China plans July launch of national emissions trade scheme By Reuters

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: A coal-burning power plant can be seen behind a factory in China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, October 31, 2010. REUTERS/David Gray

By Muyu Xu and David Stanway

BEIJING (Reuters) -China’s long-awaited national carbon emissions trading scheme (ETS) will be formally launched very soon this month, the environment ministry said on Wednesday, without giving a date.

The new ETS is part of China’s plans to make use of “market mechanisms” to help bring its carbon emissions – now the world’s highest – to a peak before 2030 and to net zero by 2060.

But the scheme has been repeatedly delayed, partly over concerns about the transparency of emissions data, with a case exposed this month of data falsified by one power firm.

Preparation work was now “basically complete”, Zhao Yingmin, vice-minister for ecology and environment, told a news briefing.

“We will select a time to launch the national ETS and carry out the trading in July,” he added.

Although Zhao did not give an exact date for the first trade, sources expect a launch ceremony on Friday.

Carbon trading had been originally expected to begin before the end of June, though no reason has been given for the delay.

The establishment of a nationwide trading scheme was first pledged by President Xi Jinping ahead of the signing of the Paris climate accord at the end of 2015. A “soft launch” of the scheme took place in late 2017, but no transactions took place.

China has already established seven local pilot exchanges, on which more than 406 million tonnes of greenhouse gas permits were traded by the middle of last year.

The first phase of the ETS will cover more than 2,000 power plants, and will be expanded to other sectors – including cement, steel and aluminium – in due course, Zhao said, though he did not provide a precise timeline.

Zhao said emissions data accuracy was the top priority for the national carbon market. He added that the quality of the national ETS data was now generally in line with requirements, after years of data reporting and verification.

Like other carbon exchanges, China’s ETS allocates emission permits to participating firms, which they can use for their own compliance purposes or sell on the market.

However, China’s system is based on the amount of carbon produced per unit of output, rather than absolute emission levels, meaning that it is far from guaranteed that it will reduce total CO2 in the short term.

Disclaimer: Fusion Media would like to remind you that the data contained in this website is not necessarily real-time nor accurate. All CFDs (stocks, indexes, futures) and Forex prices are not provided by exchanges but rather by market makers, and so prices may not be accurate and may differ from the actual market price, meaning prices are indicative and not appropriate for trading purposes. Therefore Fusion Media doesn`t bear any responsibility for any trading losses you might incur as a result of using this data.

Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.

!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)
{if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function()
{n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};
if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;
n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];
s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,’script’,
‘https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’);
fbq(‘init’, ‘751110881643258’);
fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);

by : Reuters

Source link

Capital Media

Read Previous

63% of workers who file an EEOC discrimination complaint lose their jobs

Read Next

Australia faces first economic contraction in a year on Sydney lockdown By Reuters