The national unified carbon emissions trading market officially launched today

  This morning, the national unified carbon emissions trading market was officially launched, which means that our country's nationwide carbon emissions trading has kicked off.

Carbon emission trading is an important policy tool for our country’s carbon peak carbon neutrality initiative, and an important part of the country’s promotion of a comprehensive green transformation of the economy and society.

  So what is carbon emission rights and how does this market work?

  Human beings consume a lot of fossil energy in production and life, and at the same time emit a certain amount of carbon dioxide.

Carbon dioxide is an important part of greenhouse gases, which can cause global climate anomalies.

Carbon emission rights trading is actually buying and selling carbon dioxide emission rights as commodities, and the purpose of controlling the total amount of carbon emissions is achieved through this market behavior.

  Carbon emission rights trading is not a new thing that just appeared today. With the official entry into force of the "Kyoto Protocol", the commodity attributes of carbon emission rights were formally established in 2005.

At present, the European Union, the United States, New Zealand, South Korea and other places have established national or regional carbon emission trading markets. China has also started carbon emission trading in 7 provinces and cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, and Hubei since 2011. Pilot.

Today, after the launch of China's unified carbon emissions trading market, it will cover more than 4 billion tons of emissions and will become the world's largest carbon market.

Who is the protagonist of this market?

At present, more than 2,000 companies have been included in this nationwide carbon emission trading market, and they are all thermal power generation companies

.

Why choose this way?

What other industries and fields will be included in carbon emissions trading in the future?

  The first batch of 2225 compliance companies included in the carbon emissions trading system are thermal power generation companies with an annual comprehensive energy consumption of more than 10,000 tons of standard coal, which basically covers the vast majority of thermal power generation companies in my country.

Li Gao, Director of the Department of Climate Change, Ministry of Ecology and Environment:

Power generation accounts for a relatively high proportion of our country's (carbon) emissions. Carrying out this carbon emissions trading from the power generation industry has a great effect on our country's carbon emissions control.

Another aspect is that the overall management level of the power generation industry is relatively high, so some related technologies and data foundations are relatively good. Through the power generation industry as a breakthrough, we can further accumulate relevant experience and gradually improve the carbon market.

  It is understood that as my country’s carbon emissions trading market gradually matures and stabilizes, during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, it is expected that eight key energy-consuming industries, including petroleum, chemical, and building materials, will gradually be included in this market, covering my country’s important energy sources. And industrial fields.

How to trade carbon emission rights?

  The market has existed, and so has the enterprise.

But as the main content of the transaction, this carbon dioxide emission is invisible and intangible. How can we trade?

How does the country achieve the goal of controlling and reducing carbon emissions through this market behavior?

In fact, the relevant departments have devised a set of sound and scientific evaluation and transaction methods.

  At present, our country is still in the process of industrialization, and the demand for energy will continue to increase in the future.

How to promote social energy conservation and emission reduction under this premise?

  In the past, the state mainly used administrative means to control and constrain the carbon emissions of various regions and industries.

After the carbon emission trading started, the market mechanism was introduced.

To conduct carbon emission rights trading, the government first needs to determine the total carbon emission target for a period of time, and then divide the total into a number of specific quotas, and distribute these quotas to companies in the carbon market that need to reduce emissions through free allocation and other methods.

In a word, carbon emission rights trading is mainly based on market means to allocate corporate carbon emission credits.

  To give a simple example, a company has an annual carbon emission allowance of 10,000 tons. If the company reduces its carbon emissions to 8,000 tons through technological transformation, the surplus 2,000 tons can be sold on the carbon market.

  As other companies need to expand production and the original carbon emission allowances are not enough, they can buy these sold quotas on the market.

This not only controls the total amount of carbon emissions, but also encourages companies to reduce emissions by optimizing energy structure and improving energy efficiency.

How to calculate corporate carbon emissions?

  As the trading target of the carbon emission trading market, how are carbon emission rights calculated?

How to ensure the accuracy of corporate accounting data?

Zhuang Guiyang, Director of the Institute of Ecological Civilization of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences:

There are many such verification institutions for carbon emissions in the country. These institutions need to be filed with the national and local authorities. They can only proceed if they are qualified. Verification.

