The national carbon emissions trading system will be launched in 2017

The national carbon emissions trading system will be launched in 2017

Recently, the Joint Chairman's Statement on Climate Change between China and the United States revealed that China plans to launch a national carbon emissions trading system in 2017, covering major industries such as steel, electricity, chemicals, building materials, and paper. Prior to this, most of the information regarding the construction of the national carbon emission market was informally disclosed by officials from various ministries and commissions on various forums. Although this is the first time that China has officially established a clear timetable for the national carbon market.

The so-called carbon emission permit refers to the total amount of greenhouse gas emissions during energy consumption, including tradable carbon emission permits and required carbon emission permits.

For example, an energy consuming company has an annual carbon emission quota of 10000 tons. If a company reduces its annual carbon emissions to 8000 tons through technological transformation and pollution reduction, the remaining 2000 tons of carbon emissions within its quota can be traded. For energy consuming enterprises whose original quotas are insufficient to sustain production, they can purchase carbon emission permits from other enterprises. Through this method, it is possible to control the total amount of carbon emissions over a large area; Encourage enterprises to improve energy-saving and emission reduction technologies.

The concept of carbon emission permits originated in 1968, when American economist Dales first proposed the concept of "emissions trading", which establishes legal rights to pollutant emissions and allows rights to be traded in the form of "emission permits". At that time, Dales provided a case study on water pollution control. Since then, emissions trading has been seen as a means to reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide.