Ministry of Ecology and Environment: Accelerate the improvement of the ecological protection compensation system and work system

On April 28, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment held a regular press conference for April. At the meeting, Pei Xiaofei, spokesperson of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, answered questions from CCTV reporters on the "Regulations on Ecological Protection and Compensation", which will be implemented on June 1 this year.

Pei Xiaofei said that ecological protection compensation is an important part of the construction of ecological civilization system. The Ministry of Ecology and Environment has conscientiously implemented the decisions and arrangements of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, and has mainly carried out the following tasks:

The first is to further promote the horizontal ecological protection compensation of river basins. The Ministry of Finance, together with the Ministry of Finance, has steadily promoted the construction of horizontal ecological protection and compensation mechanisms in the entire basin of the Yangtze River and the Yellow River, and has allocated a total of 8 billion yuan and 4 billion yuan of guidance funds respectively. At present, 21 provinces such as Anhui, Zhejiang, and Jiangsu have established 20 inter-provincial river basin compensation mechanisms, and 20 provinces such as Zhejiang, Sichuan, and Shandong have realized the ecological protection compensation of the whole river basin within their jurisdictions, and 5 provinces such as Shaanxi, Hunan, Guizhou, Inner Mongolia, and Heilongjiang have carried out river basin ecological compensation for key rivers within their jurisdictions.

The second is to continue to promote transfer payments for national key ecological function zones. Cooperate with the Ministry of Finance to carry out transfer payments for key ecological function zones, and carry out monitoring and evaluation of ecological and environmental quality in 810 counties included in the transfer payments for national key ecological function zones, so as to link the allocation of transfer payment funds with the effectiveness of ecological and environmental protection.

The third is to accelerate the promotion of market-oriented compensation. In 28 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government), the pilot project of paid use and trading of emission rights has been carried out, and by the end of 2023, the cumulative turnover will be about 32 billion yuan. The world's largest carbon market has been built and smoothly operated, and has completed two compliance cycles, with a cumulative trading volume of about 450 million tons and a turnover of about 25.6 billion yuan by the end of March 2024. The national voluntary greenhouse gas emission reduction trading market was launched, and four methodologies including the first batch of afforestation carbon sinks were formulated and released. Innovate and develop the eco-environment-oriented development (EOD) model, and open up the path of coordinated promotion of ecological and environmental governance and urban green development.

At the meeting, Pei Xiaofei introduced three cases of ecological protection compensation:

The first is the case of the Xin'an River Basin. Anhui and Zhejiang provinces have established diversified compensation relationships through financial compensation and counterpart cooperation. The Xin'anjiang Green Development Fund was set up with an initial scale of 2 billion yuan to support ecological governance, environmental protection and green industry development.

The second is the case of the Chishui River Basin. In 2018, the people's governments of Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan provinces signed the Agreement on Horizontal Ecological Compensation in the Chishui River Basin. As the first pilot of the horizontal ecological compensation mechanism across multiple provinces in China, the Chishui River has accumulated experience for the whole country to explore and establish a cross-provincial ecological compensation mechanism.

The third is the case of Kubuqi desert governance. Kubuqi focuses on building a diversified investment mechanism for desert governance, and actively mobilizes enterprises and social forces to participate in ecological construction through land transfer, farmers and herdsmen's shareholding, enterprise contracting, and professional cooperative organization operation.

Pei Xiaofei said that in the next step, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment will fully implement the "Regulations on Ecological Protection Compensation", work with relevant departments to continue to deepen the reform of the ecological protection compensation system, accelerate the improvement of the ecological protection compensation system and work system, promote the deepening of comprehensive ecological compensation, improve market-oriented and diversified compensation, establish and improve the comprehensive evaluation system of ecological protection compensation, and incorporate the implementation of ecological protection compensation responsibilities and work effectiveness into relevant inspections and assessments. At the same time, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment will also summarize experience and practices in a timely manner and release typical cases on a regular basis.