Tested-as-true data crucial for emissions goals: China Daily editorial

The national carbon emissions trading market is the bedrock of emissions control in the country, and thus instrumental to implementing the country's climate-response policies.

Launched in July, it currently only applies to the power-generating industry and is expected to cover eight major energy-dense industries, and nearly three-fourths of the carbon released in China by 2025. Its smooth operation and healthy development is therefore of critical importance to fulfilling the national emissions reduction goals.

Emissions trading is widely accepted as a best-possible policy to enable greenhouse gas emitting enterprises to control their total emissions volume at the lowest cost. An essential policy tool for the country's accomplishment of its carbon neutrality goal, its success depends heavily on accurate and reliable data.

We are familiar with enterprises ignoring emissions control standards and quotas, and GDP-minded local authorities extending protective umbrellas for them. Dishonesty remains a stumbling block on the road ahead, as the Ministry of Ecology and Environment just found out.

In an extensive survey of the compiled emissions release data, the ministry found four third-party emissions verification agencies, in Shandong and Liaoning provinces and Beijing, had modified or falsified test reports, made fake coal samples, or presented false assessments for their clients.

The largest of its kind in the world, the national emissions trading market covers 2,162 enterprises and 4.5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide release. What the national authorities discovered in the first performance cycle, which came to an end on December 31, 2021, and was only six months long, is a timely call for vigilance to root out such malpractices and a reminder of the need for oversight.

That the work of emissions verification was consigned to non-governmental institutions was initially driven by the popular belief that third-party agencies who have no stake in the businesses would give honest assessments. The collusion exposed between polluting enterprises and emissions evaluators shows otherwise. As long as there are chances of profit-making, as long as there are loopholes in government policies, there will be people seeking to exploit them. The only way to mend the fences seems to be to enhance the supervision of these first-line supervisors.

The authorities must try their best to plug all the loopholes, and identify any potential ones as soon as possible. Or these will deal a heavy blow to the fairness and thus the credibility of the trading regime, which will ultimately compromise the national campaign as a whole.