The Chinese national carbon emission trading scheme (ETS) has officially begun trading with 4.1 MtCO2 quotas worth CNY210m (US$32m) exchanged on 16 July 2021. The opening price was CNY48/tCO2 (US$7.4/tCO2), and the price closed at CNY51.2/tCO2 (US$7.9/tCO2).
The ETS has been on the works for several years. The country started with seven regional trading platforms in 2013 and launched a national ETS in December 2017 but had to work on legal and technical infrastructure construction before launching operations. The market, which currently cover over 4 GtCO2/year of emissions (around 30% of China’s total CO2 emissions), includes 2,225 power plants. The scheme is expected to be extended late in 2021 to seven major carbon-emitting industries, including steel, chemicals, and paper.