The General Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council have issued the Guiding Opinions on Building a Modern Environmental Governance System. Strengthen independent innovation of key environmental protection technology products, promote the demonstration and application of the first major environmental protection technology equipment, and accelerate the improvement of the level of environmental protection industry technology and equipment. Expand and strengthen leading enterprises, cultivate a group of specialized backbone enterprises, and support a group of specialized, excellent, and refined small and medium-sized enterprises. Encourage enterprises to participate in the green "the Belt and Road" construction and drive advanced environmental protection technology, equipment and production capacity to go global.

Full text of opinions

The Central Office and the State Council issued the Guiding Opinions on Building a Modern Environmental Governance System

Beijing, March 3 (Xinhua) -- Recently, the General Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council issued the "Guiding Opinions on Building a Modern Environmental Governance System" and issued a notice requiring all regions and departments to conscientiously implement it based on their actual situation.

The full text of the Guiding Opinions on Building a Modern Environmental Governance System is as follows.

In order to implement the deployment of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China and build a modern environmental governance system led by the Party committee, government, enterprise entities, social organizations, and the public, the following opinions are proposed.

1、 Overall requirements

（1） Guiding ideology.   Building an ecological civilization and a beautiful China provides strong institutional guarantees.

（2） Basic principles

——Adhere to the leadership of the Party. Implement the overall requirements of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on ecological environment protection, and implement the principle of equal responsibility between the Party and the government for ecological environment protection, with dual responsibilities for each position.

——Adhere to multi-party governance. Clarify the rights and responsibilities of various entities such as the government, enterprises, and the public, open up channels for participation, and form a good pattern for the whole society to jointly promote environmental governance.

——Adhere to a market-oriented approach. Improve economic policies, enhance market mechanisms, regulate market behavior in environmental governance, strengthen the construction of environmental governance integrity, and promote industry self-discipline.

——Adhere to the rule of law in governance. Establish sound legal and regulatory standards, strictly enforce laws and regulations, strengthen supervision, and accelerate the filling of gaps in the environmental governance system and mechanism.

（3） Main objective. By 2025, establish and improve the leadership responsibility system, corporate responsibility system, national action system, regulatory system, market system, credit system, legal and regulatory policy system for environmental governance, implement various subject responsibilities, enhance the enthusiasm of market subjects and the public to participate, and form an environmental governance system with clear guidance, scientific decision-making, effective execution, effective incentives, diverse participation, and positive interaction.

2、 Establish a sound leadership responsibility system for environmental governance

（4） Improve the working mechanism of central coordination, provincial overall responsibility, and city county implementation. The Party Central Committee and the State Council coordinate the formulation of major policies for ecological environment protection, propose overall goals, and plan major strategic measures. Develop and implement a list of ecological and environmental protection responsibilities for relevant departments of central and state organs. Provincial party committees and governments bear overall responsibility for environmental governance in their respective regions, implement the decisions and arrangements of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, organize the implementation of target tasks, policies and measures, and increase funding investment. The party committees and governments of cities and counties shall bear specific responsibilities and coordinate the work of supervision and law enforcement, market regulation, fund allocation, publicity and education.

（5） Clarify the responsibilities of central and local fiscal expenditures. Develop and implement a reform plan for the division of central and local financial powers and expenditure responsibilities in the field of ecological environment. Except for major environmental governance affairs such as national, key regional river basins, cross regional, and international cooperation, local finance will mainly bear the responsibility for environmental governance expenditures. According to the principle of matching financial resources with responsibilities, we will comprehensively consider the financial needs of local environmental governance in further streamlining the division of central and local revenues and improving the transfer payment system reform.

（6） Conduct target evaluation and assessment. Focusing on improving environmental quality, setting reasonable binding and expected goals, incorporating them into national economic and social development plans, national spatial planning, and related special plans. Each region can formulate goals that are in line with reality and reflect its characteristics. Improve the evaluation and assessment system for ecological civilization construction goals, streamline and integrate relevant special assessments, and promote environmental governance.

（7） Deepen the supervision of ecological environment protection. Implement a two-level ecological environment protection inspection system at the central and provincial (autonomous region, municipality directly under the central government) levels. Focusing on solving prominent ecological environment problems, improving ecological environment quality, and promoting high-quality economic development, we will promote routine inspections, strengthen special inspections, and strictly inspect and rectify. Further improve the "five step" work mode of investigation, assignment, verification, interview, and special inspection, strengthen supervision and assistance, and consolidate the responsibility for ecological environment protection.

3、 Establish a sound corporate responsibility system for environmental governance

（8） Implement the pollution discharge permit management system in accordance with the law. Accelerate the legislative process of the Regulations on the Management of Pollutant Discharge Permits, improve the pollutant discharge permit system, and strengthen the supervision and inspection of enterprise pollutant discharge behavior. According to the principle of distinguishing between old and new and ensuring a smooth transition, properly handle the relationship between pollutant discharge permits and environmental impact assessment systems.

