A wind power plant in Ulaanqab, the Inner Mongolia autonomous region. [Photo by Hao Jihong/for China Daily]

Green development
The annual meeting underscored the need for unwavering efforts to move forward with work in peaking carbon emissions before 2030 and attaining carbon neutrality before 2060, while recognizing that it would be impossible for the nation to accomplish everything in one stroke.

Achieving the goals is an intrinsic part of advancing high-quality development.

The phase-out of traditional energy in China should be based on safe, reliable new energy alternatives.

China needs to strengthen the clean and efficient use of coal, increase the capacity of new energy, and optimize the use of coal and new energy.

The meeting also decided that the newly added renewable energy and energy used as raw materials would be excluded from the cap on total energy consumption, calling for an early shift from controlling energy consumption amount and intensity to controlling the amount and intensity of carbon emissions, as well as an early establishment of an incentive and constraint mechanism for pollution control and carbon reduction.

Opening-up

China will vitalize development through polices of reform and opening-up in 2022, according to a statement released after a tone-setting economic meeting.

China will expand high-quality and institutional opening-up, grant foreign-funded enterprises national treatment, attract more investment from multinational companies, and facilitate the early implementation of major foreign-invested projects.

The statement also emphasized the need to promote high-quality development of the Belt and Road Initiative.

People's well-being
To ensure that social policies can meet people's basic living needs, the meeting called for improvements to the mechanism under which residents obtain public services based on where they actually live. It is important to give priority to youth employment and refine labor and social security policies for workers employed on flexible payrolls.

In attaining common prosperity, the country underscored that the nation must make the "cake" bigger and better through the joint efforts of all people before establishing a mechanism to ensure its proper distribution.

It is imperative that the employment-first policy is further reinforced, the role of distribution is amplified, and public service policies and mechanisms are improved during the process, they added.