| Sumario: | Eco-compensation has long been an important policy instrument for advancing ecological civilization and achieving China’s “dual-carbon” goals. However, as rural low-carbon transition enters a more complex and in-depth stage, the existing compensation model—largely based on administrative units and regional attributes—has gradually revealed structural limitations, including imprecise incentives, insufficient recognition of actual contributions, and inadequate responses to transition costs.
The existing evidence indicates that the key behaviors driving rural low-carbon transition occur primarily at the household level. Yet current eco-compensation mechanisms remain concentrated at the collective or project level, making it difficult to effectively mobilize farmers’ participation in low-carbon transformation.
Based on a full-sample household survey and quantitative assessment conducted in representative coastal rural villages in eastern Zhejiang Province, the research team led by Professor Kevin Chen from the International Food Policy Research Institute and China Academy for Rural Development, Zhejiang University, identifies four major structural challenges in China’s current eco-compensation system—compensation scale, compensation standards, fund transmission, and responsiveness to transition costs. On this basis, this brief proposes upgrading eco-compensation from a system of untargeted subsidies to a policy tool oriented toward low-carbon and common-prosperity transition. This includes: 1) Introducing household-level ecological contribution identification tools; 2) linking eco-compensation with clean energy upgrading; and 3) Improving village-level redistribution mechanisms based on the principle of beneficiaries pay.
Practical experience from Qingshan Village, Zhejiang Province, demonstrates that this pathway is both feasible and replicable. This brief has been submitted to the policy making agency and included for your reference.
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