Climate change: China’s voluntary carbon-credit market reboots in ‘milestone’ for emissions goals

New project registration under the China Certified Emission Reduction (CCER) scheme had been suspended because of low trading volume and a lack of standardisation in carbon audits, although existing projects continued to trade.

The long-awaited revamped CCER scheme now allows any enterprise to purchase carbon credits to offset its emissions, not just businesses currently covered under China’s compulsory national carbon trading market, known as the national Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), according to state-owned China Central Television (CCTV).

The upgraded CCER scheme is expected to supplement the ETS to provide more diversified carbon financial instruments and trading products to accelerate China’s progress in reaching carbon neutrality by 2060, according to Qin Yan, lead carbon analyst at London Stock Exchange Group.

“This is a milestone for China’s carbon market construction,” she said. “The two markets, the compulsory ETS and the voluntary CCER, will cover enterprises, entities and consumers in the whole society, unleashing the potential of carbon trading in achieving China’s dual carbon targets” of peaking carbon emissions by 2030 and achieving net zero emissions by 2060.

Current trading is mainly focused on the qualification and sales of carbon reductions by projects in four major areas, including forestation, solar thermal power, offshore wind power generation and mangrove revegetation, according to CCTV.