Tian Anqi and Jiao Pei: Beyond the Green Illusion of Capitalism
Promoting a comprehensive green transition is a key measure for the global response to climate change, the promotion of sustainable development, and the improvement of the quality of people's lives. Entering the 21st century, and particularly since the 2008 international financial crisis, the frequent emergence of global ecological and environmental problems has made "green economy" and "green growth" focal points of discussion. Western societies in the stage of "late capitalism" are especially dedicated to achieving a green shift through "green capitalism" [1]—which integrates "green elements" with capitalist economic development—aiming to construct a "green future" where economic growth and environmental protection represent a win-win scenario, thereby resolving the dual crisis of economy and ecology. Whether this "green economy," emerging as it does from the logic of capital, can ultimately achieve success has become a topic of great concern and debate.
I. The Green Illusion Constructed by the "Green Shift"
Since the 1960s and 70s, the ecological problems brought about by the processes of traditional Western industrialization and urbanization have continually surfaced and intensified, plunging Western society into a state of general anxiety. People began to advocate for a "green shift" without transforming the capitalist system itself—that is, relying entirely on operational modes centered on "markets" and "technology" to regulate ecological issues. This attempts to ease the contradiction between humanity and nature and alleviate ecological anxiety, thereby forming the governance strategy of green capitalism.
(1) Background of the "Green Shift"
Compared to early capitalism, the various contradictions and economic crises of late capitalism are deeply intertwined, further exacerbating the tension between humanity and nature. "The neoliberal economic restructuring originating from the new regime of monopoly-finance capital has not only undermined the economic welfare of the majority, but in some regions has even deprived humans of the most basic ecological conditions required for survival, such as clean air, potable water, and sufficient food" [2]. In the sphere of production, the ecological crisis caused by capital's over-exploitation of natural resources presents unprecedented challenges to human society; in the sphere of consumption, the material pursuits driven by consumerism have caused serious waste of resources, intensifying environmental pollution and energy consumption.
The rise of the Western environmental movement was a response to public nuisance incidents and ecological crises. By triggering public attention and participation, it promoted the awakening and popularization of environmental protection consciousness. In 1962, the American marine biologist Rachel Carson published Silent Spring in Boston, exposing the human abuse of pesticides and other chemicals; it is regarded as the founding work of the environmental movement. In 1972, the report The Limits to Growth released by the Club of Rome predicted that if humanity only focused on economic growth, it would inevitably encounter economic collapse. These concerns from intellectuals pushed the global scope of attention toward environmental issues and promoted subsequent research and action. The first United Nations Conference on the Human Environment was held in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1972, sparking profound reflection on environmental problems. The Western environmental movement drove the awakening of environmental consciousness in Western society and the arrival of the "green shift."
Since the 1990s, Western societies have paid increasing attention to ecological issues, and green movements have continually shifted toward green politics. In 2007, the United Kingdom successively released the Energy White Paper and the Climate Change Bill (Draft), making detailed requirements for developing a low-carbon economy and controlling greenhouse gas emissions, clearly proposing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 26%–32% by 2020 and to 60% by 2050. In 2009, the Obama administration signed the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, making new energy a primary development field. The subsequent Republican Trump administration denied global warming and supported traditional fossil fuels, while the current Democratic Biden administration has introduced what is claimed to be the most radical new energy policy in history. American green politics has become a focal point within the whirlpool of bipartisan political struggles. A 2011 document from the European Union (EU) stated that "the European economy should complete a radical shift within the span of a generation" [3]. Furthermore, other Western countries have also successively increased investment in the development of renewable energy to promote low-carbon green economic growth. All of these factors contributed to the so-called "green shift."
(2) The Rise of "Green Market Omnipotence"
In the face of the current dual crisis of economy and ecology, how can the ecological environment be improved while maintaining economic growth? Western governments generally choose market mechanisms to achieve a "green shift."