（9） Promote the greening of production services. Prevent and control pollution from the source, optimize raw material input, and eliminate outdated production processes and technologies in accordance with laws and regulations. Actively practicing green production methods, vigorously carrying out technological innovation, increasing the promotion of clean production, strengthening whole process management, and reducing pollutant emissions. Provide resource-saving and environmentally friendly products and services. Implement the extended producer responsibility system.

（10） Improve pollution control capability and level. Strengthen the construction of corporate environmental governance responsibility system, urge enterprises to strictly implement laws and regulations, and accept social supervision. Key polluting enterprises should install and use monitoring equipment to ensure normal operation, and resolutely prevent the falsification of governance effectiveness and monitoring data.

（11） Publicly disclose environmental governance information. Polluting enterprises should publicly disclose the names, discharge methods, implementation standards, and construction and operation of pollution prevention and control facilities of major pollutants through enterprise websites and other channels in accordance with the law, and be responsible for the authenticity of the information. Encourage polluting enterprises to open up to the public through the establishment of enterprise open days, the construction of educational experience venues, and other forms while ensuring safety production.

4、 Establish a comprehensive national action system for environmental governance

（12） Strengthen social supervision. Improve the public supervision and reporting feedback mechanism, fully leverage the role of the "12369" environmental reporting hotline, and smooth the channels for environmental supervision. Strengthen public opinion supervision and encourage news media to expose various ecological and environmental problems, sudden environmental incidents, and environmental violations. Guide qualified environmental organizations to carry out activities such as ecological and environmental public interest litigation in accordance with the law.

（13） Utilize the role of various social organizations. Trade unions, Communist Youth League, Women's Federation and other mass organizations should actively mobilize workers, youth and women to participate in environmental governance. Industry associations and chambers of commerce should play a bridging role and promote industry self-discipline. Strengthen the management and guidance of social organizations, actively promote capacity building, and vigorously leverage the role of environmental volunteers.

（14） Improve citizens' environmental literacy. Incorporate environmental protection into the national education system and the training system for party and government leaders, organize the compilation of environmental protection textbooks, and promote environmental protection propaganda and education in schools, families, communities, factories, and government agencies. Intensify the promotion of environmental public service advertisements and develop and promote environmental cultural products. Guide citizens to consciously fulfill their environmental protection responsibilities, gradually transform backward customs and habits, actively carry out garbage classification, practice green lifestyles, advocate green travel and consumption.

5、 Establish a sound environmental governance and regulatory system

（15） Improve the regulatory system. Integrate the responsibilities and teams of relevant departments for pollution prevention and ecological environment protection law enforcement, and unify the implementation of ecological environment protection law enforcement. Complete the overall reform of the vertical management system for monitoring, supervision, and law enforcement of ecological environment institutions below the provincial level. Implement the "double random, one open" environmental supervision model. Promote joint prevention and control of cross regional and cross basin pollution. Except for major events organized by the state, no region shall take measures to suspend production or restrict production of enterprises due to holding meetings, forums, and large-scale events.

（16） Strengthen judicial protection. Establish a system for information sharing, case reporting, and case transfer among comprehensive administrative law enforcement agencies, public security agencies, procuratorial agencies, and judicial agencies for ecological environment protection. Strengthen the investigation and prosecution of illegal and criminal acts that damage the ecological environment, increase the prosecution of cases that damage the ecological environment, and enhance the work of procuratorial organs in initiating ecological environment public interest litigation. Adjust and establish specialized environmental trial institutions in the higher people's courts and qualified middle and grassroots people's courts to unify the scope of acceptance and trial procedures for cases involving ecological environment. Explore the establishment of a "restorative justice practice+socialized comprehensive governance" trial result execution mechanism.

（17） Strengthen the construction of monitoring capabilities. Accelerate the construction of an ecological environment monitoring network that integrates land and sea, integrates heaven and earth, collaborates vertically, and shares information, achieving full coverage of environmental quality, pollution sources, and ecological status monitoring. Implement the principle of 'who assesses, who monitors', continuously improve the ecological environment monitoring technology system, enhance the overall level of monitoring automation, standardization, and informatization, promote the realization of environmental quality forecasting and early warning, and ensure that monitoring data is' true, accurate, and complete'. Promote information technology construction, form a ledger, a network, and a window for ecological environment data. Intensify the research and application of monitoring technology and equipment, and promote the precise, rapid, and portable development of monitoring equipment.

6、 Establish a sound market system for environmental governance

（18） Build a standardized and open market. Deepen the reform of "streamlining administration, delegating powers, and improving services", break down regional and industry barriers, treat all types of enterprises equally, treat all market entities equally, and guide all types of capital to participate in environmental governance investment, construction, and operation. Standardize market order, reduce vicious competition, prevent malicious low price bidding, and accelerate the formation of an open, transparent, standardized and orderly environmental governance market environment.

