Nation launches clean- energy drive
▶ Pilot carbon trading programs mapped out for provinces
As part of efforts to push for the transition to a low- carbon economy, China has launched trials of carbon trading in seven designated areas including Beijing, according to a white paper on energy development released on Monday that outlines the country’s vision to remake energy consumption.
The trading of energy consumption allowances has also undergone pilot programs in four provinces including East China’s Zhejiang Province, read the white paper.
Such trials are seen as contributing to a changing energy production and usage landscape in the world’s top energy producer and consumer.
Between 2013 and 2019, China’s energy consumption per unit of GDP decreased by a cumulative 24.4 percent, equivalent to a reduction of about 2.7 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions, Zhang Jianhua, head of the National Energy Administration ( NEA), said at a press conference on Monday at the unveiling of white paper.
It points to an average annual GDP growth rate of 7 percent that was underpinned by an average annual rise of 2.8 percent in energy consumption, according to Zhang.
Clean energy as a percentage of China’s energy consumption has hit 23.4 percent, 8.9 percentage points higher than in 2012, the white paper said, and the country’s cumulative installed capacities for hydro, wind and solar power all ranked No. 1 globally. As a result of green energy development, the nation’s carbon emissions intensity was lowered by 48.1 percent in 2019 from 2005.
The Chinese leadership’s bold pledge to have CO2 emissions peak before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060 adds energy structure to emissions- cutting efforts, beefing up calls to go deeper into the carbon trading market.
“Carbon trading is an important means of advancing carbon neutrality in a market- oriented manner as it allows for more efficient and cost- effective emissions,” Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, told the Global Times on Monday.
Carbon trading enables the purchase and sale of permits and credits for CO2 emissions.
A nationwide carbon market is expected to be up and running next year, and the power generation sector -- as the first major industry to be included into the market -- will rev up the clean and low- carbon shift among power plants, the Economic Information Daily reported on Monday. Steel, chemical and other sectors will be included later.
The national carbon market will eventually cover more than 2,000 firms in the power generation sector and involve tradable quotas of about 4 billion tons, higher than the combined quotas in the EU – 2.8 billon tons, Lai Xiaoming, chairman of the Shanghai Environment and Energy Exchange Corp, the operator of the Shanghai carbon emissions trading exchange, told the Global Times.
The EU’s Emissions Trading System is the world’s No. 1 carbon market, representing 80 percent of trading volumes.
China’s national carbon market will be the world’s largest by quota size and Shanghai is set to become the largest carbon spot goods trading hub in the world, according to Lai.
The nation’s first pilot carbon trading program was launched in Shenzhen in June 2013. Subsequently, experimental trading programs were rolled out in six other designated areas – the cities of Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Chongqing and the provinces of Guangdong and Hubei.
As of August, the pilot trading systems covered nearly 3,000 major industrial emitters, with cumulative trade totaling 406 million tons of CO2 with the equivalent greenhouse gas and transaction cost amounting to 9.28 billion yuan ($ 1.41 billion) in turnover, said official at the Ministry of Ecology and Environment.