Research on the government's green management capability in the background of China's environmental development

Introduction

In the more than 40 years of reform and opening, China has vigorously developed the economy with GDP as the main guideline to improve people's living standards and has made remarkable achievements. However, this economic development model of high pollution, high energy consumption and high consumption has been increasingly constrained by environmental resources. China's resource shortage and environmental pollution problems in recent years have become an indisputable fact. Therefore, China urgently needs to accelerate the green development path and implement the transition to green development. The government's green management capability is the necessary force for the government to implement scientific development and economic, social, and ecological public management to achieve the goal of harmonious coexistence between man and nature [1] (Shen Guang Ming, 2020).

In 1990, the scholar Waldemar Hopfenbeck formally used the concept of “green management” in the Green Management Revolution. Green management is a new idea and new way of management. With the continuous improvement of human civilization, the concept of “green management” has been enriched. People interpret the connotation of green management theory from multiple perspectives. The emergence of management concepts such as green policy and green leadership has further promoted the theoretical construction of green public management. Yuan Lin, a Chinese scholar, believes that “the government's green management is a public management to realize the construction of ecological civilization and the ecological development of social economy under the law of coordinated development of economy, society, and ecology” [2] (Yuan Lin, 2016). Bi Xu, a Chinese scholar, believes that “the government's green management is under the leadership of the government, and the concept of environmental protection is applied to the government's entire social management affairs. In addition, the government uses a variety of control means and incentive mechanisms to establish a comprehensive system conducive to the coordinated development of economy, society, and environment” [3] (Bi Xu, 2018).

The author believes that government green management is the government's pursuit of maximizing economic and ecological benefits of the premise of not damaging the ecological environment, according to national laws and regulations, using national power, giving play to government command, control, coordination, management, and other functions. The government promotes green development and green lifestyle and promotes innovative forms of management that make people rich and the country rich and strong.

Purpose

This paper is devoted to research, in the process of China's environmental development, to put forward suggestions for optimizing the Chinese government's green development management capabilities.

Design, Method and Approach

Through the comparative analysis of key indicators such as China's population, major pollutant emissions, and energy consumption, the author identifies the management problems that the Chinese government has in ecological environmental protection, and determines the methods, mechanisms, and implementation forms of green management modernization.

Survey results

The priority to determine China's environmental sustainability is to improve the Chinese government's green management level. The priority measures to improve the green management level of the Chinese government are as follows:

1. The government establishes an ecological administrative compensation fund system.

2. The Chinese government supports green product development and green technology innovation.

3. Through the Internet platform, the government strengthens the publicity of green lifestyles and enhances the degree of greening people's lifestyles.

4. The Chinese government has perfected the performance evaluation index system, focusing on the ecological benefit index.

Originality and Value

In the context of China's sustainable environmental development, the following suggestions are put forward for the improvement of the Chinese government's green management level:

1. The government establishes an ecological administrative compensation fund system and advocates green values.

2. The Chinese government supports the development of green products and green technology innovation and promotes the development of the clean energy industry.

3. Through the Internet platform, the government strengthens the publicity of green lifestyles and enhances the degree of green people's lifestyles.

4. The Chinese government has perfected the performance evaluation index system, focusing on the ecological benefit index.

1. Analysis of the main problems of Chinese Government's green management in the context of sustainable development

1.1. Challenges of green management by the Chinese government: the relationship between economic growth and energy consumption

With the continuous development of the economy and society, the continuous improvement of the total economic volume and the gradual improvement of people's living standards, the total amount of energy that needs to be used for national production and living consumption will also increase accordingly. First, it is mainly manifested that China's total energy consumption has a large base and is increasing year by year. Second, the growth rate of energy consumption is basically synchronized with the economic growth rate (Figure 1).

Figure 1．Statistics of China's GDP and total energy consumption of 2017 to 2021

Source: [4] (Zhi Yan).

Due to the unreasonable energy structure and low energy utilization rate in China, serious waste of resources is caused, which in turn has a serious impact on the environment, which directly leads to the high emission of major pollutants [5] (Fan Dan, Sun Xiaoting, 2020).

