The Communist Party of China (CPC) has in the people its roots, its lifeblood, and its source of strength. Ecological civilization is an integral part of the Five-Sphere Integrated Plan and the Five-Sphere Advancement of Socialism. Ecological civilization is a new form of human civilization written into Constitution of the People’s Republic of China and protected by the fundamental law, with the pursuit of the harmonious coexistence of human and nature as its core, and with its underlying value orientation adhering to a people-oriented development. Learning from the CPC’s century-old ecological civilization, including its germination, exploration, development, perfection, and maturity, especially in the new era, for the first time in the CPC’s century-old history, Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization is established, which specifically guides the theory and practice of ecological civilization. It is not only the inheritance and development of Marxist thoughts on the relationship between human and nature, but also fundamentally manifests its value of the supremacy of the people. The establishment of the people’s supremacy in the pursuit of ecological civilization under the leadership of the CPC differs from Western anthropocentrism or ecocentrism. It develops keen insights into important documents of people’s supremacy in the history of the CPC’s ecological civilization for the 20th century, which is of great theoretical and practical value to understand the spiritual genealogy of the CPC more completely, accurately, and systematically, to clarify the underlying value orientation of ecological civilization, to better learn and practice Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization in the new era, and to build a modernized society of harmonious coexistence between human and nature.

This paper tries to explain the economic significance of “pursuing green development and promoting harmony between humanity and nature” in the Report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) from the following eight aspects. First, it explains how to respect, adapt to, and protect nature through the confirmation of ownership, valuation classification and incentive. Second, it analyzes why China should work actively toward the goals of peaking carbon emissions and achieving carbon neutrality from the new security concept, new challenges, new situations, and new tasks brought by the urgency and severity of climate change risks. Third, it expounds on the difficulty and complexity of addressing climate change from multiple aspects, such as the ratchet effect, Giddens’s paradox, prisoner’s dilemma, lock-in effect, asset stranding, intergenerational equity, and the Wandering Earth scenario. Fourth, it recognizes the importance of stability, overall planning, and coordination based on the overall planned and coordinated triangle of high-quality development, carbon neutrality, and energy security. Fifth, it emphasizes the importance of green and low-carbon technological innovation by means of the IPAS equation. Sixth, it explains the essence of carbon neutrality as the industrial transition based on the energy transition, which is an economic logic. Seventh, taking the carbon market as an example, it explains the economic principle that the market mechanism plays an important role. Eighth, it explains how finance empowers the goals of peaking carbon emissions and achieving carbon neutrality as well as highquality development. Finally, this paper is of guiding significance for economics, finance, international trade, and policy research, and in the meantime, provides new research tasks.

All mankind is faced with the severe challenge to deal with climate change. Advocating the concept of “a community with a shared future for mankind,” China has taken the initiative to commit itself to emission reduction and has actively contributed its strength. According to the data on agricultural carbon emissions, it finds that non-carbon dioxide gases dominated agricultural carbon emissions, showing an overall upward trend year by year. However, a downward trend has been seen, and it was near a peak in this regard in recent years. Emissions from energy consumption of agricultural machinery may become the most significant uncertain factor for the carbon dioxide peaking of agriculture, as agriculture in China is yet to be mechanized further. The analysis above has laid a foundation for the emission reduction idea of driving the green transformation of agriculture with low-carbon measures. Specific recommendations are as follows in this regard. Carbon constraint indicators should be added to the 14th Five-Year Plan for the development of agriculture and rural areas. The methodology accounting should be expedited for agricultural carbon emissions. China should make a lot of effort to develop the agricultural carbon market and strive to employ financial means to promote low-carbon agricultural technologies.

The development path from attaching importance to environmental protection to the theory of ecological conservation, then to piloting ecological civilization demonstration areas, marks that China’s ecological conservation has gradually moved from theoretical construction to practical exploration, based on the new idea that “lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets.” It is still an ordeal for China’s ecological conservation in the context of global warming how to reduce carbon emission intensity while maintaining sustained economic growth. Under the dual constraints of peaking carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality before 2060 (“dual carbon” goals), this paper employs the five national ecological civilization pilot demonstration areas (ECDAs) established in 2014 as quasi-natural experiments based on the panel data of 30 Chinese provincial regions from 2003 to 2019. Based on the analysis of the policy implementation background and the theoretical mechanism of its impact on carbon emission intensity, the synthetic control method and difference in differences method are adopted to test the impact of the construction of ECDAs on carbon emission intensity and examine the spatial spillover effect of the pilot policies. The study shows that the construction of ECDAs has significantly reduced carbon emission intensity as a whole, especially in Fujian, Guizhou, and Yunnan Provinces. Moreover, the conclusions successfully pass the robustness test. The mechanism analysis results demonstrate that the construction of ECDAs can lower carbon emission intensity through the positive incentives from boosting technological progress and developing green finance, and the reversal pressure mechanism of optimizing the energy structure and improving the market segmentation. The analysis results of the spatial spillover effect indicate that the construction of ECDAs plays a significant role in reducing carbon emission intensity in the region and its adjacent areas. Therefore, China should introduce ECDAs and the experience gained to more regions. Meanwhile, China should spare no effort to seek multi-dimensional paths to reduce carbon emissions in view of regional differences in green development, and strengthen cross-regional communications and cooperation to realize the goals of carbon emission reduction.

Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization views mountains, rivers, forests, farmlands, lakes, grasslands, deserts, and glaciers as an inseparable ecosystem and communities of life which should be put under integrated protection and systematic management to ensure ecological civilization in all dimensions, all regions, and at all times. By “all dimensions,” it refers to the systematic management of all the elements of ecological civilization. By “all regions,” it means the systematic management of the entire spatial elements of ecological civilization. By “all times,” it calls for the systematic management of all the components of the temporal structure of ecological civilization. Together, it refers to ecological civilization through systems engineering. This is an innovative application and advancement of materialist dialectics’ systematic methodology in ecological civilization, and a significant contribution of Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization to materialist dialectics.

Agricultural ecological conservation is an internal demand for the development of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era, and a basic requirement for realizing rural revitalization and building a beautiful China. Over the past 70 years, agricultural ecological progress in China has gone through three stages: preliminary exploration, in-depth development, and quality improvement in the new era. It has gained valuable historical experience in terms of the premise of liberating and developing productive forces, the principle of coordinating economy and ecology, and the guarantee of systems and laws. Therefore, agricultural ecological conservation in the new era should adhere to the guidance of the Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, strengthen the awareness of agricultural ecological conservation, stick to the path of green ecological agriculture development, improve the evaluation system of agricultural ecological conservation, and deepen international cooperation in this field.