The Federal Environment Ministry (BMUB) supports China in introducing a national emissions trading scheme. Priorities include legal advice and training of staff from administration and industry. As part of her travels to China, Federal Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks visited the Shanghai Environment and Energy Exchange today. Shanghai is one of the pilot regions for emissions trading in China.
Minister Hendricks commented: "China introducing a nationwide emissions trading scheme in 2017 is a milestone of climate action. I am delighted that we can share our experience with China. Emissions trading offers great opportunities to achieve our climate policy goals at low costs. The more countries that join in the better."
China has been testing the instrument of emissions trading in seven pilot regions since 2013. In total, these pilot regions cover emissions of around 1.2 billion tonnes of CO2 and thereby almost as much as the EU emissions trading scheme with 1.8 billion tonnes. In 2017, China aims to introduce a national emissions trading scheme that will include around 10,000 companies from the eight sectors of energy, oil processing, chemicals, glass and ceramics, steel, non-ferrous metals, paper and aviation. The estimated emissions of these sectors add up to around 4 billion tonnes of CO2. This would make China's emissions trading scheme the largest worldwide.
The Federal Environment Ministry has been supporting this development through the International Climate Initiative since 2012. This project has a volume of 5.5 million euros and is being implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH and the Chinese National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC). Actual measures include workshops, expert consultations, study trips to Germany and internships at the German Emissions Trading Authority.