradation, desertification and alkalization, the area increased year by year. The area of grassland degradation, desertification and alkalization in China is 65.438+0.35 billion hectares, accounting for about 65.438+0/3 of the total grassland area, and it is increasing at the rate of 2 million hectares per year. For a long time, due to the influence of population growth, climate drought and rodent pests, especially overgrazing and indiscriminate excavation and mining, the grassland in the source of water system and the middle and upper reaches of rivers has been "degraded, desertified and alkalized", and there is no grass available in some places and no Maki Ka.
Second, accelerating the construction of a conservation-oriented society is an important measure to solve the resource constraints and environmental pressures.
The data show that the modernization development model of industrialized countries in the past has two remarkable characteristics: the first is the high consumption of resources (especially non-renewable resources). Take energy consumption as an example. 1995, the population of the United States accounted for 4.9% of the world's total population, and commercial energy consumption accounted for 1/4(25.2%) of the world's total. The per capita energy consumption is 7.9 tons of oil equivalent, which is 5.36 times of the world average. The second is the high pollution discharge of the environment. From 65438 to 0995, America's carbon dioxide emissions accounted for 24% of the world's total, and its per capita emissions were 20.8 tons, equivalent to five times the world's per capita level. The United States is also the largest garbage producer in the world, producing 275 million tons of toxic garbage every year. The third is the high consumption of living standards. At present, every family in the United States owns 1.9 cars, and the per capita food consumption expenditure in the United States is as high as $4,273 in 1 1,000 kilograms. Food consumption is an excessive food consumption. High resource consumption, high pollution and high living consumption constitute the basic characteristics of the modern development model of traditional western industrialized countries represented by the United States. According to the traditional development model, China can only catch up with the developed countries, and the development gap between them will become wider and wider. China must change the traditional extensive economic growth model of "high capital investment, high resource consumption and high pollution emission", establish a resource-saving and low resource consumption national economic system, promote resource conservation, put an end to resource waste, and improve resource utilization, productivity and population carrying capacity.
Since 2004, the State Council has decided to carry out in-depth resource conservation activities nationwide, comprehensively promote the conservation and comprehensive utilization of resources such as energy, raw materials, water and land, and take substantial steps in building a resource-saving society in about three years. This is an important measure to speed up the construction of a conservation-oriented society, ease the bottleneck of resources and solve the resource constraints and environmental pressures faced by building a well-off society in an all-round way, which has far-reaching significance. In this context, local governments should also take the opportunity of accelerating the construction of a conservation-oriented society in the Eleventh Five-Year Plan to solve the regional development problems.
Three, the future "Eleventh Five-Year Plan" period facing favorable conditions
Looking forward to the development in the next few years, while coping with many challenges, China is also faced with an extremely rare historical opportunity to build an ecological environment and make up for the ecological deficit. All localities should also give full consideration to these factors when preparing the Eleventh Five-Year Plan.
(1) China's economic development has entered a critical period of large-scale structural adjustment, which is also a favorable opportunity to greatly reduce traditional industries with high energy consumption and high pollution.
At present, not only the total social demand is insufficient, but also the contradiction of traditional economic structure is increasingly prominent, which is mainly manifested in the fact that traditional industrial products with low added value, high energy consumption and high pollution account for a large proportion of the world total. For example, in 1997, China's cement output accounted for 33.9% of the world total, equivalent to 5.4 times that of the United States, coal output accounted for 28.8% of the world total, and steel output accounted for 15.5%. However, in recent years, energy consumption has dropped sharply, from 1.38948 million tons of standard coal in 1996 to 1.22 million tons of standard coal in 1999, down by 1.02%, of which coal decreased by 2/kloc-. Second, the structure of energy production and consumption has changed, and the proportion of raw coal in total energy consumption has dropped from 74.6% in 1995 to 67.1%in 1999; The proportion of raw coal in total energy production decreased from 75.3% to 68.2%. However, the supply of high-tech products with high added value and strong market demand is insufficient; A considerable number of enterprises are backward in technology, lack of innovation ability, shrinking market share and serious long-term losses, so they can't quit the production field, while emerging industries and high-tech enterprises lack a lot of funds and talents, so they can't enter monopoly industries and are artificially restricted by various developments; A large number of unskilled or low-skilled laborers are increasingly surplus and need to be laid off and diverted. At the same time, they lack a large number of professionals, management talents and skilled workers. Therefore, it is necessary to strategically adjust the national economic structure and vigorously adjust traditional industries, which is also one of the fundamental measures to greatly reduce energy consumption, adjust the energy consumption structure dominated by coal, and reduce a large number of industrial pollution.
Column 27 China has serious energy consumption and waste, and the pressure of energy conservation is increasing.
