Zeng Hongying: Restarting the "Bicycle Revolution" and promoting transportation carbon emission reduction

Many citizens in Beijing use bicycles as their main travel tools. Photo by Zeng Zhen, a trainee reporter from the Central Newspaper

As one of the key areas of carbon emissions in my country, the transportation industry has always been a large carbon emission household. In the past nine years, the average annual growth rate of carbon emissions in the field of transportation in my country has remained above 5%, becoming one of the fastest areas of greenhouse gas emissions.

Among them, carbon emissions account for high road transportation. In 2020, carbon emissions in the field of transportation in my country were 930 million tons, accounting for 15%of the nation's terminal carbon emissions. Among them, road carbon emissions alone accounted for 90%, nearly half of the carbon emissions of urban transportation.

How to improve the traffic sharing rate of bicycle bicycles, scientifically formulate my country's green travel policy, and achieve the goal of decoction and carbon reduction is a topic that needs to be resolved in front of it.

Zeng Hongying, director of the Training Office of the Propaganda and Education Center of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, told the Central Ring News reporter, "At present, under the dual pressure of building a transportation country and achieving dual carbon targets, my country is urgent. The revival of the transportation system, conduct a thorough "bicycle revolution '."

Why start the "Bicycle Revolution"? What are the shortcomings of my country in advocating bicycle travel? What are the enlightenment of the relatively mature bicycle development system abroad to restart the "Bicycle Revolution" in my country? With these issues, this newspaper exclusively interviewed Zeng Hongying.

China Environment Daily: Why start the "Bicycle Revolution"? What are the shortcomings of my country in advocating bicycle travel?

Zeng Hongying: Encouraging bicycle travel has been recognized as a symbol and development core of sustainable transportation internationally. We used to pay more attention to carbon emissions in the field of industrial production, but related studies have shown that the global average residents consumer carbon emissions account for 72%of the total carbon emissions. The greenhouse gas emissions caused by family life consumption in my country have accounted for the total greenhouse gas emissions in my country 53%of the amount. This shows that the potential for carbon reduction in the field of living consumption is huge. Traveling is the justar needs of everyone every day. Carbon emissions in the field of transportation and travel have become the focus of our attention, and it is also the starting point for us to adopt green operations.

In addition, in the context of the "double carbon" goal, green travel is a necessary part of the green lifestyle, and the natural pollution and carbon reduction effect of bicycle travel is of great significance for promoting the green transformation in the field of transportation in my country.

At present, some scholars in China have studied the green travel system, and some large and medium -sized cities (such as Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, etc.) have successively introduced local urban planning policies, promoting slow -moving traffic development plans, and proposed bicycle transportation traffic In general, the construction of the system still lacks the top -level design at the national level.

In terms of advocating bicycle travel, it should be said that the current environmental education knowledge has spread more and has less behavioral impact. How to transform low -carbon life from knowledge and concepts to public behavior habits, or even lifestyle, need to enrich the content and form of publicity and education, carry out more research and evaluation work, and use more attractive ways to carry out publicity to promote publicity. educate. In actual work, we found that when the public has more opportunities to participate and experience, we are easier to change our behavior and choose a bicycle to travel.

China Environment Daily: Which countries or regions are better in encouraging bicycle travel? What are the characteristics?

Zeng Hongying: Europe has done a better job in promoting the development of bicycles. From May 17th to 18th, 2021, the Fifth Ministerial Conference (The PEP) of the Fifth European Transportation, Health and Environmental Planning (The PEP) released the Vienna Declaration and the first "General Plan for Brexit Promoting Bicycle Travel Development" (hereinafter referred to as "" Here referred to as "hereinafter referred to as" overall plan"). The "Master Plan" aims to promote the importance of governments in various countries in the transportation system, and provide guidance on how to support the development of bicycle traffic through policies. The rate doubles. I think it is a grand goal, which is not difficult.