  The production of any enterprise cannot be separated from the burning of fossil energy or the use of electric energy.

The verification agency will calculate the direct carbon emissions from the combustion of all fossil energy in the company and the indirect carbon emissions from the use of electricity to obtain a data close to the company's actual carbon emissions.

  Unlike pollutant emissions, carbon emissions are currently difficult to monitor online, so the accuracy of accounting data is particularly important.

How to prevent the fraudulent behavior of enterprises or verification agencies for profit requires institutional measures.

Two killers of allowances and carbon prices to promote energy conservation and emission reduction

  Now that this carbon emission right can be purchased, if the company finds that its carbon emissions exceed the standard, can it be purchased directly on the market?

Does this weaken the company's motivation to save energy and reduce emissions?

According to experts, in fact, these problems can be solved through the regulation of carbon emission quotas and carbon prices.

Carbon emission trading is, in the final analysis, a policy tool with a financial nature.

What needs to be pointed out is that it does not encourage companies to spend money on quotas to complete their tasks, but uses market means to encourage companies to gradually reduce their carbon emission intensity.

  At the beginning of the company's entry into the market, carbon emission quotas are like a tight spell that has been restricting the company's carbon emission behavior.

The allocation of carbon emission allowances is mainly based on administrative means.

Every year, in accordance with the development of the macro economy, the progress of energy saving and emission reduction technologies, and the development of national policies to respond to climate change, the carbon emission allowances allocated to enterprises are adjusted to encourage enterprises to continuously improve energy efficiency.

In addition to the restrictive effect of quotas, changes in carbon prices are also an important factor for companies to continue to save energy and reduce emissions.

Promote energy-saving transformation of enterprises and increase investment in clean energy

  In order to prepare to join this national carbon emission trading market, many power generation companies have started preparations a few years ago. How are these companies' current preparations?

  The Yimin Power Plant in Hulunbuir, Inner Mongolia, generates 16.5 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually.

In 2018, the state started the preparatory work for carbon emission trading. The power plant commissioned a third-party carbon asset company to calculate the carbon emission intensity. It was found that if the quota allocated by the state is to be met, carbon emissions need to be controlled at 85% of the existing amount.

  Without energy-saving transformation, after the launch of the carbon market, companies will need to spend huge sums of money to purchase carbon emission allowances every year.

So starting in 2018, Yimin Power Plant invested 85 million yuan and successively carried out a series of technological transformations, saving 50,000 tons of standard coal each year.

  In Yuhuan, Zhejiang, the 100MW offshore photovoltaic power generation project of Huaneng Zhejiang Yuhuan Power Plant is under construction.

As a traditional thermal power plant, Huaneng Zhejiang Yuhuan Power Plant has attached great importance to energy conservation and emission reduction transformation since 2011. By the time the preparations for national carbon emission rights trading started, the company’s carbon emissions were already more than 100 lower than the national quota standard. Ten thousand tons, these saved allowances can all be sold on the carbon emission trading market.

  According to national policies, power generation companies can obtain "green power certificates" for the development of clean energy, and reduced carbon emissions can be converted into corporate carbon emission credits.

  Yuhuan Power Plant proposed to transform from traditional coal-based power generation to an integrated green grid of "water, fire, wind, and light" during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period.

After the completion of the offshore photovoltaic power generation project, the annual power generation will be about 140 million kWh, which will save about 44,300 tons of standard coal each year and increase the company's carbon emission quota by 110,000 tons.

The market is not omnipotent, but the comprehensive force of policy measures is needed

  To achieve "carbon peak and carbon neutrality", it is obvious that only relying on the market approach of carbon emission rights trading cannot effectively solve all problems.

Experts believe that the

government’s “visible hand” and the market’s “invisible hand” are still needed to work together to promote a green and low-carbon transformation of the economy and society from both ends of the supply and demand.

  According to experts, my country’s carbon market is currently in a preliminary stage of development. The participating industries and enterprises are relatively limited, and the main body is not rich enough. The incentive and restraint effect on energy conservation and emission reduction is not obvious. In the future, the country should also adopt fiscal, financial, and Taxation and other means form a synergy with market means to restrict the carbon emission behavior of enterprises.

  (Headquarters CCTV reporter Sheng Yun Wang Chen)