BEIJING — China unveiled its first pilot carbon emissions exchange Tuesday, though plans for a nationwide rollout and efforts to apply the program to some heavy industries could be undermined by a slowdown in the nation’s economy.
High-emission industries like aluminum and steel are likely to resist higher costs as they are already battling weak prices caused by tepid demand and too much supply.
“It is a very big concern for Beijing and for local governments — how to strike a balance between controlling emissions and maintaining economic growth, especially amid a general slowdown in the economy,” said Shawn He, a lawyer and carbon specialist at Hualian law firm in Beijing.
Although the exchange, in Shenzhen, will not immediately lead to a big cut in China’s emissions of greenhouse gases, now the world’s highest, it does still represent a statement of intent by Beijing, campaigners said.
“This is just a baby step when you look at the total quantity of emissions, but it enables China to establish institutions for carbon controls for the first time,” said Li Yan, head of the climate and energy campaign in China for the environmental group Greenpeace.
Under such a cap-and-trade program, companies must buy allowances from others if they want to exceed carbon limits.
But there is still a long way to go in China, and the design of its pilot platforms — as well as the national program that would eventually replace them — face economic and social pressures.
“Of course, decision makers have to look at the social impact; the carbon market cannot be designed in an idealistic way, and you have to make sure the design of the mechanism will address such issues as social stability,” said Wu Changhua, China director with Climate Group, a consulting firm based in London.
And the examples set by carbon markets overseas are not encouraging, with the global financial crisis saddling Europe’s emissions trading program with a crushing oversupply of carbon credits and record low prices.
The Shenzhen carbon exchange is one of seven pilot projects due to be started this year or next and will involve 635 local industrial companies accounting for more than a quarter of local gross domestic product and more than 30 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions.
But that is still a drop in the ocean compared with the country’s total emissions — about eight billion tons last year.
Other platforms due to start in 2013 include one in Shanghai, where Baoshan Iron Steel, the leading steel producer, will participate, and one in Hubei Province, home of Wuhan Iron Steel.
Although giant oil companies like Cnooc and PetroChina will take part in the Shenzhen program, few of the companies involved will be from heavy-industry sectors, and figuring out how to include them is likely to be a challenge.
Late last year, China’s industry ministry told such companies to reduce their carbon intensity rates — the volume of carbon dioxide produced per unit of output, based on the rate from 2010 — by 18 percent by 2015. That was a huge burden for a sector already bruised by rising costs and minimal returns, with the country’s economy growing at its slowest pace in 13 years in 2012 and data so far this year surprisingly negative.
But while it will add to the costs of struggling companies, it could also give Beijing another tool to bring wayward industries in line with state policies and to force polluting companies to close.
Carbon trade will give local governments an alternative source of revenue as well as an incentive to free up some of their carbon dioxide allocations by closing small steel mills.
Jiang Feitao, a researcher at the China Academy of Social Sciences who has studied the impact of environmental policy on the steel sector, said smaller companies would be hit hardest by costs.
After Shenzhen, Shanghai and Hubei Province, four more pilot exchanges are to open in Beijing, the sprawling industrial municipalities Tianjin and Chongqing, and Guangdong Province, a major manufacturing center, probably next year.
The National Development and Reform Commission said that the seven pilot projects would begin integrating in 2015 and that a nationwide platform would go into operation before 2020. But the seven regions were given considerable leeway to design their own programs and it remains unclear how they will integrate.
“My guess at this moment is that they will set up a national platform and gradually integrate the seven pilot schemes into that one, but we don’t know the architecture yet. This is very new,” said Ms. Wu of Climate Group.
Mr. He, the lawyer, said China still needed legislation to give legal recognition to the concept of carbon trading. It also needed to solve the longstanding problem of measuring emissions.
“I don’t think it is possible to get to a national market by 2015 — there are many technical issues to be addressed to integrate these islands into one continent,” Mr. He said.
China also eventually needs to set a national limit on emissions and apply it to individual industries and provinces to establish a full countrywide trading program.
“Realistically, we are looking at 2025 before we have a cap. A few years ago some were saying 2040 or 2035, so we have already made progress,” Ms. Wu said. “Growth will continue to be the No. 1 priority. Cap-and-trade will be one of the ways of trying to grow differently, but China is still a developing country and we have to grow.”
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/19/business/energy-environment/china-introduces-local-program-for-reducing-emissions.html?partner=rss&emc=rss