From the perspective of the development of the national bicycle in the European region, the Netherlands is leading, and 27%of travel is completed through bicycles. Denmark (15%), Belgian (12%) and Germany (11%) have a threshold of bicycle travel. Slovakia, Switzerland, and Austria can also be regarded as a country with more bicycles, and 7%of the itinerary is achieved through bicycles.

In terms of economic benefits, in EU countries, more than 2.22 billion tourist bicycle travel travels overnight every year, and about 750,000 employment opportunities are related to bicycle travel. In recent years, this number has continued to grow.

European countries also attach great importance to the promotion of bicycle travel. Nearly 50%of European countries formulate and formulate policies to promote national bicycle departure. There are currently 16 countries such as Denmark in the pan -in -the -EU area formulated a national bicycle plan or similar policy documents. 5 countries including Russia are formulating such planning documents.

Representatives of the Pan -European regional state representatives have proposed 11 action suggestions and 33 specific measures to promote bicycle travel in the "Master Plan". , Safety guarantee, travel data construction, bicycle tourism, technological innovation, and flexible transportation methods.

Each suggestion of the General Plan contains three specific measures. Take the recommendation of "formulating and implementing the national bicycle travel policy and planning" as an example. The formulation of travel planning is only the first step of measures. In order to ensure the planning of the plan, the measures also include the creation of a strong bicycle travel working group to appoint the national bicycle travel officials (promotion starting the start. The country) or the establishment of capacity center (country with experience), establish a national knowledge center or "bicycle college" training professionals, and enhance people's bicycle skills. China Environment Daily: How can you have policy suggestions for promoting the "bicycle revolution" that promotes our country?

Zeng Hongying: my country has green travel related national policies. Some local planning also mentioned the construction of bicycle friendly cities and the construction of slow transportation systems. These have provided opportunities for the development of bicycle travel in my country.

From the perspective of policy recommendations, I hope that the relevant departments can formulate the national promotion of bicycle travel development plan as soon as possible, and promote the slow development of my country's "priority development of bicycles" from the top -level design level.

From the perspective of social atmosphere, bicycle travel has not been highly respected, and most people think driving may be more decent. It is recommended to actively promote the popularization of bicycle culture and create and advocate the social atmosphere and consensus of green travel.

In addition, the phenomenon of parking occupies the bicycle lane in my country is currently serious, resulting in a reduction in the actual width of the bicycle lane. The poor safety of citizens has a poor sense of safety, which has affected the green travel willingness of the general public to some extent. In order to solve such problems, cities like Beijing have made a lot of efforts. In July last year, the overall transformation of the Beijing Second Ring Road Slow System was completed, and its non -motorized lane width generally increased from about 2 meters to more than 3 meters.

In order to allow riding water and green, Beijing actively promotes the integration of water, roads, and green networks to comprehensively build a slow travel environment of Jingmei Road. This year, the Tongzhou District Sports Bureau released 10 cycling lines built according to the river, involving a number of major rivers in Tongzhou, including the Grand Canal, Wenyu River, and Liangshui River, the longest 22 kilometers and the shortest 5.5 kilometers.

Therefore, I also recommend improving the construction of bicycle friendly infrastructure to fully protect the equal road right of riders.

Secondly, it is recommended to establish and promote the carbon -Puchao mechanism, and use digital and market -oriented functions to lead green travel. On each carbon -based platform, green travel is one of the most important parts and even the largest proportion. We also made a lot of related attempts within half a year. For example, we and Beijing Green Puhui and others made a small program for the Beijing Winter Olympics Organizing Committee, advocating everyone to participate in different carbon reduction scenarios, and a total of 2.7 million people participated in the practice of 90 million times. A total of 19,000 tons of carbon reduction was reduced. This is also a case of digitalization and guiding everyone to participate in green travel.

Finally, I propose to establish a green travel cooperation mechanism and professional cooperation network to give full play to the advantages of all relevant institutions.

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