China faces challenges in achieving emission targets around 2030

It may be not so easy for China to peak its greenhouse gas emission around 2030 as the country has said in a joint announcement with the US regarding climate change last week, market sources said.

Economic development will be the first challenge, because China may not have similar economic levels as the developed countries had by then, He Jiankun, the former vice principal of Tsinghua University and an expert of the China Climate Change Expert Committee said on 14 November.

The other challenge will be quota prices of the national emission trading scheme (ETS), which should range from yuan (CNY) 10/tonne to CNY25/tonne, with the annual increase at about 8%, in order to maintain the impact of emission on the GDP within 1%, according to Teng Fei, a scholar of Tsinghua University.

However, a manager of a domestic chemical company expressed his concern on last Friday that such a price range may be not enough to touch the nerve of large compliance entities while small-to-medium size companies will face extra costs.

The national pilot ETS will be launched in 2016. According to the policy roadmap of the National Development and Reform Commission, the capacity of expected national carbon market will be 3-4 billion tonnes. Kun Yang