Adherents of green capitalism hold the belief that the maximum utility of natural resources can be realized through "rational pricing." In their view, environmental degradation is largely the result of the market’s failure to reflect environmental costs of production and consumption and the value of natural capital. Proceeding from this, assigning private property rights and economic value to the environment is seen as the optimal way to manage natural resources [4]. Thus, the theory of "Green Market Omnipotence" [5] was formed. This theory firmly believes that a rational pricing mechanism for natural resources can incentivize enterprises to seek more environmentally friendly and efficient ways of resource utilization. They argue that high-value natural resources will become a new driver for technological innovation and the development of green industries for several reasons. First, in a green market, the environmental performance of an enterprise becomes an important factor in competition. By improving environmental performance, enterprises can gain a competitive advantage, as consumers tend to choose products and services with higher environmental standards. This pressure of market competition urges enterprises to continuously improve their environmental performance and provide more eco-friendly and sustainable solutions. Second, they advocate for combining commercial principles of the market economy with ecological protection, attempting to create a new capitalist model of sustainable development. The primary task of the government is to ensure market standardization; by implementing green taxes, the government can incorporate environmental costs into the tax system, making them part of the total cost for enterprises, so as to constrain them to protect the environment and rationally develop and utilize natural resources. Here, "sustainability itself" evolves into a commodity, utilized for trade and management under market principles and mechanisms. In short, in the eyes of supporters of green capitalism, rational pricing of natural resources can reflect their scarcity and environmental costs; the market will then ensure these resources are used in the most efficient manner, thereby reducing environmental damage [6]. They have a superstitious faith in relying on capitalist market principles to solve ecological problems, emphasizing that capitalist market mechanisms serve ecosystems, even attributing the fundamental causes of environmental problems entirely to market failures in effectively allocating resources [7]. As the main viewpoint or theory of green capitalism, "Green Market Omnipotence" is highly favored in Western society.
(3) The Popularity of "Green Technological Omnipotence"
Another primary operational mode for alleviating the ecological crisis in late capitalist society lies in the excessive veneration of green technology. "Over the past decade, many advocates of green capitalism have attempted to peddle green technology as a panacea, or to 'decouple' environmental impacts from economic activity, as a way to mask the conflict between market logic and ecological limits" [8].
First, they advocate for improving the efficiency of environmental protection through technological refinement and innovation within the framework of capitalism. The rise of green technology attempts to make people believe they can continuously derive power from renewable energy. By reducing production energy consumption, decreasing pollution, and selecting alternative technologies to improve resource utilization, all varieties of goods and vehicles will become more energy-efficient. This suggests people need not worry about climate impacts and can continue consuming indefinitely, presenting a beautiful green vista to the world [9]. From the perspective of green capitalist technological solutions, promoting and developing renewable energy and other technologies within the capitalist market framework is an effective means of controlling and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. These innovations will replace existing polluting technologies, continuously reduce net carbon emissions, and ultimately serve to protect the environment. New York Times bestselling columnist Thomas Friedman claimed that if people shift to solar and other renewable energies, transforming clean energy into a "new engine of growth," and produce the things that billions of people in China, India, and the rest of the world want, the entire planet could enjoy the "American way of life" [10]. Such optimistic assumptions, which excessively venerate green technology, on the one hand overstate the potential of renewable energy to alleviate the ecological crisis, and on the other hand, underestimate future growth in demand; they inevitably fail to withstand scientific scrutiny and deliberation.
Second, they propose specific technological solutions for the ecological crisis. "Geoengineering" is considered the general term for large-scale artificial technologies and methods used by humanity to intervene in the Earth's environment and climate change. It can be roughly divided into two categories. The first is carbon removal, aimed at removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to reduce greenhouse gas concentrations and mitigate the impacts of climate change. The second is solar radiation management, aimed at regulating the climate by changing the way the Earth receives or reflects solar radiation—such as spraying aerosols into the atmosphere to reflect solar radiation or placing mirrors in space to alter the Earth's radiation balance—with the goal of lowering the Earth's surface temperature. Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, once noted that "Geoengineering will work to fulfill the promise of solving the problem of global warming, and it will only cost us billions of dollars a year" [11]. The famous Dutch Nobel laureate in chemistry, Paul Crutzen, similarly believed that if we hope to rapidly mitigate warming and subtract other climate impacts, then geoengineering... might be the only available option [12].
