Huang was born in Changsha, Hunan, in August 1963. After high school, he studied (and obtained bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees), and then taught, at what is now Chengdu University of Technology (former Chengdu Institute of Technology), becoming the vice-president of Chengdu University of Technology and the director of the State Key Laboratory of Geohazard Prevention and Geoenvironment Protection in November 2001.[citation needed]
In December 2007, he was elected a member of the Standing Committee of the Jiusan Society, one of the eight minor non-Communist parties in China. In January 2018, he was appointed vice chairman of the Sichuan Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). In January 2014, he was appointed vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the Sichuan People's Congress, he remained in that position until March 2016, when he was transferred to Beijing and appointed as a vice minister of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, which was reshuffled as the Ministry of Ecology and Environment in March 2018.[4] On April 29, 2020, he was elevated to the minister of Ecology and Environment, replacing Li Ganjie. He concurrently serves as the vice chairman of the Jiusan Society since December 2017.[citation needed]