In January 2024,XiJinpingThe General Secretary is presiding over the 11th collective study session of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central CommitteeXiHe emphasized that "green development is the background of high-quality development, and new productivity itself is green productivity", and put forward requirements for accelerating the green transformation of development methods, helping carbon peak and carbon neutrality, and building a green and low-carbon circular economy system. With the changes in my country's economic development environment, especially the changes in the relative advantages of production factors, labor costs have gradually increased, resources and environment bear pressure, and the old combination of production functions has become unsustainable. It is necessary to coordinate the promotion of ecological and environmental protection and economic and social development. The development of new quality productivity is an urgent requirement to promote high-quality development. We must establish a high-standard market system, innovate the allocation of production factors, and allow various advanced and high-quality production factors to flow smoothly to the development of new quality productivity. Whether it is breaking through existing resource and environmental bottlenecks, or focusing on breaking through blockages that restrict the development of new quality productivity, it is necessary to further comprehensively deepen reforms and improve economic policies for green and low-carbon development, especially to integrate resource and environmental factors such as carbon emission rights. Integrate into the overall reform of market-oriented allocation of factors.
As a new trading method, carbon emissions trading essentially incorporates carbon emissions rights into the category of production factors and minimizes social carbon emission reduction costs and maximizes output benefits through market-oriented methods. Carbon emissions trading internalizes the external social cost of carbon emissions into enterprise production costs, which can force enterprises to save energy and reduce emissions and promote industrial transformation and upgrading. The development history of the carbon market in my country is still relatively short, and the market is not yet fully mature. To further promote the smooth flow of advanced and high-quality production factors, it is necessary to build a high-standard carbon market system based on existing explorations, and give full play to the advantages of rich application scenarios and amplifying innovation benefits that ultra-large markets have.
Judging from the development of the carbon market itself, the carbon market at this stage has obvious deficiencies in products, services and factors, and the cycle of factors is blocked, which has a negative impact on the effective utilization of my country's ultra-large-scale market advantages. Smooth the domestic circulation and build a unified national market are key starting points for optimizing the economic structure and promoting high-quality development, and the high-standard carbon market is an important part of the unified national market. It is necessary to effectively solve the current problems such as the coexistence of multiple carbon trading systems, insufficient industries and participants included in the market, low quality of carbon emission data, and insufficient market activity.
In March this year, the "Guiding Opinions on Further Strengthening Financial Support for Green and Low-Carbon Development" was issued, clearly promoting the construction of the carbon emissions trading market and gradually expanding the scope of trading entities suitable for the development of my country's carbon market. Since its launch at the beginning of this year, the national voluntary greenhouse gas emission reduction trading market has been generally stable. A series of results show that my country's complete carbon trading market system has taken shape. Facing the future, we need to promote the construction of a high-standard carbon market based on reality, and work hard to expand the scale, unify rules, and activate the market.
The first is to promote the expansion of the carbon market. The effective scale of a single market is relatively limited, and the level of specialization and refinement of division of labor will also be limited. Mature carbon markets at home and abroad have been included in different industry categories, and with the development of the carbon market, industry categories and trading product types have been continuously enriched. Cultivating and developing new productive forces requires emission constraints on industries with high energy consumption and high emissions. The "1+N" policy system for carbon peaking and carbon neutrality also puts forward clear requirements for the expansion of the carbon market. Statistics show that the carbon emissions of the eight major industries of power generation, steel, building materials, nonferrous metals, petrochemicals, chemicals, papermaking, and aviation account for about 75% of the country's total carbon dioxide emissions. Based on a comprehensive analysis of different industries, the above-mentioned related industries need to be gradually and orderly incorporated into the carbon market to continue to enhance the guidance and influence of the carbon market.
The second is to strengthen top-level design and supervision. In terms of the internal connection of the resource and environmental factor markets, it is necessary to take into account the mutual recognition mechanism between carbon emission quotas and green electricity and green certificate transactions, and improve fair, reasonable, monitorable, reportable and verifiable accounting and transformation rules. It is also necessary to achieve the coordinated development of green certificates and carbon markets through clear ownership of rights and interests. In terms of improving the quality of carbon emission data, it is necessary to improve relevant laws, regulations and institutional systems as soon as possible, further optimize accounting methods, strengthen corporate carbon emission information disclosure, continue to improve the transparency of the green financial market, and improve the convenience of the public to obtain environmental information.
The third is to improve the green finance standard system. Establishing green finance standards is the basis for identifying green economic activities and guiding funds to accurately invest in green projects. At present, the degree of synergy among existing green finance standards is low, and some standards have not been adjusted and revised accordingly. It is recommended to carry out top-level design and systematic planning of the green standard system to form an effective green financial standard system based on the constraint of achieving carbon peak and carbon neutrality, based on the principle of not damaging other sustainable development goals, and with the goal of cultivating and developing new quality productivity. The financial standard system will better play the traction role of green finance, promote the efficient operation of the carbon market, and provide support for economic activities that conserve and efficiently utilize resources.
The author is from the Central Party School (National School of Administration)XiJinpingResearcher at the Research Center for Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era
Original title: Promoting the construction of a high-standard carbon market