Green and low-carbon practices are the sole path to drive urban renewal, transformation, and achieve high-quality development. To accomplish this, focus should be placed on three key dimensions: strategic guidance, key support, and institutional guarantees. By continuously promoting green and low-carbon development within these dimensions, we can foster the modernization of harmony between humanity and nature, ultimately leading to high-quality urban development.

Green development approach

The key to achieving high-quality urban development lies in making well-informed decisions that balance immediate and long-term interests, while also promoting sustainable transformations in both production and lifestyle.

Efforts are needed to promote the green transformation of production methods. To drive high-quality urban development, it is crucial to embrace the market mechanism as a guiding force, harness the potential of green production, establish a low-carbon and circular industrial system, and prioritize the transformation towards a greener and more sustainable future as a catalyst for progress.

It is essential to actively promote the comprehensive adoption of green lifestyles. Our efforts should be directed towards addressing environmental pollution resulting from residents’ behaviors, enhancing green awareness, and effectively promoting waste sorting and disposal. Additionally, we should implement a comprehensive energy-saving strategy, explore the establishment of a standardized “personal carbon account” system, and encourage the adoption of green consumption and sustainable living practices to shape a new era of environmentally conscious living.

Technological innovation

Technological innovation is the core driving force and key support for high-quality urban development. At present, the high-quality development of cities is at a critical stage. Facing growing demand for green and low-carbon products and services, it is urgent to drive innovation in green and low-carbon technologies, foster greater synergy in sci-tech advancements, overcome barriers to innovation, strengthen the market’s influence, and pave the way for a new era of high-quality urban development.

To maximize the impact of policies and foster greater synergy in urban green and low-carbon technological innovation, it is recommended to prioritize breakthroughs and address the bottlenecks in this field. Strengthening the role of market entities is crucial, as they should be guided and regulated to independently drive green and low-carbon technological innovation.

Institutional guarantees

To ensure high-quality urban development, it is crucial to enforce strict governance and protection of green areas in accordance with the law. By prioritizing harmony between humanity and nature, we can plan for sustainable urban growth. This includes gradually enhancing the legal and regulatory framework that promotes green and low-carbon practices, as well as formulating and implementing operational rules and regulations to guide these efforts.

To foster a dual control system of total energy consumption and energy intensity, we should develop and improve action guidelines related to carbon emissions, standardize and guide the monitoring, evaluation, accounting, and verification of carbon emissions by social entities, and promote the realization of the “dual carbon” goals through diversified and collaborative efforts. With the goal of improving the quality of life, we should proactively establish evaluation systems for green development across various sectors, including the economy, politics, culture, society, and ecological civilization. This will facilitate the systematic implementation of green development agreements and foster coordinated efforts between supply and demand, with a particular focus on carbon control. Additionally, we will enhance the green development system to further support these endeavors.

The green financial system should be innovated to support the high-quality urban development. Efforts should be made to enhance the green financial support system by exploring both direct and indirect financing methods. Establishing a direct mechanism for “green funds” is crucial, ensuring that incremental funds are allocated towards urban development projects that align with low-carbon, circular, and green industries, while also contributing to the achievement of “dual carbon” goals. The combined effect of green financial policies should be improved to support high-quality development of low-carbon urban industries through multiple pathways. We should strengthen the symbiotic relationship between the realization of value in ecological products and high-quality development. Financial institutions should be encouraged to innovate and introduce investment-oriented products and services for various environmental rights transactions, thereby offering financial support for the advancement of high-quality urban development.

Tu Fengna is an associated research fellow from the Institute of Marine Economy and Port Economy at Tianjin Academy of Social Sciences.