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The just-concluded Fifth Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China further emphasized "intensifying environmental governance, focusing on improving environmental quality, and implementing the strictest environmental protection system". This is an important task for the party and the country to face the severe environmental situation, to ensure that the bottom line of the ecological environment is not exceeded, to protect the environment with systems, to fundamentally promote the protection of ecosystems and the improvement of environmental quality, and to promote the construction of ecological civilization and the grand goal of a beautiful China. decision making. Knowing and understanding the connotation of the strictest environmental protection system, and proposing future reform ideas and directions will help decision makers to better build a national environmental governance system. Strategic transformation, and truly play the role and mission of environmental protection and ecological civilization construction.

The "strictest environmental protection system" can be understood as, under the current stage of economic and social development and technological level, in order to solve outstanding ecological and environmental problems, ensure that the bottom line of the ecological environment threshold is not overstepped or broken, and meet the needs and requirements of ecological civilization construction goals and requirements A more rigid and binding environmental protection system that can be effectively implemented and enforced. It includes a series of specific goals, systems, implementation and assessment.

In the long run, the reform thinking of the most stringent environmental protection system should focus on its connotation, face the requirements of ecological civilization construction and the goal of improving environmental quality, and conduct an overall, systematic and comprehensive review of the current system according to the shortcomings and gaps of the environmental protection system. Reform, promote the rigidization of the entire environmental protection system, and establish the most stringent environmental legal, environmental management and environmental economic system.

Environmental legal system: the basic system that leads the overall situation of environmental protection

If the system is used to protect the environment, then in the strictest environmental protection system, the most important thing is that the environmental legal system should become the fundamental system and the highest will to guide and guide the overall situation of environmental protection.

The legal system should reflect the goals and requirements of ecological civilization construction. On the one hand, to meet the goals and requirements of ecological civilization construction, revise the basic law and various special laws in the field of environmental protection, and solidify the requirements for ecological environmental protection and related supporting systems, mechanisms and policy tools in the construction of ecological civilization. In the legal text, the highest goals and effective ways to achieve environmental protection are fixed in the form of laws, reflecting the mandatory, serious and binding force. On the other hand, it is necessary to carry out “ecological” transformation of traditional departmental laws such as civil law, economic law, criminal law, and administrative law, and apply the basic principles of ecosystem management throughout the entire process of its legislation and revision, highlighting the status of environmental protection and protecting citizens environmental rights.

Environmental justice should become one of the main ways and means to solve environmental problems. Taking the protection of citizens' environmental rights and interests as the starting point and foothold, we should give full play to the safeguarding role of environmental justice, strengthen environmental judicial remedies, and use more environmental judicial methods to resolve environmental disputes. It is necessary to improve the judicial system for environmental damage relief, improve the environmental damage relief methods, and add administrative adjudication, public interest litigation and other relief methods that have positive significance for protecting citizens' environmental rights and interests.

The environmental supervision and law enforcement system should reflect independence, authority and rigidity. The design of the environmental supervision and law enforcement system should reflect independence and authority, and strictness and seriousness should be reflected in specific supervision and law enforcement to avoid inappropriate intervention and interference by local governments and other departments. Institutional arrangements for environmental regulation and law enforcement can be designed according to the central and local environmental authority and financial arrangements, the actual cost and effect of regulation and law enforcement, and the actual needs and capabilities of environmental regulation and law enforcement, rather than simply implementing so-called vertical management or comprehensive management. law enforcement.

Environmental management and control system: strict prevention at the source, strict control of the process, and severe punishment of the consequences

The environmental management and control system is the specific management system and work starting point of the environmental protection department under the environmental legal system. The overall direction of establishing and improving the most stringent environmental management and control system is to design and improve around the goals of environmental quality improvement and environmental health risk prevention and control, to provide the public with excellent environmental public products, and to realize the strategic transformation of environmental management. This needs to be adjusted and arranged in accordance with the general idea of ​​"strict prevention at the source, strict management of the process, and severe punishment of the consequences".

The design and arrangement of the source prevention system should focus on reflecting and giving play to the guidance and baton role in protecting the ecological environment. For example, the establishment of a green national economic accounting system provides a basis and standard for evaluating resource consumption and environmental damage in economic and social development; environmental planning needs to set ecological and environmental quality goals according to the integrity and synergy of ecosystems and environmental elements, and focus on ecological Environmental quality improvement and environmental health risk objectives are configured with various policy tools and means; environmental access needs to set industrial access thresholds according to the resource and environmental carrying capacity of the basin and region and the requirements of ecological protection red lines; the environmental impact assessment system needs to be in the project, The improvement of environmental quality and the acceptable level of environmental risks should be the basic criteria and preconditions at both the planning and strategic levels.

