During the 14th Five-Year Plan, the petrochemical sector will be included in the carbon market
Expert advice: actively respond to the carbon market and find out your own "carbon background"
Sinochem New Network News On November 15, the 2022 Petrochemical Industry Low Carbon Symposium was held online. The meeting pointed out that the carbon market is an important market-based emission reduction policy tool, and making good use of the carbon trading mechanism is a key way for the petrochemical industry to control the total amount of carbon emissions, reduce the cost of emission reduction, and obtain additional benefits. The meeting also revealed that during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, petrochemical and other industries will be gradually included in the national carbon market.
"The international industrial investment, energy market, capital flow, and trade market are changing, and the global carbon market pattern is being reshaped. Chai Qimin, director of the strategic planning department of the National Center for Climate Strategy, said that the EU's decision to impose carbon tariffs on imported organic chemicals, fertilizers, plastics and other products will have a potential and far-reaching impact on the domestic petrochemical industry. Therefore, the establishment and improvement of the carbon market is not only an inevitable choice for China to deal with international trade barriers, but also a key measure to strengthen the control of the total carbon emissions of key industries. According to him, during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, petrochemical and other industries will gradually be included in the national carbon market.
Li Yongliang, deputy director of the Industrial Development Department of the China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation, pointed out that a sound carbon emission trading market system is conducive to carbon pricing, which is an important foundation for achieving the "dual carbon" goal.
"Compared with imperative, fiscal and tax emission reduction policy tools, market-based emission reduction policy tools have outstanding advantages in terms of cost-effectiveness, comprehensiveness, flexibility, etc., and can more accurately control carbon emissions. Zhang Binliang, general manager of Beijing Zhongchuang Carbon Investment Education Consulting Co., Ltd. and IFC carbon finance expert of the World Bank's International Finance Corporation, said that according to the operation of the domestic carbon trading pilot, it is feasible to control carbon emissions with market mechanisms. By giving full play to the decisive role of the carbon market in resource allocation, it can not only guide more capital and technology to invest in carbon emission reduction industries to reduce the cost of achieving the "dual carbon" goal, but also help form a market-oriented carbon pricing mechanism, and help to transmit a clear signal of carbon price changes to the upstream and downstream, and then form a reversal mechanism. For the petrochemical industry, actively responding to the carbon market, finding out its own "carbon background", making full use of the carbon trading mechanism to expand new investment and financing channels, and developing green emission reduction technologies and negative carbon technologies under different production scenarios can further improve energy efficiency, reduce carbon emission intensity, and promote the high-quality development of industry enterprises.
Hong Sheng, a senior managing partner at McKinsey & Company, believes that the carbon market can help petrochemical companies create greater value. Specifically, by purchasing carbon emission credits to make up for the shortcomings of internal emission reduction measures, and building a comprehensive and credible net-zero pathway, it will help enterprises achieve their carbon reduction goals. By packaging carbon credits and existing emission reduction schemes and selling them as zero-carbon products, it helps companies develop new products; By establishing and optimizing the carbon emission allowance supply business, and expanding the layout in emerging technologies such as CCUS (carbon capture, utilization and storage) and DACCS (direct air carbon capture and storage) that can generate returns through carbon reduction, it will help companies launch new business routes.