（19） Strengthen support for the environmental protection industry. Strengthen independent innovation of key environmental protection technology products, promote the demonstration and application of the first major environmental protection technology equipment, and accelerate the improvement of the level of environmental protection industry technology and equipment. Expand and strengthen leading enterprises, cultivate a group of specialized backbone enterprises, and support a group of specialized, excellent, and refined small and medium-sized enterprises. Encourage enterprises to participate in the green "the Belt and Road" construction and drive advanced environmental protection technology, equipment and production capacity to go global.

（20） Innovative environmental governance model. Actively promote third-party governance of environmental pollution, carry out demonstration of third-party governance for pollution prevention and control in industrial parks, and explore an integrated service model of unified planning, monitoring, and governance. Carry out pilot projects for comprehensive environmental governance and management services in small towns, strengthen systematic governance, and implement performance-based payment. Encourage the adoption of the "environmental remediation+development and construction" model for industrial polluted land plots.

（21） Establish a sound pricing and charging mechanism. Strictly implement the policy orientation of "whoever pollutes pays", establish and improve mechanisms such as "polluter pays+third-party governance". According to the principle of compensating for processing costs and making reasonable profits, improve and implement the sewage and garbage treatment fee policy. Taking into account the affordability of both enterprises and residents, we will improve the differentiated electricity pricing policy.

7、 Establish a sound credit system for environmental governance

（22） Strengthen the construction of government integrity. Establish and improve records of government dishonesty in environmental governance, including information on judicial judgments, administrative penalties, disciplinary actions, and accountability of local governments and public officials for illegal and breach of trust in environmental protection work, and collect it on relevant credit information sharing platforms, gradually making it public in accordance with laws and regulations through websites such as "Credit China".

（23） Establish a sound corporate credit system. Improve the corporate environmental credit evaluation system and implement graded and classified supervision based on the evaluation results. Establish a blacklist system for polluting enterprises, include environmental illegal enterprises in the list of joint punishment targets for dishonesty in accordance with laws and regulations, record their illegal information in credit records, and include them in the national credit information sharing platform in accordance with relevant national regulations, and publicly disclose them to the society in accordance with the law. Establish and improve the mandatory environmental governance information disclosure system for listed companies and bond issuing enterprises.

8、 Establish a sound legal, regulatory and policy system for environmental governance

（24） Improve laws and regulations. Develop and revise laws and regulations on solid waste pollution prevention and control, Yangtze River protection, marine environment protection, ecological environment monitoring, environmental impact assessment, clean production, circular economy, and other related areas. Encourage places with conditions to legislate in the field of environmental governance before the state. Strictly enforce the law and hold those who cause ecological damage accountable for compensation in accordance with the law and regulations; Those who commit crimes shall be held criminally responsible in accordance with the law.

（25） Improve environmental protection standards. Based on the actual national conditions and ecological environment, formulate and revise environmental quality standards, pollutant emission (control) standards, and environmental monitoring standards. Promote the improvement of mandatory national standards for product environmental protection. Efforts should be made to integrate ecological environment protection planning, environmental protection standards, and industrial policies, and to establish a sound mechanism for feedback and evaluation of standard implementation information. Encourage the implementation of various green certification systems related to environmental governance.

（26） Strengthen financial and tax support. Establish and improve a normalized and stable financial investment mechanism for central and local environmental governance. Establish a sound ecological protection compensation mechanism. Formulate and implement relevant policies that are conducive to promoting the adjustment and optimization of industrial structure, energy structure, transportation structure, and land use structure. Strictly implement environmental protection tax laws, promote enterprises to reduce the concentration of air and water pollutants, and improve the comprehensive utilization rate of solid waste. Implement the current tax incentives policies to promote environmental protection and pollution prevention and control.

（27） Improve financial support. Establish a National Green Development Fund. Promote the development of environmental pollution liability insurance and research the establishment of a mandatory environmental pollution liability insurance system in high-risk areas. Carry out emissions trading and explore collateral financing for emissions trading. Encourage the development of major environmental protection equipment financing leasing. Accelerate the establishment of provincial-level soil pollution prevention and control funds. Standardize domestic green bond standards.

9、 Strengthen organizational leadership

（28） Strengthen organizational implementation. Local party committees and governments at all levels should further refine and implement the goals, tasks, and policy measures for building a modern environmental governance system in accordance with the requirements of this opinion, combined with the actual development of the region, to ensure the timely implementation and effectiveness of the key tasks determined in this opinion. The National Development and Reform Commission should strengthen overall coordination and policy support, and the Ministry of Ecology and Environment should take the lead in promoting relevant specific work. Relevant departments should take their respective responsibilities and closely cooperate, and major issues should be reported to the Party Central Committee and the State Council in a timely manner.

Source | Xinhua News Agency