A bird's-eye view of Sanjiangyuan National Park, Qinghai province. In a move to honor its climate commitment and further propel the building of an ecological civilization, China unveiled a master working guideline on Sunday that aims to elevate energy efficiency to an advanced international level and lift non-fossil energy consumption to over 80 percent of the whole by 2060. China intends to have fully established a green, low-carbon and circular economy and a clean, low-carbon, safe and efficient energy system by 2060. It will be carbon neutral, will have achieved significant results in ecological civilization and will have reached a new level of harmony between humanity and nature by then, according to the document. By 2030, China's carbon dioxide emissions per unit of gross domestic product will have dropped more than 65 percent, compared with the 2005 level, and the share of non-fossil energy consumption will have reached around 25 percent, with the total installed capacity of wind power and solar power reaching over 1200 gigawatts. Carbon dioxide emissions will have peaked and stabilized and then declined, it said. In September last year, President Xi Jinping announced that China aims to have carbon dioxide emissions peak before 2030 and to achieve carbon neutrality before 2060. The country is "firmly committed to a green, low-carbon and high-quality development path that gives primacy to ecological civilization", the guideline said. Wang An, an academician with the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said the working guideline fully demonstrates China's sense of responsibility as a major economy in building a community with a shared future for mankind. "The high concentration of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has been caused mainly by accumulated emissions from developed countries over the past over 200 years since the industrial revolution. They should shoulder larger responsibilities in reducing emissions," said Wang, who is also president of China International Engineering Consulting Corp. Unlike many rich countries, China hasn't yet seen its carbon dioxide emissions peak. However, it promises to achieve carbon neutrality almost at the same time as the rich countries, Wang said. With the working guideline as an overarching guide, the country will also develop specific action plans for different industrial sectors and introduce supporting policies, including financial instruments and procedures for supervision and assessment, according to the National Development and Reform Commission, China's top economic planner. The working guideline asks for the promotion of comprehensive green transformation in economic and social development, including optimizing plans for regional green and low-carbon development, and accelerating the formation of green production modes and living patterns. It also urges in-depth industrial restructuring, for instance, "firmly curbing irrational expansion of energy-intensive and high-emissi...

Draft law would see violators pay up to 100 million yuan for every hectare China plans to step up a crackdown on violations that jeopardize wetlands with fines of up to 100 million yuan ($15.6 million) per damaged hectare, according to a draft law. Aside from restoring damaged areas they occupied, those who reclaim swamps will have their illicit gains confiscated. The draft law on wetland protection sets fines for such breaches at between 500 and 5,000 yuan a square meter, with that amount rising to up to 10,000 yuan for breaches in national key wetlands. It also stipulates a maximum fine of 1 million yuan for those who drain natural wetlands or permanently cut off their water sources. The draft was submitted to the ongoing session of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, for a second reading on Tuesday. The fine increases from the first draft were proposed after the committee solicited opinions from the public, government bodies and senior lawmakers in Beijing, said Hu Keming, vice-chairman of the NPC's Constitution and Law Committee. Field visits to collect suggestions were also conducted in four provincial-level regions, including Liaoning and Heilongjiang provinces, he said. The draft law would also empower authorities to claim environmental compensation from those who breach it. A national catalog of important wetlands will be compiled by forestry and grassland authorities and related State Council departments, while provincial-level governments will compile catalogs of important wetlands within their jurisdictions, the draft says. The central authorities also unveiled a guideline on biodiversity conservation on Tuesday, vowing to place 55 percent of the country's wetlands under protection by 2025 and to lift the proportion to 60 percent by 2035. According to the National Forestry and Grassland Administration, more than half of the country's wetlands are now being conserved. Thanks to consistent protection efforts, China saw its wetlands grow by about 202,600 hectares from 2016 to 2020, the administration said. With 201 national wetland parks established in the past five years, the number of such parks across the country has reached 899. China has some of Asia's most important wetlands, such as Poyang Lake, the country's largest freshwater lake and its largest winter habitat for migratory birds.

China's Shenzhou XIII crewed spaceship successfully docked with the port of the space station core module Tianhe on Saturday, a move overseas experts have called another "key step" forward in China's space exploration. Three Chinese astronauts aboard the Shenzhou XIII will stay in orbit for six months, making China's longest yet crewed mission for space station construction. Denis Simon, executive director of the Center for Innovation Policy at Duke Law, told Xinhua that China's success in space continues to be impressive. "It is now well on its way to being a leader in space exploration," he said. With the current mission, China has taken another key step toward building a Chinese space station, he said. Akihiro Fujiwara, a satellite engineer at Japan's Mitsubishi Electric extended his best wishes for the launch. "I always take my hat off to this amazing driving force," Fujiwara said. "I pray for the safe launches and safe returns of the mission." The crew includes two veterans of space travel－Zhai Zhigang, 55, and Wang Yaping, who is scheduled to become China's first female space-walker. The third member, Ye Guangfu, 41, is making his first trip to space. Many sent the Chinese astronauts their blessings. Matthias Maurer, a German astronaut with the European Space Agency and a material scientist, messaged in a tweet on Friday that he was "very excited for my dear friend Ye Guangfu finally going to space". Maurer said that Ye was the first Chinese astronaut in an ESA astronaut exploration training program in extreme and planetary analogue environments. "Godspeed to all three of you!－I'll join you soon in space," Maurer wrote. Retired NASA astronaut Cady Coleman sent encouraging words to Wang, CGTN reported. "When you look out the window, billions of women are looking out that window with you, including me," she said. Pui Jeng Leong, a media veteran in Brunei, told Xinhua that the successive successful launches of Shenzhou XII and XIII within a four-month period symbolized that China's aerospace industry has entered a new age with Chinese astronauts' long-term stay in a space station, which once again demonstrates that China's aerospace technology has reached a leading level. This mission will continue to testify to the key technologies of space station building and lay a solid foundation for more launches of crewed spaceships and other space activities, he said. "China's capabilities in space launch and exploration promise to grow in the future," US expert Simon noted, saying that "this could be an area for fertile cooperation".