China News Service, Istanbul, November 13 (Chen Su, Wei Yuan, Xing Yi) On November 12, local time, during the 31st Conference of the Parties (COP31) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the "China-Turkey Dialogue on Ecological Civilization and Green Transformation" was held in Istanbul, Turkey. The dialogue was hosted by China News Service and Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization Research Center, and co-organized by China News Network and the Environmental and Economic Policy Research Center of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment. This is the second time that China News Agency’s “News Hall” has held a series of multilateral events in Türkiye.
Suleiman Kausar, chairman of the Turkish environmental organization Solidarity Association, said at the meeting that the construction of ecological civilization aims to restructure the relationship between humans and nature based on balanced and sustainable development, and climate change is the biggest threat to the realization of the vision of ecological civilization. Addressing climate change requires joint efforts by all countries, and no country can address this global challenge alone.
Kausal pointed out that in a broad sense, ecological civilization is both a philosophical concept and a political concept, aiming to respond to the global climate crisis and ecological destruction. China has begun discussions around "ecological civilization" since the 1980s and incorporated it into its constitution in 2018.
The picture shows Suleiman Kausal, executive chairman of the Turkish environmental organization Solidarity. Photo by Xu Junjie, China News Service
He believes that ecological civilization mainly has three characteristics: first, it opposes the development view that regards humans as the masters of nature and advocates the protection of life and its diversity; second, it emphasizes placing natural ecological resources and sustainability at the core of the economic structure, and promotes the economic development model to shift from purely pursuing gross domestic product (GDP) growth to paying more attention to ecological value; third, it promotes the integration of social governance and ecological concepts to form changes at the political and social levels.
Talking about the challenges brought about by climate change, Kausal said that mankind's continuous pursuit of a comfortable life, as well as activities such as industrial production, technological development and war, are continuing to aggravate environmental pressure and increase greenhouse gas emissions. He pointed out that while industrialization and technological progress promote social development, they also bring ecological and environmental burdens that cannot be ignored, and the impact of war should not be ignored. In addition to direct damage to the natural environment and ecosystems, war-related activities also produce large amounts of emissions, whose environmental impacts may last for a long time and have far-reaching consequences for future generations. Therefore, climate change is not only a problem that contemporary society needs to face, but also a global challenge related to the long-term future.
Kausal stressed that climate change is a global phenomenon and no country can deal with it alone. He expressed concern about the current efforts of the international community to deal with climate change, and believed that some countries that have caused great pollution to the global environment have not taken sufficient actions to respond to climate change.
Kausal also emphasized that climate change is a long-term and complex global challenge, and its impact will continue to be far-reaching. In the face of the changing climate situation, it is difficult for any country to achieve the ideal ecological civilization goal alone. The international community needs to strengthen cooperation and jointly promote the construction of ecological civilization.
