China to Complete Climate Change Law Draft in Two Years

18/04/13 China plans to draw on the experience of seven regional carbon markets as it drafts new national legislation in one or two years, according to the country’s lead climate negotiator. The nation, the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases linked to global warming, will “actively promote” the legislation, Xie Zhenhua, vice chairman at the National Development and Reform Commission, said today in Beijing. “Shanghai and Shenzhen are trying to set rules for carbon trading,” providing expertise for the nation, he said. China, which surpassed Japan in 2010 to become the world’s second-biggest economy, plans to cut carbon emissions per unit of economic output by 40 percent to 45 percent before 2020 and learn from carbon-pricing efforts in South Korea, Australia and the European Union, Xie said. “The carbon price depends on emission-cutting efforts,” Xie said. The EU price is “very low,” probably because they allocated too many emission quotas when designing their market. “We are learning lessons.” The Shanghai carbon exchange plans to take back allowances when carbon prices are low and sell more when they are high “to maintain relatively stable levels,” Xie said. China’s national climate legislation will have a binding effect, Charlie Cao, a Beijing-based analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said by phone today. “This will bring stable expectations to investors on a carbon market. Otherwise they don’t have confidence.” China asked seven cities and provinces last year to set regional caps and pilot programs for trading emission rights. The country set targets to cut carbon intensity reduction and energy consumption by 2015 for each city and province, Xie said. The total amounts of carbon emissions can be estimated with planned economic growth, he said. China will then set quotas for carbon emissions and allocate them into key enterprises, Xie said. Shenzhen, scheduled to start June 18, will be the first to begin emissions trading, and Shanghai is likely to follow this year, he said. To contact the reporter on this story: Feifei Shen in Beijing at fshen11@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Reed Landberg at landberg@bloomberg.net