It has built the world's largest carbon market, with a cumulative turnover of more than 8.7 billion yuan

President Xi Jinping pointed out in a written speech at the APEC Business Leaders Summit that in the past 10 years, China has been one of the countries with the fastest reduction in energy intensity in the world, exceeding the target of reducing carbon emission intensity by 40% to 45% by 2020, and reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 5.8 billion tons. China has built the world's largest carbon market and clean power generation system.

Promoting green and low-carbon economic and social development is the key to achieving high-quality development. In the context of the goal of "carbon peak and carbon neutrality", carbon emission trading has emerged as a new trading mechanism for emission reduction and carbon reduction. By establishing the value orientation of "carbon emission has costs, carbon reduction has benefits", incentives for low-carbon behaviors can be realized. In recent years, China has changed from a unified national carbon emission trading market to carbon sink trading to a carbon inclusive system, and various forms of "carbon economy" and "carbon finance" have added momentum to green development.

There are costs to carbon emissions, and there are benefits to carbon reduction The national carbon market covers 4.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually

On Zhongbei Road, Wuchang District, Wuhan City, Hubei Province, a silver-white building stands out in the sun. The building has a resounding name "China Carbon Deng Building", because the National Carbon Emission Allowance Registration and Clearing Agency (hereinafter referred to as China Carbon Deng) is located here.

China Carbon is the registration center, pricing center and financial service center of the national carbon emission trading market (hereinafter referred to as the carbon market). The so-called "carbon emission trading" is a market mechanism used to reduce global carbon dioxide emissions, simply put, after the competent authority sets the total amount of carbon emission allowances, it issues greenhouse gas emission allowances to enterprises that need to be compulsorily reduced. In July 2021, the national unified carbon market officially opened, and a total of 2,162 key emitting enterprises in the power generation industry were included in the first compliance cycle, which is the first time that China has implemented carbon emission reduction responsibilities to enterprises through the national unified carbon market.

Walking into the carbon emission rights registration and settlement hall of China Carbon Deng, the large screen in front of you displays the K-line chart of the national carbon market and various transaction data, and the hall has four business counters for account, registration, settlement and information, and the staff is busy behind the counter. The national carbon emission market adopts a "two-city" model, with Shanghai as the trading center and Wuhan as the registration and settlement center. The relevant person in charge of the Hubei Provincial Department of Ecology and Environment said that "China Carbon Deng" is like a "bank" and "warehouse" of carbon assets, undertaking the registration of carbon emission rights, transaction settlement, distribution and performance, etc., and is the big data hub of carbon assets in the country.

From the account registration of thousands of enterprises to the allocation and issuance of carbon emission allowances, the confirmation of rights registration, and the flow of funds, the processing of massive data must be completed in the background of the national carbon market registration system. According to the person in charge of China Carbon Deng, China Carbon Deng is equipped with a huge database of two places and three centers, and through the main and standby two inter-provincial special lines, the daily carbon market transaction data is transmitted from Shanghai to Hubei, and finally Hubei will carry out the day-end settlement processing, and the system docking process is orderly. According to the data, from the opening of the market to November 21, the cumulative total turnover of the national carbon emission trading market was 199 million tons, and the cumulative total turnover was 8.772 billion yuan.

At present, all the enterprises included in the key emitting enterprises in the first compliance cycle of the national carbon market have completed the account opening and binding work through the registration system, and China Carbon Register is promoting the opening of new registration accounts of key emitting enterprises in the second compliance cycle of the national carbon market. The relevant person in charge of China Carbon Deng said that in order to facilitate enterprises to handle business, all business processes of the national carbon market registration system have been handled online, and the submission of paper materials can also be mailed. At the same time, the staff of China Carbon Deng often take the initiative to provide door-to-door service and set up a hotline to provide consultation and answer questions, so that enterprises can "run less errands".

"Carbon emissions have costs, carbon reduction has benefits", the national carbon market is through such an incentive and restraint mechanism to enhance the awareness of environmental protection of enterprises, and promote the transformation of enterprises to save energy and reduce carbon emissions. "For the international community, the successful construction of the national carbon market is a practical action to reflect China's image as a responsible major country and take the lead in implementing the internationally determined contribution targets, and fully demonstrates China's sincere hope to achieve mutual trust and cooperation between the North and the South in global climate governance. For China to firmly follow the path of green and low-carbon transformation and development, and achieve the goal of carbon peak and carbon neutrality, the national carbon market is the core policy tool to control carbon dioxide emissions by using market-oriented mechanisms. According to the latest information disclosed by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, in 2021, China's carbon dioxide emissions per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) will be 3.8% lower than in 2020 and 50.8% lower than in 2005. Since the official launch of the national carbon emission trading market in 2021, the annual carbon dioxide emissions covered by the national carbon emission trading market have reached about 4.5 billion tons.

More blue carbon products can be monetized, "I didn't expect that farmed kelp can not only generate income, but also sequester carbon"

Nanri Town, Putian City, Fujian Province, is located on a small island in the southeast sea of China, with white waves and blue coastline is a unique ecological resource here. The sea as far as the eye can see, is not only a good place for fish, shrimp and algae to grow, but also a huge treasure trove of blue carbon.

Blue carbon, also known as "ocean carbon sinks", refers to carbon that is absorbed and stored by coastal ecosystems such as mangroves and marine ecosystems such as algae. Studies have shown that the ocean's carbon sequestration capacity and efficiency are far greater than those of other ecosystems, 20 times that of land. As a national marine ranching demonstration area, Nanri Town has a huge area of algae farming, and recently, in addition to fishery farming, the town has also eaten "ecological rice" - through the sale of marine carbon sinks, to achieve an increase in income. Not long ago, Yunwan Village and Yanxia Village in Nanri Town sold more than 85,000 tons of blue carbon through the marine carbon sink trading service platform of Xiamen Property Rights Trading Center. Holding the transaction voucher, Zhang Chengchang, secretary of the party branch and director of the village committee of Yanxia Village, couldn't help but sigh: "The village has been cultivating dragon mustard and kelp for a long time, but I didn't expect it to not only generate income, but also sequester carbon." Thanks to the party's good policies, we have caught up with the days of making money from ecology, which not only increased the income of the village collective, but also improved everyone's awareness of environmental protection, so that everyone can care more about the ocean. ”

In recent years, there has been a lot of marine carbon sink trading in coastal provinces like Nanri Town. Wang Bo, head of the comprehensive department of Xiamen Property Rights Trading Center in Fujian Province, told reporters that since the center established the country's first marine carbon sink trading service platform in July last year, it has completed 127,000 tons of marine carbon sink trading, and the trading volume has continued to grow.

What is the difference between ocean carbon sinks and carbon emissions trading, and how are they bought and sold? Wang Bo said that marine carbon sink trading is different from the mandatory emission reduction of national carbon emission rights, and is a voluntary emission reduction transaction. It is mainly aimed at some market entities that do not have mandatory emission reduction tasks but want to voluntarily purchase emission reductions to achieve their own carbon neutrality, which is a supplement to the carbon market.

"Some village committees or enterprises will bring the marine carbon sink to our central platform after being measured by relevant institutions; Some companies and units that need to purchase carbon credits will also contact us. The role of the platform is to help both supply and demand sides reach a deal. Wang Bo said.

At present, the business section of the marine carbon sequestration trading service platform is not only fishery carbon sequestration trading like Nanri Town, but also mangrove blue carbon trading. "Mangroves are an important part of the three major blue carbon ecosystems, and China is one of the few countries in the world that has three coastal blue carbon ecosystems of seagrass beds, mangroves and salt marshes, and has great potential in the development of mangrove marine carbon sinks." Wang Bo said that in order to better develop and utilize mangrove marine carbon sinks, Xiamen Property Rights Trading Center has cooperated with relevant banks to set up the country's first "blue carbon fund" to carry out mangrove carbon sink trading.

In recent years, China's coastal provinces have paid more and more attention to the trading of marine carbon sink products, and have successively focused on the development of blue carbon and issued medium and long-term development plans, and more and more blue carbon products have been successfully realized.

In Hainan Province, which has 2.09 million square kilometers of sea area, the blue carbon economy is developing rapidly. In May this year, Hainan's first blue carbon ecological product was successfully traded, more than 3,000 tons of carbon sinks generated by the Haikou Sanjiang Farm Mangrove Restoration Project in the past five years were successfully sold, and the proceeds will be used for the management and protection of mangroves in the demonstration area and public welfare projects in the surrounding communities and schools of the project, further contributing to local ecological protection and green development. In addition, the Hainan International Carbon Emission Trading Center was also approved to be established this year, relying on Hainan's huge blue carbon resources, the center actively builds marine carbon sink development services and supply and demand trading platforms, develops marine carbon sink standard systems, and is committed to "going out" to participate in the construction of the international blue carbon sink standard system.

