Promote the integration and mutual recognition of international rules and standards in the field of green and low-carbon development

With the improvement of the global climate governance framework and the promotion of carbon peak and carbon neutrality, the connection between climate policy and trade policy is increasingly strengthened, and green low-carbon standards have become an important component of the international economic and trade rules system. The outline of the 15th Five Year Plan proposes to establish and improve a green and low-carbon standard system, promote the improvement and mutual recognition of international rules and standards. Currently, economic globalization is facing headwinds, and international standards are gradually evolving from the foundation of global industrial rules and technological interoperability to tools for international economic and trade competition. Developing green trade is the key to China's foreign trade transformation and upgrading. We need to accelerate the mutual recognition of international rules and standards in the field of green and low-carbon, and enhance China's voice and influence in standard setting.

Global climate governance reshapes economic and trade rules

Related studies have shown that carbon dioxide emissions embedded in international trade account for about 20% to 30% of global carbon dioxide emissions, and international trade has become an important carrier for global carbon emission transfer and carbon responsibility sharing. The EU's carbon border adjustment mechanism, battery bill and other unilateral measures have been introduced, requiring products, technologies and services exported to the EU to comply with carbon emission compliance requirements. Carbon footprint accounting and compliance certification are embedded in market access and supply chain management, forming spillover effects through cost transmission, objectively raising the threshold for foreign products to enter relevant markets, forming trade barriers with green and low-carbon standards as the core, and promoting the reshaping of global trade and industrial competition rules.

The underlying driving force behind the changes in international economic and trade rules lies in the fact that the global value chain division of labor led by multinational corporations enables production to cross national borders, requiring coordination of rules between countries; With the response to climate change and the development of the digital economy, new technologies, products, and formats are emerging, requiring the establishment of corresponding standard systems; The rise of emerging economies has led to changes in the structure of international standard setting rights, and there is an urgent need to establish a new system of international rules and standards worldwide.

Currently, the strategic role of standards in international competition is becoming increasingly prominent. Developed countries and major emerging economies are elevating standards to a national strategic level and accelerating a new round of layout in key areas such as emerging industries and social governance. Technical standards and qualification assessment are increasingly becoming important carriers of trade rules, and by influencing technological routes and market access, strengthening their strategic attributes, they are key elements that dominate technological trends, affect industrial ecology, and determine national core competitiveness. China has comparative advantages in some green and low-carbon industrial chains and application scenarios, and has the conditions to become a leader in international green and low-carbon standard setting. It can transform its own development advantages into international institutional discourse advantages.

Standard setting power becomes a new focus of competition

With the deepening of economic globalization and the continuous expansion of international trade, the power to formulate international standards has become an important lever for countries to shape market rules and consolidate industrial advantages. Standard leadership is supported by technological advancement and industrial organizational capabilities, and shapes the industrial ecosystem through supply chain rules transmission. In global industrial competition, standards are not only technical specifications, but also institutional competitive tools. International standards gather advanced technological achievements and engineering experience from various countries, and are an important technical foundation for achieving mutual recognition of products, engineering, and services in cross-border economic and trade cooperation. Guided by compatibility and interoperability, they help reduce unnecessary technical trade barriers, lower the cost of repeated testing and certification, emphasize achieving lower transaction costs and higher market efficiency under common rules, and improve trade facilitation levels. Meanwhile, international standards have significant benefits distribution effects. The standard setting process involves terminology system, testing methods, data caliber, and qualification assessment procedures. Leaders are prone to solidify their own technical path, industry practice, and regulatory logic into common rules, thereby gaining institutional first mover advantages. In contrast, the party with insufficient participation often needs to bear higher compliance and transformation costs, and is in a passive position in market access and product competition.

Driven by issues such as sustainable development, climate change, energy and resource utilization, and social governance, the content of international standards continues to extend towards the green and low-carbon field. The rapid iteration of green and low-carbon technologies still leaves gaps and differences in methodology and data foundation, providing new space for standard competition. With the increasing weight of green issues in trade rules, accelerating the integration and mutual recognition of green rules and standards has become an important area of competition among major powers.

For China, the competition for green and low-carbon standards brings both external compliance pressures and strategic opportunities to participate in rule supply. We need to rely on advantageous industrial chains and large-scale application scenarios, improve domestic standards and qualification assessment infrastructure, enhance the internationalization and mutual recognition capabilities of standards, move from an important participant to an active supplier of rules and standards, and strive for a more stable and predictable institutional environment for the high-quality development of foreign trade and industrial upgrading.

