保护环境:中国将引进碳交易

Holidaymakers relax on a beach in northeast China. But in a few decades, this place could be underwater. Experts predict sea levels could rise up to one meter by the end of this century due to climate change. Protecting the environment is a priority for China. Recently the government announced a plan to reduce harmful emissions by introducing a carbon trading scheme.

Deborah Seligsohn is an expert at Washington-based environmental think tank the World Resources Institute. She explains what this means.

"With carbon trading major sources of carbon dioxide pollution are issued in allowance, saying you're allowed to emit so many units of carbon dioxide per year, and no more. If you emit more, you'll have to buy a permit from someone else, buy part of their allowance to enable you to emit more. If you emit less you can sell that permit to someone else."

The idea is to reward companies that produce few emissions, and punish those that emit a lot through financial incentives. The scheme's been adopted in Europe and America. China's aim is to introduce it on a trial basis. Jun Ying is an analyst at clean energy consultants Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

"Personally, I'm not quite sure how quickly China will roll out this scheme on a large scale to include more sectors or even the whole economy, regions or cities. But initially we heard this will be set up and focus on a few sectors or regions or cities."

But how suited is this for the Chinese market? Deborah Seligsohn again.

"Well, that's a big question. Because it's not easy to run a carbon trading system. So there are a lot of people that argue China's better suited to a carbon tax approach than a carbon trading system. Because China has a very effective tax system, so introducing another tax may be a relatively good choice for China."

However, Jun Ying from Bloomberg New Energy Finance says carbon trading can reduce emissions and boost the whole economy.

"You need traders, you need all the financial players. It's not just between industry players, like companies or factories, it can also introduce brokers or traders or secondary buyers or sellers to the market. So this means a lot of opportunities like job creation and a GDP boost for the whole economy."

Carbon trading has been criticized for allowing big polluters to continue to pollute. But Deborah Seligsohn says one advantage is putting a system in place that can help implement stricter emission controls in the future.

"All of these systems are set up with the methodology to allow much more restraints on emissions. But without this and without global participation, you're not going to be reducing emissions to a level that avoids catastrophic climate change."

Global sea level rose at a rate of 3 millimeters per year between 1993 and 2009. Much faster than over the previous 100 years. Carbon trading may be one way we can ensure the effort we make to reduce emissions today is more than just a drop in the ocean. 

For CRI, I'm Dominic Swire.