Incentive mechanism drives the whole people to reduce emissions, "the accumulation of small amounts will form a huge emission reduction"

What are some small actions in life that can help reduce carbon emissions? Some relevant institutions have made such statistics: a person who buys one less unnecessary clothes can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 2.5 kilograms, and one less plastic bag can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 0.1 grams. Du Shaozhong, vice chairman of the All-China Environment Federation, said that in recent years, more and more attention has been paid to low-carbon consumption and green life, and the enthusiasm of enterprises and the public to participate is getting higher and higher. Although everyone's daily life emission reduction behavior is small, the low-carbon actions of all people add up to a huge amount of emission reduction.

Although individual behavior is important for energy conservation and emission reduction, due to the limited industries covered by China's unified carbon market, some small and medium-sized enterprises and individual carbon trading behaviors cannot be included. In this case, an incentive mechanism specifically for citizens and small and micro enterprises to save energy and reduce carbon - the carbon inclusive mechanism was born.

When it comes to "carbon inclusion", some people may feel unfamiliar, but in fact, many people have participated. For example, some apps currently have carbon accounts for individuals, and residents can take public transportation, waste recycling, and garbage classification, all of which can be converted into corresponding green points, which can be deducted for cash or exchanged for gifts, to encourage the public to practice more low-carbon lifestyles.

Li Zhiqing, executive director of the Green Finance Research Center at Fudan University, said that it is difficult to require consumers to consciously reduce carbon emissions, but they can be given value to carbon emission reduction behaviors through the carbon inclusive mechanism. It is then up to companies to buy these carbon reductions in exchange for more carbon credits. At present, many regions and enterprises have launched personal carbon accounts, using digital "carbon ledgers" to calculate the carbon emission reductions generated by consumers' practice of green and low-carbon life.

In addition to individuals, many corporate parks have also set up their own carbon inclusive systems. On November 16, the Suzhou Industrial Park Carbon Inclusive System in Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province was officially launched, which is the first market-oriented carbon inclusive system in China to realize voluntary emission reduction trading.

Suzhou Industrial Park is one of the first batch of "green and low-carbon demonstration parks" in China, and there are a large number of distributed photovoltaics in the park. Talking about the reasons for the establishment of a carbon inclusive system, Chen Xia, deputy researcher of the Economic Development Commission of the park, said: "On the one hand, it is difficult to verify a large number of carbon emission reductions such as distributed photovoltaics, and it is impossible to form effective carbon assets to participate in carbon trading; On the other hand, many enterprises urgently need to purchase carbon emission reductions to achieve corporate carbon neutrality, and need to establish a more flexible and diversified local carbon market. ”

The first batch of carbon inclusive projects in the park are distributed photovoltaic emission reduction projects in the park, and the Suzhou carbon inclusive intelligent service platform has been built to provide relevant registration and accounting services. According to Chen Xia, project owners registered on the platform can authorize the platform to obtain distributed photovoltaic power generation data and apply for the issuance of emission reductions corresponding to the project, which will be issued to the owner's emission reduction registration account after review. Enterprises that have buy or sell needs can publish their own buying and selling needs on the platform, and can also query the needs published by other participants. After finding a counterparty that meets the requirements, the platform can provide the contact information of the other party for OTC trading between the two parties.

Compared with the national carbon market, the regional carbon inclusive system is a more flexible voluntary emission reduction trading mechanism, which can provide a channel for more enterprises, communities, households and individuals to effectively participate in the "dual carbon" practice. On November 11 this year, China submitted the Progress Report on China's Implementation of Nationally Determined Contributions (2022) to the 27th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. In the "New Achievements in Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Key Areas", it is mentioned that an innovative voluntary emission reduction mechanism - carbon inclusiveness will be carried out to encourage the whole society to participate in emission reduction, and guide and drive the public to practice green and low-carbon lifestyles.

Tao Lan, executive director of the All-China Environment Federation's Green Recycling and Inclusion Committee, said that public participation is an important force for achieving green and low-carbon development. Next, it is necessary to carry out more extensive publicity on the carbon inclusive mechanism, expand the carbon inclusive cooperation network, and use digital means to drive the whole people to practice emission reduction.