According to the statistics of the Ministry of Land and Resources, in the early period of the Tenth Five-Year Plan, there were 9 1 10,000 mu of cultivated land with a slope greater than 25 degrees, accounting for about 5% of the total cultivated land area, of which less than 18% of cultivated land was converted into terraces. These sloping farmland are mostly distributed on both sides of the main rivers and tributaries in the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River and the Yellow River, resulting in serious soil erosion. In Guizhou, Sichuan and Chongqing alone, 600 million tons of sediment flows into the Yangtze River every year, and the amount of sediment flowing into the Yellow River in hilly and gully areas of northern Shaanxi reaches 800 million tons every year, which intensifies the flood hazard in the lower reaches of major rivers. In the past, under the pressure of food self-sufficiency, it was impossible to return farmland to steep slopes. Now, with the favorable opportunity of agricultural structural adjustment, we can realize "returning farmland to forests, grasslands and lakes" on a large scale. Among the "Top Ten Projects" newly started in the west in 2000, the ecological construction and seedling raising project of returning farmland to forest (grass) river in the central and western regions plans to arrange 510.5 million mu of cultivated land and 6.48 million mu of planted grass.
(2) Globalization is a historic opportunity for China to solve the problems of resources and environment.
In the world economy and international trade, only labor resources have comparative advantages and competitive advantages, while agricultural resources, oil and gas resources, major mineral resources, capital resources and technical patent resources are in obvious comparative disadvantages and competitive disadvantages. Due to the implementation of export-oriented strategy, the export of labor-intensive products in China is on the rise, and the coefficient of comparative advantage is 3.56 in 1994, which is also significantly higher than other countries. However, in terms of imports, a protectionist policy has been implemented to restrict the import of agricultural-intensive products and mineral-intensive products by itself. The comparative coefficient is less than 1.0, and the comparative advantages of resource-intensive and capital-intensive products have not been fully exerted. However, Japan, which lacks resources, has effectively utilized the comparative advantage of imports. The comparative coefficients of agricultural intensive products and mineral intensive products are 1.95 and 2.03, respectively. From 65438 to 0994, the total population of Japan and the United States accounted for 2.2% and 4.7% of the world's total population respectively; Japan's imports of agricultural intensive products account for 12.64% of the world total, and it is the largest importer of agricultural products, compared with 9.594% in the United States; The United States is the largest importer of mineral products, accounting for 16.27% of the world total, and Japan is the second largest importer of mineral products, accounting for13% of the world total; However, the import of agricultural-intensive products in China accounts for 2.377% of the world total, while the import of mineral-intensive products only accounts for 1.57 1% of the world total. The proportion of China's agricultural and mineral resources obtained from the international market is far lower than that of the United States and Japan, and it is also far lower than that of China in the world population. When the total population of China increases from 65.438+0.2 billion to more than 65.438+0.5 billion in 2020, the total GDP increases by 4-5 times, and the total trade volume increases by more than 65.438+0 times, it is impossible for us to completely rely on the supply of domestic resources to support the huge economic scale and achieve sustained and rapid growth, and to support and meet the growing material and cultural needs of more than 65.438+0 billion people, especially food.
(3) The increasing technical strength and the acceleration of technological progress will lead to the continuous decline of material consumption and energy consumption intensity in China.
In the era of economic globalization and the rapid expansion of knowledge and technology to the world, China can realize the "leap-forward" development of environmental protection through technology introduction and innovation. Just like directly adopting digital cordless telephone system and skipping traditional wired plug-in system, developing countries may skip pollution-intensive technology from the beginning and adopt low-energy and low-pollution technology, so there is no need to follow the old path of industrialized countries such as the United States.
In the past 50 years, China's energy and pollution intensity (energy consumption per unit output value and pollution emissions) experienced a rapid growth stage, and then showed a downward trend, which reflected the role of China's economic structure changes and technological progress. Due to the influence of technological progress, the consumption intensity of agricultural fertilizers, pesticides and mineral products in China is decreasing, and with the adjustment of industrial structure, the proportion of heavy chemical industry is decreasing, the tertiary industry is rising, the energy consumption per unit output value is decreasing, and the pollution emission intensity per unit GDP is decreasing. China's energy consumption per 10,000 yuan GDP reached its peak in 1977, and has been declining for more than 20 years. The consumption intensity of 1998 is only equivalent to 1/3 of 1977, which is lower than the level of 1953 in the early stage of industrialization. However, from the international comparison, China's energy efficiency is not only far lower than that of developed countries, but also lower than that of low-income countries. Measured by GDP per unit energy output1.995, China's energy efficiency is only equivalent to 1.2 of India, 1.3 of the world average, 1.4 of the United States and 65438+ of Japan. In the future, the state will continue to accelerate the development of high-tech industries, accelerate the adjustment of industrial structure, and intensify technological transformation, especially limiting the excess production capacity of backward technologies and equipment, popularizing new technologies and new processes, reducing the energy consumption, raw material consumption and water consumption of products, implementing cleaner production technologies, and developing environmental protection industries, so as to provide the most powerful support for controlling pollution from the source and protecting the environment. At the same time, with the rapid development of low-energy service industry and information industry, the intensity of unit energy consumption in China will decrease at a faster speed in the future, and the growth rate of total pollution discharge will further slow down, gradually getting rid of the traditional structure dominated by high-energy industries, and it is possible to seek the development path of "clean production".