SSTV:

We have seen in Chapter 6 of the white paper that sound institutions and mechanisms are essential to green development. My question is, what work have we done to build and improve the system of institutions for ecological conservation and continuously improve the efficiency of green development in recent years? What has been achieved so far, and what are the plans for the next step? Thank you.

Zhao Yingmin:

Thank you for your question. Over the past 10 years, we have been focusing on building a sound system of institutions for ecological conservation with clearly defined property rights, diverse participants, as well as equal emphasis on incentives and constraints to provide a strong institutional mechanism and policy guarantee for green and low-carbon economic development. I will introduce for you three aspects: 

First, strengthening the rule of law. The past 10 years have seen the most vigorous legislative efforts, the strictest supervision and law enforcement, and the most effective implementation of the legal system on the ecological environment. Ecological advancement and conservation have been written into China's Constitution. There are more than 30 laws currently in force regarding ecological and environmental protection. They cover pollution prevention and control in fields such as air, water, soil, solid waste, and noise, as well as important ecosystems such as the Yangtze River, the Yellow River, wetlands, and black soil. The legal and regulatory system for ecological and environmental protection has basically developed. As of the end of last year, China had put in place 2,298 national ecological environment standards, effectively promoting the technological and economic progress of the industry and the optimization and upgrading of the industrial structure. We will continue to deepen the reform of the system whereby environmental protection agencies below the provincial level come directly under the supervision of their respective provincial-level agencies in terms of environmental monitoring, supervision, and law enforcement activities, and reforms for coordinated administrative law enforcement to protect ecosystems and the environment. We will improve law enforcement systems and methods, explore ways to put more than 44,000 enterprises on the positive list, strengthen the high-tech application of a comprehensive system that integrates air, space and land, and continuously improve scientific and targeted environmental law enforcement.

Second, in terms of regulatory systems, the central supervision system for ecological environment protection has served as a sharp weapon to ensure that all parties concerned fulfill their responsibilities in eco-environmental protection, which effectively addresses a series of prominent environmental problems. We have established and put in place various regulatory systems, covering the red lines for eco-environmental protection, region-specific approach to environmental management, the emissions permit, taking back the power for environmental quality monitoring, and sewage outfalls into seas and rivers. We have improved a series of accountability systems, such as the system for ensuring that Party committees and governments assume equal responsibilities for environmental protection, imposing lifelong accountability for environmental damage, mandating end-of-tenure auditing of natural resource assets for leading officials, and measures on evaluating performance in advancing ecological progress. We have piloted the compensation system for eco-environmental damage, and it is now implemented as a regular system.

Third, in terms of market mechanisms, we have put in place the carbon emissions trading system and launched the national carbon market, the world's largest in terms of the amount of greenhouse gas emissions covered, which has wrapped up its first compliance period. We have improved the green taxation system; expanded the catalog of corporate income tax credits for programs of carbon capture, utilization and storage, and comprehensive utilization of industrial waste. We supported the third-party enterprises engaged in pollution prevention and control and cut their corporate income tax rate to 15%. We also cut more than 13 billion yuan in environmental protection tax for taxpayers who emit below emission standards over the past nearly three years. We leverage the role of green finance, piloted the environment-oriented development model, and encouraged investment and financing in response to climate change. We have deepened the reform of the compensation system for eco-environmental conservation, and pushed forward the building of a mechanism where provinces situated on the upper and lower reaches of river basins compensate each other for their impact on water quality. We have made steady progress in building the legal disclosure system for environmental information and the credit system for ecological and environmental protection. The policy system for eco-environmental and economic development has been improved, playing an increasingly important role in guiding, incentivizing, and adjusting the market, which promoted the green, low-carbon transformation.

Next, we will earnestly implement the decisions at the 20th CPC National Congress, improve institutions and mechanisms for eco-environmental conservation, push forward the building of legal systems for eco-environmental protection, and enhance regulatory systems. We will step up efforts to improve fiscal, taxation, financial, investment, and price policies, as well as the system of environmental standards, to support green development. We will accelerate efforts in enhancing the governance system and governance capacity in the field of eco-environmental protection to better promote green, low-carbon development. Thank you.