#2023 Annual Meeting of the International Institute of Green Finance, Central University of Finance and Economics Climate change has become one of the major challenges facing human society at present. Addressing climate change is a common task of the international community. In 2015, 193 United Nations member states, including China, jointly adopted the "2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development", establishing 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), aiming to promote change and transformation in a thorough and comprehensive manner from the three dimensions of economy, society and environment, and lead all mankind towards a sustainable future.

Multiple crises such as the COVID-19 epidemic, regional conflicts, food security and extreme weather have warned that it is urgent for mankind to achieve sustainable development goals. However, due to the slowdown in global economic growth after the epidemic, urgent tasks such as addressing climate change and ecological and environmental protection have become important for all countries. Brings greater financial pressure. Limited fiscal funds and growing needs for green development have put forward higher requirements for countries to improve budget systems to improve the efficiency of fund use and coordinate economic, ecological and environmental benefits. In this context, green budgets can become a powerful planning tool for countries around the world to implement government responsibilities and stimulate green capital investment. They are conducive to unifying green development goals and efficient use of fiscal funds, and are receiving increasing attention from governments of various countries.

The International Institute of Green Finance of the Central University of Finance and Economics cooperated with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) to carry out research, focusing on sorting out the progress of global green budgets and policies related to China's green budget, analyzing the feasibility of China exploring green budgets, and summarizing reference suggestions through comparative practical experience between China and foreign countries, with a view to providing assistance for my country to promote green development through green budgets, achieve ecological civilization strategies and double carbon goals, and coordinate green finance through green budgets. Form policy synergy to expand space for market cultivation and development.

1. Progress in global green budgets

The practice of green budgeting began in the early part of this century. Italy is a pioneer in green budget practice, starting to try it as early as 2000, and later formally introducing related concepts in the 2009 Accounting and Public Finance Act 196/2009. The 2011 Italian government working document provided for the first time a calculation method of the "green" degree of budget items and practical guidance for functional departments, and required information disclosure, but the relevant practice was not promoted to other countries in a short period of time. It was not until after 2017, thanks to multiple international initiatives and actions, that green budgets were able to form a "multi-point flowering" trend on a global scale.

(1) Proposal of green budget concept

1. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) led the launch of the "Paris Green Budget Cooperation" project in 2017, and gradually summarized and built a relatively comprehensive green budget conceptual framework.

2. The green budget framework proposed by OECD includes four parts: strategic and fiscal planning, budgeting tools with complete information and policy synergy, disclosure reports that promote accountability and transparency, and a healthy budgeting environment.

(2) Overview of green budgeting practices in OECD and EU member states

1.2020 In 2008, the OECD and the European Commission jointly conducted the world's first green budget questionnaire survey. The results showed that green budgets are generally in the early stages of development, with large differences in practices among countries, but they also face many common challenges.

2.2023 The update of the Green Budget Survey released by the OECD in 2009 showed that nearly two-thirds of member states have implemented green budgets, and all member states were scored and ranked.

3.2023 An update to the green budget survey released by the European Union in 2000 showed that 12 of the 27 countries have implemented green budgets and 5 countries have plans to introduce them. At the same time, they face challenges such as insufficient methodology, professional knowledge and personnel.

(3) Two main practical methods of green budgeting

1. Countries such as Italy adopt a "labeling quantitative" green budget approach, focusing on quantitative methods, attaching importance to the coordination between finance and functional departments and drawing more accurate data conclusions to reflect the scale of green finance.

2. Countries such as Sweden adopt a "performance tracking" green budget approach, usually combining quantitative and qualitative methods, attaching importance to pre-and post-evaluation of the impact of green budgets, and paying attention to its consistency with national green development goals.

3. China's green budget-related fiscal policies

As the planning level of fiscal policy, budget policy is the core of national fiscal policy. The implementation of fiscal policy should take the budget system as the basic institutional framework and meet the important principle of "no budget, no expenditure". Although China has not systematically proposed the concept of green budget, it is reflected in fiscal policy's general public expenditure policy, tax policy, green government public investment and national debt policy.