Thus, we can see that late capitalist Western society advocates for green capitalist solutions that rely on market mechanisms and technological innovation as their axes to improve the environment without transforming the capitalist system. In a certain sense, this eases, covers up, and transfers the deep-seated contradictions between the capitalist mode of production and the ecological environment. While highly attractive in a capitalist society where defects are increasingly apparent, it is nothing more than the construction of a "green illusion."
II. The Dangers of the "Green Illusion"
With the further escalation of capitalist contradictions, green capitalism has advanced the inherent drive of capital to privatize everything and incorporate it into the sphere of circulation, further exacerbating existing inequalities. On this basis, "green fascism" and "ecological imperialism"—both of a capitalist-hegemonic nature—have formed. This not only deepens Western green anxiety but also intensifies tensions in global ecological protection.
(1) The Predicament of the Western Green Shift
In reality, the efforts of the bourgeoisie to respond to the climate crisis in order to save capitalism are concentrated in the erroneous solutions of green capitalism. Examples include technological targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, market mechanisms such as carbon trading schemes and "payments for ecosystem services," as well as the proposal of dubious technological solutions including carbon removal, carbon sequestration, and other geoengineering schemes [13].
On the one hand, the practice of incorporating nature into the market system causes nature to degenerate into a mere appendage of humanity; far from improving the ecological crisis, it exacerbates the contradiction of the "subject-object dichotomy." In the view of John Bellamy Foster, a representative figure of Ecological Marxism, market mechanisms that put a clear price tag on natural resources cause ecological resources to be completely stripped away and reduced to capital. This reductionist approach of constructing everything through "market-commodity" relations is "absurd" and harmful [14]. British scholar Ivan R. Scales argues that in the rush to commodify nature, environmental protection serves the interests of capital rather than the market serving the interests of biodiversity conservation [15]. Marx also pointed out that under the capitalist system, "theoretical discovery of the autonomous laws of nature appears merely as a ruse so as to subjugate it under human needs, whether as an object of consumption or as a means of production" [16]. That is to say, under capitalist society, the relationship between humanity and nature is alienated into a unilateral, egoistic relationship of possession. Nature is reduced to an appendage of man, and this "subject-object opposition" leads to acute contradictions between humanity and nature. Beyond this, it must be noted that market mechanisms have begun to run unchecked in the ecological sphere, where the constant pursuit of profit leads to varying degrees of "greenwashing" [17]. Many capitalist enterprises deliberately create an illusion of sustainable development to evade or reduce their own environmental protection costs. In this sense, the crux of green capitalism lies in its attempt to forcibly cram the complexity of the climate and ecological crises into the narrow framework of the market, without considering whether the market can truly solve these problems.
