Environmental Governance: A Perspective from Industrial Civilization to Ecological Civilization

Zhang Yongsheng*

University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (UCASS), Beijing, China

Research Institute for Eco-civilization(RIEco), CASS

Abstract: The key of environmental governance is to tackle the environment-development relationship so to achieve sustainability. This paper reveals that the traditional concept of environmental governance that took hold in the industrial era is rooted in the traditional development paradigm and theory that conflict environmental protection with economic development. Dilemmas exist not only between the environment and development, but in the resource distribution between current and future generations and in the sharing of global environmental responsibilities among countries. Consequently, in the traditional industrial era, environmental governance mainly focused on broadening the space of compromise by facilitating technology progress and raising efficiency, which is hard to solve the underlying environment-development conflict. Under the concept of ecological civilization, environmental governance brings about a mutually-beneficial relationship between environmental protection and economic development and thus could turn environmental burden into a shared opportunity among countries, and into a “win-win” relationship between current and future generations.

Keywords: Environmental governance, industrial civilization, ecological civilization JEL Classification Code: Q57DOI: 10.19602/j.chinaeconomist.2022.03.01

JEL Classification Code: Q57

DOI: 10.19602/j.chinaeconomist.2022.03.01