1. At the central budget level, China focuses on green areas in both central-level expenditures and central-to-local transfer payments. In particular, among transfer payments, which account for about 70% of the central budget, it adopts a variety of general transfer payments and special transfer payments. The mechanism supports green development in areas such as ecological environmental protection and low-carbon energy conservation.

2. China's current green tax revenue exceeds 2 trillion yuan, accounting for about 14% of the total tax revenue. In addition to environmental protection taxes that directly affect green development, they are mainly implicit in various taxes in an indirect form, such as resource taxes, cultivated land occupation taxes, urban maintenance and construction taxes, etc., as well as taxes on the consumption of high-carbon emission products such as automobiles and refined oil.

3. China's government green procurement system was launched in 2004, and the green procurement system framework for the government procurement list of energy-saving and environmentally friendly products was basically established in 2007. By 2018, the scale of government procurement of energy-saving products and environmental label products had reached more than 90% of similar products.

4. China has started to support green development from the field of green government funds. For example, in 2020, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and the Shanghai City People's Government jointly initiated the establishment of a National Green Development Fund to focus on solving the financing problems of various green projects; In terms of green government bonds, China has not yet issued green government bonds, but local governments and policy banks have made certain explorations in local government green bonds and quasi-sovereign green bonds.

5. The foundation for the reform of China's green budget system

From international experience, green budgets need to be based on a mature budget system. China's budget system has undergone a number of reforms in the past few decades, constantly integrating with the modern budget system, reforming from four aspects: budget preparation, budget execution, budget supervision and full-process budget performance management to establish a mature budget system. Lay a feasible foundation for the implementation of green budgets.

immediately signed up

2.在预算执行管理改革方面，绿色预算的实施要求在各职能部门提供专业知识技术支持并编制完毕各预算类别的前提下，由财政部门统一执行财政收支。对此，中国正持续推进建设统一的国库制度和政府采购制度。

3.在预算监督改革方面，绿色预算的有效实施需通过完善的预算监督机制对绿色预算的编制、执行与评价进行有效监督。中国已通过《预算法》《财政支持做好碳达峰碳中和工作的意见》等法律法规及政策不断完善绿色预算相关监督机制。

4.在全过程预算绩效管理改革方面，绿色预算的实施要求建立完备的预算绩效管理机制，以总结社会与环境影响，提升来年预算实施绩效，保障预算长期为绿色目标服务。中国自2000年开始推行预算绩效评价试点，此后不断拓展深化，当前预算绩效一体化建设正稳步推进。

四、 中外实践经验对比

通过税收、转移支付、政府采购等方面的预算管理，中国已进行了一系列具有绿色预算效果的实践，同时过去不断推进的各项预算制度改革也可成为实施绿色预算的必要前置步骤。在与国际先进经验的比较中，本报告进一步分析当前中国推进绿色预算建设过程中可加强的内容。

1.与以意大利等国为代表的绿色预算“贴标量化”模式相比，中国绿色预算已在目标指引、法律依据等方面具备一定基础，但仍缺少贴标量化所需的绿色预算方法学和相应流程所需法律政策依据，且在绿色预算产出报告的有关规定等方面需加强建设。

2.与瑞典等国为代表的绿色预算“绩效追踪”模式相比，中国绿色预算在法律基础、目标细化等方面存在一定不足，未对预算编制、审批、执行、监督、报告与信息披露等各项环节中纳入绿色目标与评价体系做出明确规定。

3.整体上中国当前绿色预算实践还处在早期发展阶段，主要在设立时即明确生态环保目的的专项转移支付资金中建立了较为完善的预算管理机制，但尚未在全预算范围内形成明确、统一的绿色评价指标体系和系统的绿色预算管理机制，未来存在发展与改进空间。