On the other hand, the practice of repairing ecological problems through technical improvements lacks reality. The logic of late capitalism in repairing the ecological environment through technological innovation actually upholds a kind of ecological optimism; however, this optimism finds it difficult to break free from the shackles of the logic of capital. British scholar Richard Smith points out that there is an irreconcilable contradiction between the essential logic of capital development and saving the planet, and that theorists of green capitalism generally overestimate the potential of "green" production [18]. The "theory of technological omnipotence" faces the "Jevons Paradox," namely that increasing energy efficiency may lead to more energy consumption. This is because, under capitalist conditions, an increase in the efficiency of using a certain energy source will increase the demand for that energy source [19]. That is to say, the concept of solving environmental problems purely through technical means has its limitations. Although strategies such as the "Green New Deal" and "green growth" conform to the requirements of social progress and the interests of the masses to a certain extent, the complexity of domestic politics in Western countries makes such planning difficult to sustain. For example, 80% of American Republican respondents expressed strong opposition to the "Green New Deal," while only 46% of Democrats supported it [20]. The implementation of Europe's green transition has also encountered adverse factors such as geopolitics and internal disagreements. Regarding how to carry out the energy transition, there have long been internal divisions among EU member states; France and Germany each hold their own ground and refuse to yield on the issue of whether to develop nuclear energy. Consequently, "the goal of making up for the current energy supply gap by rapidly increasing renewable energy capacity in the short term is difficult to achieve" [21]. From the above perspective, although the efforts made by late capitalist society to resolve the ecological crisis have partially promoted a domestic green transition, they are influenced by the capitalist system itself and the complexity of domestic politics. The surface-level universal "greening" can only degenerate into a green utopian illusion.
As the Japanese Ecological Marxist scholar Kohei Saito summarized: whether it is the "Green New Deal" attempting to achieve "green economic growth" or dreamlike technologies like geoengineering, they are all actually desperately trying to maintain capitalism—the very root of the crisis—and therein lies the ultimate contradiction [22]. British Ecological Marxist theorist David Pepper pointed out that "the ecological contradictions of capitalism make sustainable development or 'green' capitalism an impossible dream, and thus a self-deceiving fraud" [23]. In short, if the inherent "ecological negation" logic of capital is not eliminated, then no matter how much green capitalism develops, ecological imperialism and ecological fascism will go from bad to worse, further exacerbating the ecological crisis and eventually causing the ecological hopes of late capitalism to be completely shattered [24].
(2) The Outward Export of Pollo-Waste and the Shifting of Responsibility for Environmental Governance
The selective greening strategy of green capitalism practiced by Western developed capitalist countries has clearly yielded little result. To completely eliminate the pollution problems of their own industrial development, they have begun to adopt the method of externalizing costs to shift their own risks. This involves the continuous transfer and export of environmental pollutants to the Third World, which constitutes typical acts of "ecological colonialism" and "ecological imperialism."
On the one hand, the essence of developed capitalist countries transferring high-pollution industries to other countries is to reduce the costs of their own industrial development and externalize environmental costs. Along with the continuous development of capitalist productive forces and the improvement of industrialization, developed capitalist countries have accumulated a great deal of industrial garbage and waste, causing environmental degradation. To deal with environmental pollution issues, they have adopted measures such as multinational corporate cooperation to transfer high-pollution industries to developing countries, and have even exploited the ecological resources of developing countries and regions in a disguised manner under the name of climate cooperation. Today's climate change problem is the cumulative result of hundreds of years of emissions from Western industrialization. Since the start of the Industrial Revolution with the use of fossil fuels and as the industrialization process deepened, developed countries, with only 20% of the world's population, have emitted about 60% of greenhouse gases, directly leading to climate change and seriously harming public health. To shift the risk of nuclear pollution, the Japanese government—completely disregarding the opposition of neighboring countries—initiated the discharge of Fukushima nuclear-contaminated water into the sea, which will have an incalculable impact on the marine ecological environment and has triggered strong condemnation and opposition from its domestic public and neighboring countries. The ocean is the shared property of all mankind and should not become a field for certain countries to shift their pollution.
