China: launch of the first exchanges on the world's largest carbon market
The Datong coal-fired power station in China.
GREG BAKER / AFP
Text by: RFI Follow
2 min
China started its first carbon market this Friday morning with a view to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions.
As the world's leading polluter, Beijing wants to accelerate its energy transition to achieve carbon neutrality.
Publicity
Read more
With our correspondent in Beijing,
Zhifan Liu
The first exchanges of "rights to pollute" took place this Friday on
the largest carbon market in the world
at the Environmental and Energy Exchange in Shanghai,
China
, this Friday, July 16.
The establishment of this market allows the provincial authorities to set pollution ceilings for companies.
And if they are not able to respect them, they will have to buy “rights to pollute” from companies with a lower carbon footprint than their quota.
Concretely, the authorities issue a certificate for each tonne of greenhouse gases that a company is authorized to emit.
In the event of non-compliance, the latter must pay fines.
The aim of this market is to force thousands of companies in the country to reduce their polluting emissions, otherwise they will suffer economic losses.
Objective: carbon neutrality in 2016
The American bank Citigroup estimates that 800 million dollars of “rights to pollute” will be bought this year in China, then 25 billion by 2030. This market concerns for the moment only the electricity sector, which rests still mainly on coal, but it will open in 2022 to other sectors such as cement or aluminum.
For the sake of transparency, companies will have to make their pollution data public and have them verified by third parties.
China accounts for
30% of global greenhouse gas emissions
, or as much as the United States and the European Union combined.
The idea of this market is to be in phase with the objective of Chinese President Xi Jinping who wants to see China achieve carbon neutrality in 2060.
Newsletter
Receive all international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
google-play-badge_FR
China
Weather
Economy
Environment