节能减排:中国能源战略的必然选择

Energy Conservation and Emission Reduction: An Inevitable Choice of China’s Energy Strategy

随着科学技术的发展,人类文明的进步最终实现了生命物质能量向非生命物质能量(矿物燃料)的根本性转变。全球实践表明,大量矿物燃料使用所产生的极化效应正在对人类文明的可持续发展形成日趋严峻的挑战。为此需要重新思考人类的能源利用行为模式。作为世界最大的能源消费和碳排放国,中国未来低碳经济的发展应遵循从目前的“重开发、轻使用”传统能源利用模式向“使用与开发并重”模式的过渡,并最终定格于“重使用、轻开发”的地球友好能源利用模式。

The progress of human civilization has reached a crucial transition of energy use. In the past, the widespread use of mineral fuels has not only brought about remarkable increases in wealth (as measured by the Gross Domestic Product, for example) but also resulted in increased environ-mental pollution, as indicated by heightened CO2 emissions. This phenomenon, which is referred to as the bipolarized effect of energy use, has hindered future sustainable development. Therefore, it is important to consider new methods for building models of energy use in order to develop a low-carbon economy, just like China’s common saying “energy conservation and emission reduction”. As the largest consumer of fossil fuels and the largest emitter of CO2 of the world, China may face mounting challenges in protecting its vulnerable environment unless it can successfully transit from the traditional economic model, which promotes energy exploitation rather than energy conservation, to a model that considers energy exploitation and conservation equally and, finally, to a model that focuses primarily on energy conservation.