On the other hand, Western countries have failed to uphold and fulfill the principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities" in dealing with environmental pollution, constantly shirking their governance responsibilities. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) stipulates the principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities," meaning that while every country has a responsibility to participate in solving climate problems, Western countries have the largest historical emissions of greenhouse gases and should bear greater responsibility for emissions reduction, while also assisting countries with economic difficulties in transitioning to clean development models. "However, the Western developed countries led by the United States attempt to make the broad masses of developing countries bear the evil consequences of the ecological crisis, while they themselves refuse to bear the historical responsibility and realistic obligations of emissions reduction" [25]. One proof of this is former U.S. President Trump's 2017 announcement of withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, refusing to provide the aid funds for developing countries to cope with climate change and to cut carbon emissions as promised in the agreement. Research shows that about 90% of the world's excess carbon emissions originate from Western developed capitalism led by the United States; not only have they failed to fulfill their own due reduction tasks, but they have instead urged developing countries to bear the responsibility for global emissions reduction. Canadian scholar Naomi Klein argues that although developing countries like China and India produce greenhouse gases, they do not need to bear the same responsibility as developed countries because they bear little responsibility for the environmental pollution of the past 200 years or so [26]. General Secretary Xi Jinping also pointed out in an interview with Reuters: "Adhering to principles such as common but differentiated responsibilities does not mean that developing countries should not contribute to the global response to climate change, but rather that it should be in line with the capabilities and requirements of developing countries" [27].
(3) Launching Wars and Substantial Looting of Ecological Resources
Launching wars against Third World countries and regions has become an important means for the Western imperialist bloc, led by the United States, to shift domestic ecological crises and plunder the energy and resources of other nations.
First, the substantial looting of other countries' resources through war. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), composed of Western countries led by the United States, uses the guise of "democracy" and "human rights" to constantly win over and cultivate "pro-American" and "pro-European" factions worldwide, creating national divisions and ethnic contradictions in other countries. Its fundamental purpose is to occupy and plunder the resources of other countries and turn them into appendages of their own nations; this is a typical imperialist act. To control the petroleum resources of the Middle East, under the guise of maintaining regional security, the US and the West have directly or indirectly launched unjust wars, causing serious humanitarian crises and refugee problems. Not only that, the United States has also personally laid hands on the theft of oil. Since 2015, incidents of the U.S. occupation forces in Syria stealing oil have been continuously exposed, an act that has exacerbated Syria's energy shortage. Bashar Jaafari, Syria's Ambassador to Russia, stated: "Our ambulances do not even have fuel to transport the wounded, while the United States has been stealing our gas and oil and transporting it to third countries" [28].
Second, imperialist wars have caused incalculable damage to the ecology of less developed countries and regions. The U.S. military used large quantities of highly toxic chemicals during the Vietnam War, the most harmful of which was "Agent Orange" (also known as a defoliant), causing devastating catastrophic impacts on the local ecosystem. Species in areas contaminated by "Agent Orange" faced mass extinction, and human diseases became frequent. Even now, the malignant impact of hazardous chemical residues on the local ecology continues, fully exposing the anti-ecological and anti-human nature of imperialism. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) led by the United States has repeatedly used radioactive and chemically toxic depleted uranium bombs in wars, such as the 1991 Gulf War, the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia, the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, and the 2003 invasion of Iraq; even as recently as 2023, the United States provided depleted uranium bombs to Ukraine.
III. Surpassing the "Green Illusion"
Facts have proven that the series of measures taken by late capitalism to cope with the ecological crisis will only make the already strained ecological chain even more constrained, which destines the hope of capitalism to escape its ecological predicament to eventual failure. This necessitates surpassing the logic of capital, realizing a dual reform of both systems and values, drawing on the wise solutions of China’s construction of ecological civilization, and truly walking a path of modernization characterized by the harmonious coexistence of humanity and nature.
(1) Surpassing the Capital Logic of Private Ownership of the Means of Production
The fundamental path to achieving a good ecological environment lies in breaking through the framework of the capitalist system and replacing capitalist private ownership with socialist public ownership. To achieve the transcendence of Western green transition schemes, one must reveal their anti-ecological nature and shake the foundations of the capitalist system and capitalist mode of production, because "capitalism itself is the fundamental disaster that needs to be exorcised" [29].
