National trading center being planned to help capital achieve green targets

Beijing municipal authorities are planning to build a national trading center for China Certified Emission Reduction, or CCER, as part of the city's efforts to further cut carbon emissions and achieve renewable energy goals.

CCER refers to emissions reduction activities made by companies voluntarily, such as afforestation and using clean energy.

The trading mechanism encourages companies to explore carbon emission projects on their own initiative. Emission reductions will be traded at the center, which aims to introduce more social capital to invest in new clean energy technologies.

Ming Dengli, director of the climate change department at the Beijing Municipal Ecology and Environment Bureau, said on Feb 16 during a media tour to the China Beijing Green Exchange that the capital has been striving to promote innovative green and low-carbon development.

In 2013, Beijing started to pilot carbon emissions trading. More than 800 key carbon emitters in eight industries, including power, petrochemicals and cement, were included in the local carbon emissions trading market.

By the end of last year, the accumulated turnover of Beijing's carbon market exceeded 2.1 billion yuan ($333 million), Ming said.

Last year, the average price of online carbon transactions reached 72.86 yuan per metric ton, topping the rates of six other local pilot markets in China.

The market-oriented measures have had an obvious effect in reducing carbon emissions. For example, Beijing Public Transport Group was listed on the exchange in 2016. Since then, the company has promoted electric vehicles and those using natural gas, in place of diesel vehicles.

In 2020, the company's diesel consumption fell by nearly 60 percent compared with the level in 2016, and its carbon emissions intensity dropped by more than 11 percent.

Since 2018, its carbon emissions quota has shown a surplus, and in 2020, the surplus stood at 39,000 tons with a market value of some 2.7 million yuan.

Beijing Drainage Group is using biogas and photovoltaic power generation to cut carbon emissions. The company, which achieved a quota surplus in 2020, plans to reduce carbon emissions by more than 20 percent in 2025 compared with the level in 2020.