Research On The Litigation Resolution Mechanism For Disputes On Quota Settlement In China’s Carbon Market

The carbon market mechanism is an important means to achieve greenhouse gas emission reduction and help achieve the double carbon goal.At present,China’s carbon market construction has developed from the "two provinces and five cities" pilot carbon market stage to the national carbon market stage.The operation of the national carbon market mainly includes the initial allocation of quotas,quota trading and quota clearance.Among them,the last part of the compliance cycle is the clearance of allowances,and the compliance of emission control enterprises is the litmus test of the carbon emission trading mechanism.In the development of China’s carbon market,it is characterised by policy first and law lagging behind.In this paper,in the course of sorting out the provisions of national and local carbon market legislation on allowance clearance disputes and analyzing classic cases,we found that the main way to protect the disputes over allowance clearance of emission control enterprises is administrative settlement,and the relevant relief provisions are not sound,which is reflected in a single way to resolve allowance clearance disputes and insufficient guarantee for the effectiveness of allowance clearance dispute resolution.The root cause of the problem lies in the unclear legal attributes of quota clearance in the carbon market and the unreasonable institutional structure of the quota clearance dispute relief system.In order to address this problem,it is necessary to improve the litigation settlement mechanism for quota clearance disputes and effectively protect the legitimate rights and interests of emission control enterprises.First of all,it is necessary to clarify the legal nature of quota clearance in the carbon market and the legal attributes of quota clearance disputes.The legal relationship of quota clearance in the carbon market is an administrative contractual relationship.The legal nature of quota clearance determines the legal attributes of quota clearance disputes,therefore,quota clearance disputes should be administrative contract disputes,and in conjunction with the purpose of quota clearance,its public law attributes should be emphasized.Therefore,the legal nature of a dispute over the clearance of allowances should be an administrative dispute.On this basis,an administrative litigation model for the settlement of quota clearance disputes in the carbon market is established,and the necessary components of a litigation model for the settlement of quota clearance disputes are discussed in detail.Guided by the above theory,the following suggestions are made for the construction of an administrative litigation settlement mechanism for carbon market quota clearance disputes: carbon market quota clearance disputes should be included in the scope of administrative litigation,centralised jurisdiction should be applied to carbon market quota clearance disputes,the burden of proof of parties to carbon market quota clearance disputes should be reasonably allocated,and the enforcement of carbon market quota clearance adjudication documents should be innovated.