(Yicai Global) June 22 -- The much-anticipated launch of China’s carbon emission trading scheme will not happen on June 25 as was previously reported, Yicai Global learned from an authoritative source today. An exact date has not yet been set but it is expected to be before the end of the month.

The Ministry of Ecology and Environment and several other government bodies will announce the opening of a unified national carbon trading market on June 25, Xinhua Finance, a financial platform under Xinhua News Agency, reported earlier today. The emissions scheme will have a trading center in Shanghai and a registration center in Wuhan, central Hubei province, it added.

China has set up seven pilot carbon trading markets in the cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Chongqing as well as Hubei and Guangdong provinces since 2013. As of the end of last year, they had carried out spot transactions worth CNY10.4 billion (USD1.6 billion) on the equivalent of 445 million tons of carbon dioxide.

The emissions trading scheme is an important tool to achieve China’s carbon neutrality goal by 2060. The country aims to reach a peak of greenhouse gas emittance by 2030 and thereafter to offset its emissions through various means such as afforestation, energy conservation and pollution reduction, according to a government document released earlier this year.

Editor: Kim Taylor