Taking coal consumption as an example, China's coal consumption will reach 4.23 billion tons in 2021 [6]. According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics of China in 2021, China's exhaust gas, including sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, and other pollutants, they are respectively 22,678 million tons, 22,736 million tons, and 14,461 million tons respectively [7] (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Statistics of China's coal consumption and major air pollutants from 2017 to 2021

Source: [5] (Fan Dan, Sun Xiaoting, 2020).

1.2. Challenges in the implementation of green management by the Chinese government: the relationship between population growth and energy demand

The severe situation facing China's environmental protection lies in the continuous growth of the population and the huge demand for resources. Compared with 2020, China's population will increase by 480,000 people in 2021 (Figure 3). As of May 4, 2022, the total population of 238 countries in the world is 7,898,236,143 people, of which China ranks first with 1,447,301,400 people, becoming the most populous country in the world.

Figure 3. China's population of 2017 to 2021

Source: [8].

1.3. Challenges in the implementation of green management by Chinese government: the relationship between clean energy and energy consumption

The development of a low-carbon circular economy has become the main path for China to implement sustainable development. In the development of a low-carbon circular economy, China has accumulated certain experience and achieved good results [9] (Huang Jianhong, 2021).

Compared with 2015, the output rate of China's major resources in 2020 has increased by about 26%. Energy consumption per unit of GDP continued to drop significantly, and water consumption per unit of GDP decreased by 28%. The proportion of clean energy consumption in total energy consumption continues to grow, as shown in Figure 4 [10].

China has achieved certain results in the field of low-carbon circular economy, but in terms of energy savings achieved in China, it is far from offsetting the increase in energy demand, and the contradiction between China's energy and resource constraints is still very prominent [11] (Ma Guanghong, Xia Jialei, 2020). In 2021, China's carbon dioxide emissions will exceed 11.9 billion tons, accounting for 33% of the global total. The increase in China's emissions is mainly due to a sharp increase in electricity demand, which is heavily reliant on coal power. With rapid GDP growth and electrification of energy supply, China's electricity demand will increase by 10% in 2021, outpacing economic growth of 8.4%. While China also saw its largest-ever growth in renewable energy production in 2021, coal power demand has more than halved as electricity demand grows outpacing growth in low-carbon emitting energy sources [12].

Figure 4. The proportion of clean energy consumption of China's total energy consumption of 2017 to 2021

Source: [8].

In a word, through the comparative analysis of key indicators such as China's population, major pollutant emissions, and energy consumption, it can be shown that under the background of China's sustainable environmental development, the main problems in the Chinese government's green management are as follows:

1. China's economic growth Tensions with energy demand cannot change anytime soon.

2. With the continuous growth of the population, there is a huge demand for resources.

3. The amount of energy saving achieved in the effective low-carbon circular economy field is far from offsetting the increase in energy demand, and the contradiction between energy and resource constraints is still very prominent.

Environmental issues remain a hot issue in China's governance field. If it follows the traditional development model, it is difficult for China to take the road of sustainable development. Green management has special significance in environmentally sustainable development. The Chinese government can only continuously improve its green management ability in environmental protection and accelerate the process of promoting China's sustainable development.

2. Suggestions for improving the green management capability of the Chinese government in environmental protection

2.1. The Chinese government establishes an ecological administrative compensation fund system to advocate green values

The government plays an important role in social development, not only to ensure economic growth but also to pay attention to environmental protection. The example is the establishment of a government ecological administrative compensation fund system. The sources of the government's ecological administrative compensation funds can be considered as follows:

First, set up an ecological benefit tax. The purpose of the state's ecological compensation is to enhance the overall ecological and environmental value, and ultimately benefit all citizens, so it is reasonable for all citizens to bear certain expenses within their ability.

Second, collect ecological loss fees. The collection object of ecological loss fee is limited to the specific group of ecological development and users.

Third, environmental resource usage fees. Environmental resources often have high to use to value. The government is the main owner of environmental resources. The government can conduct paid auctions for its use value and collect environmental resource use fees as national ecological compensation funds.

