The "Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Accelerating the Construction of a National Unified Market" proposes to build an efficient, standardized, fair competition and fully open national unified market.
This edition opens the column "How to Build a Unified Market", focusing on the construction of a unified market in the fields of carbon emissions, electricity, data, etc., so stay tuned.
A few days ago, the "Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Accelerating the Construction of a Large National Market" was officially issued, pointing out that the construction of a nationally unified carbon emission trading market is an important part of creating a unified market for factors and resources, and proposed the implementation of unified and standardized industry standards, Transaction supervision mechanism.
Industry experts pointed out that building a unified national carbon emission rights trading market, removing internal constraints that hinder the flow of carbon emission rights, and improving the efficiency of factor allocation will help my country to balance the relationship between carbon emission reduction and economic growth, so as to achieve the lowest social cost. The "two-carbon" goal.
Encountered data fraud at the beginning of operation
According to the information from the national carbon emission trading market, on April 26, the transaction volume of the carbon emission quota listing agreement in the national carbon market was 10 tons, the transaction value was 600.00 yuan, and the closing price was 60.00 yuan/ton, which was the same as the previous day.
January 1 to December 31, 2021 is the first compliance cycle of the national carbon market.
A total of 2,162 key emission units in the power generation industry were included in this compliance cycle, covering an annual greenhouse gas emission of about 4.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide.
In terms of performance volume, the completion rate of performance in the first performance period reached 99.5%.
On the whole, the carbon market is operating in a healthy and orderly manner, with stable and rising transaction prices, and the role of promoting enterprises to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and accelerate green and low-carbon transformation has initially appeared.
The national carbon market, which has entered the second implementation period, is still in the development and cultivation period.
Among them, ensuring the authenticity and accuracy of carbon emission data is the top priority of the current national carbon market construction.
From October to December 2021, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment has dispatched key law enforcement officers and industry experts in the national ecological environment system to go to 47 cities in 22 provinces to organize special supervision and assistance for the quality of carbon emission reports, and initially verified a number of typical and prominent problems. , and exposed a number of typical cases of carbon emission data fraud, which had a great impact on society.
According to reports, in order to further improve the data quality of the national carbon market, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment will continue to increase its efforts in the next step.
Liu Youbin, a spokesman for the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, revealed that he will cooperate with the Ministry of Justice to actively promote the issuance of the "Interim Regulations on the Management of Carbon Emissions Trading" to further clarify the responsibilities and supervision and management requirements of technical service agencies.
In addition, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment has handed over the problems found in the special supervision and assistance of carbon emissions and related case files to the provincial ecological environment departments to guide local governments to deal with and punish them in accordance with laws and regulations.
At the same time, it will take multiple measures to strengthen supervision, establish and improve mechanisms such as information sharing, joint investigation, and case transfer, and cooperate with relevant departments to strengthen the daily supervision of technical service institutions.
Increase information disclosure and credit supervision.
Some scholars pointed out that relevant research shows that the carbon market, including the EU carbon market and the California carbon market, will have some data quality problems in the early stage of operation, but with the passage of time, the data quality will gradually improve.
Decades of path exploration are still full of challenges
Zhang Xiliang, head of the technical expert group for the overall design of the national carbon emission trading system and director of the Institute of Energy and Environmental Economics of Tsinghua University, pointed out that the carbon market is very simple in economic theory, but it is a huge challenge to build an effective carbon market.
The construction of the national carbon market started from local pilot projects.
In October 2011, seven provinces and cities including Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Chongqing, Guangdong, Hubei and Shenzhen launched the local pilot work of carbon emission trading.
Since 2013, pilot carbon markets in 7 provinces and cities have started to trade online one after another.
At the end of 2017, the "National Carbon Emissions Trading Market Construction Plan" was issued and implemented, requiring the construction of a nationally unified carbon emission trading market.
In 2021, when the national carbon market is about to go online, Li Gao, director of the Department of Climate Change of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, said that the national carbon market will take the power generation industry as a breakthrough, and the key emission units of the power generation industry participating in the national carbon emission trading market will no longer be available. Participate in local carbon market transactions.
According to the arrangement, the local carbon market will gradually transition to the national carbon market.
Zhang Jianhong, a senior engineer at China International Engineering Consulting Co., Ltd., believes that based on the actual development of my country, the local carbon market can still play some innovative and exploratory roles at this stage.
For example, in covering industries, the local carbon market can be included in key industries according to local conditions. For example, the pilot carbon markets in Hubei, Guangdong, and Beijing cover transportation, construction and other industries, but the national carbon market has not yet covered these industries; another example is the local carbon market. Lower the entry threshold.
Zhang Junjie, chief economist of the Green Finance Forum of 60 (GF60), said that the biggest problem in regional carbon markets is carbon leakage.
In order to avoid being included in the carbon emission supervision system, some enterprises may transfer production and operation activities from pilot areas to non-pilot areas.
In this way, although the carbon emission of the pilot area has decreased, the carbon emission of other areas has increased, thus partially offsetting the emission reduction effect of the carbon market.
In addition, Zhang Junjie believes that non-uniform standards have caused competition among pilot areas.
Concerned about the adverse impact of strong regulation on economic growth, some places have set looser emission standards.
This kind of competition to reduce the intensity of regulation is not to achieve high-quality economic development through industrial upgrading, but to protect local high-energy-consuming and high-emission enterprises by sacrificing the environment.
Seeking progress while maintaining stability is a long way to go
Zhang Jianhong said that the purpose of building a unified national carbon emission trading market is to break local protection and market segmentation, and to break through the key blockages restricting the circulation of the carbon market. , so that the carbon market is efficient and standardized, fair competition, and fully open.
"Building a unified national carbon emission trading market will allow more business entities to participate in the carbon market, which will not only help enhance the stability, fairness and transparency of the carbon market, but also help business entities reduce carbon trading costs." Zhang Jianhong said.
Zhang Junjie said that the unified market does not require the government to centrally allocate carbon emission rights, but to form a unified national standard specification and transaction supervision mechanism through the rule of law, promote the full flow of carbon emission rights between regions and industries, and give full play to the allocation of price mechanisms. The fundamental role of elements and resources.
Zhang Junjie believes that to build a unified national carbon emission trading market, we must first remove market segmentation, formulate a roadmap and timetable for the transition from a regional carbon market to a national carbon market, and introduce a plan for linking the voluntary market and the mandatory market as soon as possible.
Secondly, it is necessary to remove industry segmentation, gradually include building materials, steel, non-ferrous metals and other industries into the carbon market, and activate the activity of the carbon market through market expansion and upgrading.
Finally, it is necessary to consolidate the data quality foundation of the carbon market, realize the unification of carbon emission data reporting standards, quality and transparency, and enhance market confidence.
The institutional basis of the carbon emission trading market is the mandatory responsibility for emission reduction.
At the same time, the operation of the carbon emission rights trading market has the characteristics of many operation links, strong normative requirements and high professional requirements, and must operate on the track of the rule of law.
Further solidly carry out various tasks in the national carbon market, continue to improve the supporting systems, accelerate the issuance of the Interim Regulations on the Management of Carbon Emissions Trading, improve relevant technical regulations, standards, and management systems, and build a unified national carbon emissions trading market. meaning of the title.