Strengthening mutual recognition of standards to address green trade barriers

With the expansion of international trade scale and the deepening of cross-border division of labor in the industrial chain, trade frictions are characterized by regularity and technicality. China has deeply integrated into the world economy and maintained strong competitiveness in goods trade, with impressive results in the export of "new three types" products. However, in the process of Chinese products and services going global, they also face green trade barriers. Some countries, under the pretext of safeguarding national security, ensuring human health and safety, protecting the environment, and protecting the rights and interests of workers, formulate mandatory or non mandatory technical regulations and standards for imported goods, set up strict and cumbersome qualification assessment procedures, thereby increasing the requirements for imported products and services, increasing the difficulty of imports, and ultimately achieving the goal of restricting imports, forming technical trade barriers.

Standards are the universal language of international trade, and it is necessary to promote the formation of stronger comparability, interpretability, and mutual recognition of green rules, in order to promote the stability of the multilateral trading system. Without sufficient consideration of the differences in development stages, industrial structures, and governance capabilities among countries, new rules and standards are prone to evolve into green barriers at the implementation level.

At present, the green and low-carbon standard system is still in a rapid evolution stage, and the international mutual recognition framework is not yet complete. Some countries have introduced unilateral policies and regulations that require compliance for imported products, technologies, and services, but there are still differences in carbon footprint methodology, data quality requirements, and third-party verification rules for specific industries and products, resulting in insufficient comparability of accounting results under different systems. If the negotiations between relevant countries on product carbon emission accounting rules and carbon footprint standards are unsuccessful, it is easy to form a de facto technical standard barrier. The global carbon emissions accounting system is led by developed countries, with production side carbon emissions accounting within the scope of national sovereignty as the main focus. Basic data is mainly released by governments, research institutions, and commercial companies of developed Western countries. From the perspective of accounting methods, the current system focuses on production side emissions and neglects consumer side responsibilities, resulting in some economies bearing unreasonable pressure to reduce emissions. Developing internationally recognized carbon accounting standards is a key step in helping Chinese companies overcome this' carbon hurdle '.

The deep restructuring of international economic and trade rules and global value chains brings opportunities for China to enhance its industrial green and low-carbon competitiveness. As the world's largest renewable energy market and manufacturer of clean energy equipment, China urgently needs to streamline the underlying logic of the domestic standard system and international rules, accelerate the development of a green and low-carbon standard system that is in line with international rules, and continuously improve the "standard industry trade" linkage ecology.

Enhance the international influence of green and low-carbon standards

The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China emphasizes the steady expansion of institutional openness in rules, regulations, management, standards, and other areas. The "Opinions on Promoting High Quality Development of Service Trade through High Level Opening up" issued by the State Council proposes to vigorously develop green technologies and green service trade. The Ministry of Ecology and Environment and other departments jointly issued the "Implementation Plan for Establishing a Carbon Footprint Management System", which requires "establishing a unified and standardized carbon footprint management system", "gradually aligning product carbon footprint accounting rules, factor databases, and carbon labeling certification systems with international standards, and substantially participating in the formulation of international product carbon footprint rules". These deployment arrangements provide clear top-level design and institutional guarantees for the construction of a green and low-carbon standard system.

In the window period of global economic and trade rule restructuring, we should focus on key areas such as product carbon footprint, carbon labeling, green certification, and third-party verification, promote the connection between domestic standards, certification systems, and data platforms and international rules, and transform technological and industrial advantages into international standard discourse advantages. We should plan ahead and lay out in advance to promote China's transformation from an important participant in international green and low-carbon standards to a contributor to the rules.

One is to strengthen exchanges on green and low-carbon development issues within multilateral and regional frameworks such as the United Nations and the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation, participate in consultations on green trade rules, and promote the establishment of more inclusive and fair international green trade rules. The second is to use policy dialogue mechanisms, with bilateral and multilateral climate and environmental rules as the starting point, to promote the connection of green standards and green trade rules, and to promote mutual recognition and exchange of green and low-carbon standards. Thirdly, within the global framework, we will accelerate the development of carbon accounting and carbon footprint methodology for key industries and products that have not yet reached a global consensus, promote a more objective understanding of China's low-carbon technology achievements and green transformation results by the international community, and enhance the internationalization level of Chinese standards. Fourth, promote and jointly build the "the Belt and Road" countries and regions to establish a mutual recognition system of green low-carbon products, technologies and service standards, reduce trade costs caused by standard differences, promote the smooth flow of high-quality green low-carbon products and services, and let green development benefit the world.