Abstract
As a responsible world power, China has established quantitative carbon emission reduction targets and started to establish carbon trading pilots in 2013. Successfully connection and a certain size of the carbon market can further enhance the liquidity of carbon allowances and, to a certain extent, contribute to the enthusiasm of enterprises to participate. This paper gives an overview of the past operational development of China’s eight carbon market pilots, the current problems in the national carbon market, the elements that need to be improved during the establishment process, and the feasibility of future connection between China’s carbon market. In addition, the international carbon market was summarized and analyzed. We found that, compared with the already mature carbon market in the world, there is still a big gap between China and these countries’ carbon market in various respects, such as the carbon price formation mechanism, the carbon quota allocation, carbon emission coverage sources, and legal and policy systems. Thus, China should manifest the pricing mechanism, unify the allocation of carbon quotas, cover the sources of emissions, introduce clear laws and regulations in the construction of the carbon market, all these will ensure the smooth operation of the national carbon market.
Highlights
The emission of several greenhouse gases (GHGs), but especially carbon dioxide, is the main cause of global warming [1]
Since the Kyoto Protocol came into effect, many countries worldwide have established carbon trading markets successively to promote the effective reduction of carbon emission, realizing the development of a low-carbon economy and the construction of a low-carbon society [5,6,7,8,9]
Non-centralized geographical locations of carbon emissions’ trading pilots, enterprises in carbon emissions would lack of activity, lack of liquidity of carbon quotas, and sluggish trading volume, are some of the obstacles to the development of China’s carbon market mechanism, making it difficult for China to obtain pricing power and initiative in the international carbon trading market [27,43,44]
Summary
The emission of several greenhouse gases (GHGs), but especially carbon dioxide, is the main cause of global warming [1]. Since the Kyoto Protocol came into effect, many countries worldwide have established carbon trading markets successively to promote the effective reduction of carbon emission, realizing the development of a low-carbon economy and the construction of a low-carbon society [5,6,7,8,9]. Energies 2019, 12, 1663 quantitative target of carbon emissions’ reduction and has been successively established pilot projects for carbon trading since 2013, which shows that China has the courage to shoulder its international responsibilities [12,13,14,15]. The Chinese carbon market (CCM) is expected to cover 3 to 4 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions. With the development of the carbon market and the need for cooperative emission reduction, the trend of establishing a global carbon market is becoming more and more obvious.
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