Analysis of state of public financing of environmental protection

The main task of this study consists in evaluating the state of funding for environmental protection measures and substantiating the ability of the state and local communities to increase investments in environmental protection. To this end, the following was studied from 2010 through 2020: 1) mechanisms of filling and using funds of the Environmental Protection Fund of state and local budgets; 2) proportions of distribution of environmental revenues and expenditures between levels of the budget system. The analysis results showed that opportunities of the public economy sector in terms of environmental investment are reduced because of imperfect distributing mechanisms: ‒ the budgetary expenditures for environmental protection measures; ‒ the environmental tax revenues to the budget funds. It was established that a significant part (about 70 %) of the "environmental" funds of the public economy sector is directed to non-priority goals and measures. Less than half of the amount of environmental tax revenues is allocated for financing environmental activities. This does little to address pressing environmental issues and hinders the sustainable development of the country. There was a significant discrepancy between the tax burden on "polluters" of water bodies (3 % of the total amount of environmental tax) and the levels of their polluting activities (30‒40 % of all costs of the national economy to eliminate the effects of pollution). In order to increase public investments in the reproduction of the environmental and natural resource potential: 1) ways to improve the mechanism of using the Fund of Environmental Protection were proposed; 2) reserves for increasing capital environmental investments from the budget have been identified.