Fourth, establish an ecological compensation fund. The state raises funds from the society through the issuance of ecological lottery and other means as ecological administrative compensation funds to make up for the shortage of national ecological compensation funds.

2.2. The Chinese government supports the development of green products and green technology innovation and promotes the development of green industries

At present, China's green technologies are mainly concentrated in six major fields, including energy conservation and environmental protection, cleaner production, clean energy, ecological environment, green upgrade of infrastructure, and green services [13]. Take the clean energy industry as an example. In recent years, China's clean energy industry has continued to develop and grow, and the proportion of clean energy consumption in total energy consumption has continued to grow. In 2021, China's consumption of clean energy such as natural gas, hydropower, nuclear power, wind power, and solar power will account for 25.5% of the total energy consumption, which is an increase of 1.2 percentage points compared with 2020 [10].

In the field of green services, on April 16, 2019, the Yichang Yangtze River Three Gorges General Navigation Comprehensive Service Area, located in the Shawan waters upstream of the Three Gorges Dam, was officially launched.

It is the first green service area on the Yangtze River, which can provide 15,000 ships and 60,000 crew members with comprehensive services such as navigation information, security inspections through locks, and green energy every year. The service area applies green technologies such as photovoltaic power generation and wind power generation, and supplies power to ships waiting to be locked by means of ship electric treasure, shore power piles, T-boxes, etc., and replaces fuel oil with electric energy, which can supply 6.8 million kWh of electricity annually. In the three years since it was put into use, it has provided clean energy services for more than 8,200 ships, reduced ship emissions of sulfides and carbon oxides, and achieved a carbon reduction of 14,000 tons [14] (Wu Chuanqing, Huang Lei, 2017).

2.3. Through the Internet platform, the government strengthens the publicity of green lifestyles and enhances the degree of greening people's lifestyles

In April 2015, the document «Opinions on Accelerating the Promotion of the Construction of Ecological Civilization» issued by the Central Government of China stated that “cultivating a green lifestyle and advocating a diligent and thrifty consumption concept” [13]. In November 2015, the Ministry of Environmental Protection of China The “Implementation Opinions on Accelerating the Promotion of Green Lifestyles” was issued, and in the document called for strengthening the concept of green lifestyles, formulating and promoting relevant policies and measures, comprehensively building a national action system, innovatively carrying out publicity and education activities for national ecological civilization, and actively building Action network and platform for green lifestyle, so as to lead the transformation of lifestyle to green [16]. Taking shared bicycles as an example, the number of users of shared bicycles in China exceeded 200 million in 2017, and its scale has achieved substantial growth. Since then, the user scale of shared bicycles has remained stable. With the continuous growth of users, the scale of China's shared bicycle market has continued to expand and reached $273.2 million in 2019 [15].

2.4. The Chinese government has perfected the performance evaluation index system, focusing on the ecological benefit index

When evaluating regional economic development, green GDP growth rather than general GDP growth should prevail, and economic growth after deducting resource and environmental losses should be used as an economic measure [17] (Zhang Juan, 2019). Appropriate setting of ecological benefit indicators and reasonable weight assignment will help the government to effectively perform ecological management functions, give full play to the government's comprehensive management capabilities, and coordinate the harmonious development of China's economy, society, resources, and environment.

Conclusion

Through the above research, the author draws the following conclusions:

In the context of China's sustainable environmental development, the main problems in the Chinese government's green management are as follows:

1. The tension between China's economic growth and energy demand cannot be changed in the short term.

2. With the continuous growth of the population, there is a huge demand for resources.

3. The amount of energy saving achieved in the effective low-carbon circular economy field is far from offsetting the increase in energy demand, and the contradiction between energy and resource constraints is still very prominent.

In the context of China's sustainable environmental development, the following suggestions are made for the improvement of the Chinese government's green management capabilities:

1. The government establishes an ecological administrative compensation fund system to advocate green values.

2. The Chinese government supports the development of green products and green technology innovation and promotes the development of the clean energy industry.

3. Through the Internet platform, the government strengthens the publicity of green lifestyles and enhances the degree of greening people's lifestyles.

4. The Chinese government has perfected the performance evaluation index system, focusing on the ecological benefit index.