The design and arrangement of the process strict management system should reflect the rigor, strictness and effectiveness of management. The basic idea of ​​process control system design can start from the scope, object, method and effect of its function.

The system of severe punishment with consequences should reflect the deterrent power of punishment. This not only requires the punishment of those who cause adverse ecological and environmental consequences to be directly linked to their immediate political, economic and social interests, but also requires that the punishment be strong enough to make them dare not try the law, and effectively solve the ecological environment caused by the blind decision-making of party and government leaders. Destruction, malicious discharge of pollutants by enterprises and other problems that have long plagued ecological and environmental protection. For the party and government leaders and decision-makers, not only must establish a lifelong accountability system for the party and the government through performance appraisal, but also explore the use of judicial channels to investigate their legal responsibilities, such as environmental dereliction of duty and dereliction of duty; for malicious polluters, in addition to investigating Its civil liability, in addition to economic punishment to compensate for pollution damage, should be investigated for criminal responsibility, and the chronic disease of "low cost of breaking the law and high cost of abiding by law" should be solved systematically.

Environmental economic system: Establish a green fiscal, taxation and financial system

The environmental economic system should be able to fully reflect the cost of environmental resources through the market and price adjustment mechanisms, so that economic activities can be adjusted and improved in the direction of resource conservation and environmental friendliness, so that ecological damage and environmental polluters can compensate for their negative external environmental costs, so that The positive external environmental costs of eco-environmentalists are compensated.

Establish a green fiscal, taxation and financial system. Including establishing a green public finance system; promoting environmental tax reform; formulating resource product pricing policies based on environmental cost considerations; improving and deepening green credit, environmental pollution liability insurance, and green trade policy systems.

Explore the establishment of a regional and enterprise emission index verification and paid use system based on environmental capacity, as well as a corresponding emission rights trading market. Including research and formulation of guidelines for the paid use and trading of emission rights for major pollutants and related technical guidelines, and expanding the scope of pilot projects for the paid use and trading of emission rights.

Accelerate the establishment and implementation of a pollution damage compensation system and an ecological compensation system. Formulate a series of technical regulations for the appraisal and assessment of environmental pollution damage and the corresponding follow-up compensation system. For the five major areas of river basins, important ecological function areas, nature reserves, mineral resource development, and resource-exhausted cities, gradually establish an ecological compensation mechanism and policy system, and promote the establishment of national ecological compensation special funds.

It is necessary to focus on the long-term and take into account the urgent needs of the present

The implementation of the strictest environmental protection system should not only focus on the long-term, but also take into account the urgent needs of the present. It is necessary to establish an environmental protection target system, statistical system and accounting system that meet the requirements of ecological civilization construction. Promote the implementation of a management model based on ecological product and ecological asset accounts, and incorporate resource consumption, environmental losses, environmental benefits, and changes in ecological assets in the process of social and economic development into the statistical accounting system of the national economy.

A strict environmental access system should be established around the ecological protection red line. Strengthen the control, elimination and withdrawal of polluting enterprises. Revise and improve the access conditions for high-energy-consuming, high-emission and resource-based industries, clarify the specific requirements for resource allocation and indicators such as energy conservation and pollutant discharge, and raise the environmental access threshold according to differences in resource endowments, environmental capacity and ecological conditions. Strictly implement the environmental access system, strictly prevent the transfer of backward production capacity in the east and abroad to the central and western regions, and improve the quality of economic development in the central and western regions.

We should also focus on reforming and improving the environmental impact assessment system. Taking the improvement of environmental quality and the acceptable level of environmental risks as the basic criteria of environmental impact assessment, and taking the improvement of environmental quality as the assessment standard, carry out the environmental assessment of strategies, plans, policies and projects.

Clarify citizens' environmental rights in laws and regulations, and improve systems such as information disclosure and legislative hearings to ensure public participation, guidance and supervision. Clarify the main responsibilities of the government, enterprises, and the public in environmental protection, and guide the public to participate in the evaluation and assessment of the implementation of the environmental protection system by establishing a mechanism for regular communication, equal dialogue, and negotiation between the government, enterprises, and the public. Improve the environmental news publicity mechanism, guide the news media, and strengthen public opinion supervision. Promote the community environment roundtable system, and learn from the Western consensus conference and environmental review conference. Scientifically guide the development of non-governmental environmental protection public welfare organizations, and build a platform for benign interaction between the public and the government. (China.com is Yu Hai, director of the Environmental and Economic Policy Research Center of the Ministry of Environmental Protection)

Postscript: To protect the environment is to protect our homeland. The Fifth Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee will increase efforts to protect the environment and implement the strictest environmental protection system. The demand for environmental protection equipment (reducer) will increase. The development of the environmental protection equipment industry is getting faster and faster, and it has also raised the awareness of the whole people on environmental protection.