On the one hand, green capitalism itself possesses an "anti-ecological" nature because the capitalist system and capital logic behind it are the root causes of the ecological crisis. In the view of Marx and Engels, "modern bourgeois private property is the last and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products, that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few" [30]. That is to say, "as long as private ownership of the means of production exists, the global environment will continue to be destroyed" [31]. For example, to alleviate the internal contradiction between the socialization of production and the private ownership of the means of production, and to make up for the harm caused by overproduction in order to pursue maximum profit, capitalism began to accelerate the substantial looting of global resources. This resulted in the privatization of public natural resources and the polarization of the enjoyment of ecological resources. At the same time, through the process of capitalizing natural resources and externalizing the costs of damage, they cover up the disguised exploitation of the working class and the flaws of the capitalist system itself. Therefore, the capitalist system and its mode of production are the fundamental causes of the ecological crisis. The ecological crisis simply cannot be solved under the capitalist system; whether it is green capitalism through market means or the path of seeking technological innovation, it will only exacerbate the ecological crisis.
On the other hand, to resolve ecological problems, it is necessary to establish strong institutional guarantees; socialist public ownership can better ensure that ecological resources are not captured and expropriated by capital. First, advocating for the establishment and improvement of socialist public ownership better safeguards the interests of the people. It involves "transforming social relations of production along a socialist direction. The dominant force of such a society is not the pursuit of profit but the satisfaction of the real needs of the people and the requirements for the sustainable development of social ecology" [32]. The socialist system can achieve effective regulation of the power of capital, eliminating the possibility of its unlimited appropriation of ecological resources, thereby allowing people to enjoy natural resources equitably and promoting the realization of ecological justice. Second, socialist public ownership can better achieve the coordinated planning of both economic development and ecological protection. Under socialist public ownership, the allocation and utilization of resources are subject to stricter supervision, ensuring that economic activities do not over-exploit natural resources and preventing the erosion of public natural resources by private capital and its disorderly expansion in the ecological field. Economic development and ecological protection are no longer in an antagonistic relationship but are mutually promoting and supporting, creating a better future for coming generations.
In short, socialism is based on the free and well-rounded development of the individual and the protection of the common interests of all humanity; it represents a truly benign interaction between humanity and nature. It is in the aforementioned sense that we can conclude: only under socialist public ownership can ecological justice truly be realized, the degradation of the ecological environment caused by blind economic development be effectively avoided, and reliable institutional support for the protection of our ecological environment be truly provided.
(2) Transcending the Subject-Object Opposition through the Harmony Between Humanity and Nature
The concept of the harmony between humanity and nature aims to transcend the conceptual opposition between humanity as subject and nature as object found under the capitalist system, ultimately achieving a more balanced and sustainable relationship between the two, which contains profound ethical value. To truly improve the ecological environment and achieve green development, the antagonistic relationship between humanity and nature must be reshaped. "Green development, in terms of its essence, is about resolving the problem of the harmony between humanity and nature" [33].
First, treating the relationship between humanity and nature through the concept of harmony and coexistence constitutes a substantive transcendence of Western green trends of thought and the model of ecological modernization. The concept of harmony between humanity and nature truly follows the sustainable development philosophy of respecting, conforming to, and protecting nature. It views humanity and nature as a community of life characterized by interdependence and shared prosperity; only within the harmony between humanity and nature can human development and social progress truly be realized. It not only breaks through the contradictory opposition between traditional "anthropocentrism" and "ecocentrism" but also represents a revolutionary transcendence of the ecological governance models of late capitalism. Second, the path of harmony between humanity and nature emphasizes meeting the normal needs of the current generation without compromising the future development of descendants. All human activities should respect the laws of nature and the boundaries of ecosystems, avoiding the exertion of pressure or the infliction of further damage on the natural environment. Ensuring the rational utilization and protection of existing resources to meet the needs of both current and future generations contributes to the unification and realization of intra-generational and inter-generational justice.
(3) The Practical Dimension: Promoting Green Transformation through the Construction of Socialist Ecological Civilization
Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, under the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization, China has achieved a series of practical accomplishments in the construction of socialist ecological civilization. It has continuously promoted a comprehensive green transformation, contributing the practical wisdom of the Chinese path to ecological governance modernization toward solving global ecological puzzles, and forging a Chinese path to ecological modernization characterized by harmony between humanity and nature.
