} ?>
(Yicai Global) July 14 -- China will officially launch a carbon trading market this month to regulate energy-intensive industries and guide them through low-carbon transformation by increasing production costs, a top official said, without specifying a date.
The market is now ready, and the next step will be to steadily expand the number of industries involved and enrich the trading varieties and methods, Ecology and Environment Vice Minister Zhao Yingmin told a press conference today.
Since October 2011, China has tested carbon emissions trading in the cities of Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Chongqing, Guangdong, and Shenzhen as well as in Hubei province. Trading began in 2013, covering nearly 3,000 companies in more than 20 industries such as power, steel, and cement.
The total trading volume of emissions quotas in the pilot schemes was 480 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent by June, with a turnover of about CNY11.4 billion (USD1.8 billion).
“With the opening of the national carbon trading market, there will be no more new pilots,” Zhao said, adding that the local carbon markets will gradually transition to the national trading venue.
After the national market goes into operation, key businesses in power generation should no longer trade in local markets, he said.
Current carbon prices are uncertain, but the weighted average carbon price of the seven pilot projects this year was between CNY40 and CNY50 (USD7.70), Zhao said. Prices are determined by their respective market mechanisms, and there is little significant impact on each other, he added.
Whether China’s carbon prices will gradually come into line with the international level is actually a question of how market prices are connected in different countries, which requires solving a series of complex problems involving policies, laws, technologies, and standards, Zhao said.
Editor: Peter Thomas