First, in the practice of our country's ecological civilization construction, we uphold the concept that "lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets" [34], always placing the construction of ecological civilization in a prominent position within the overall work of the Party and state. Taking solid practical action to deal with and respond to global ecological puzzles is the source of our confidence and the basis for demonstrating the responsibility of a major country. "The construction of ecological civilization in the context of contemporary China takes the ecological transformation of human civilizational development, the innovation of civilizational forms, and comprehensive transformation as its temporal background; furthermore, it is an ecological civilization construction within a context where development is the primary task" [35]. China has incorporated carbon peaking and carbon neutrality into the overall layout of economic and social development and ecological civilization construction. It has clarified the strategic direction and target requirements for the comprehensive green transformation of economic and social development, demonstrating China's image as a major country willing to work with global partners to contribute more to the progress of the cause of global climate governance.
Second, China facilitates the ecological construction of other developing countries and supports the high-quality development of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), demonstrating its responsibility as the world's largest developing country. China actively advocates South-South cooperation, has established the "South-South Cooperation Assistance Fund," and actively carries out project cooperation in the field of addressing climate change. By providing technical assistance and financial support within its capacity, China assists developing countries in improving their ability to respond to climate change. China is actively building a "Green Belt and Road," deepening cooperation in ecological and environmental protection with countries along the routes, continuously promoting the green transformation of regional economies, and supporting the construction of ecological environmental protection infrastructure and the development and upgrading of green industries in these countries. The Memorandum of Understanding on Building a Green Belt and Road reached between the Chinese government and the United Nations Environment Programme aims to build an environmentally friendly Belt and Road. China has also signed more than 50 cooperation documents with various relevant countries and international organizations to jointly commit to ecological and environmental protection. At the same time, China actively promotes the "Green Silk Road Envoys Program," which has successfully trained more than 3,000 professionals serving more than 120 countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative. In the future, China will increase its support for the International Coalition for Green Development on the Belt and Road and investment in BRI partner countries to promote green development.
Finally, China actively participates in the joint construction of global ecological civilization and guides the international negotiation agenda for addressing global climate change. Climate change is recognized as one of today’s global issues and is a key factor restricting sustainable development. China actively participates in international climate change negotiations, commits to strengthening friendly cooperation among nations, promotes the negotiation process under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and conducts dialogues with all parties through multilateral channels to promote consensus in the international community on the climate change issue. China has not only become a well-deserved important participant and contributor to the construction of global ecological civilization but is also increasingly playing a leading role. For example, China organized and participated in the negotiations of many international environmental conventions such as the Montreal Protocol and the Basel Convention, and is committed to promoting synergy and cooperation among various international organizations. China served as the president of the 15th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15), which adopted the "Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework." This framework outlines the vision of achieving "harmony between humanity and nature" by 2050 and clarifies the global biodiversity protection goals for 2030, which is of great and far-reaching significance for global environmental governance. Furthermore, China took the lead internationally in proposing and implementing the "ecological protection red line" system [36], promoting the large-scale and holistic protection of ecological spaces and endangered species. This provides a "Chinese solution" for global ecological protection and governance, practicing the responsibility of a responsible major country through practical actions on the international stage.
In conclusion, the disclosure, critique, and transcendence of the green illusions of late capitalism show that in the current promotion of China’s ecological civilization construction, we must both recognize the anti-ecological nature of contemporary capitalism's pursuit of profit and seek opportunities for ecological transformation amidst the world’s "unseen changes in a century" [37]. We must strive to unite the people of all countries in the world and continuously inject new vitality into global environmental governance and the joint construction of ecological civilization. Only in this way can we comprehensively promote green transformation and jointly build a beautiful world where humanity and nature coexist in harmony.