Carbon pricing in China: Looking ahead to carbon neutrality

Environment China

Today's podcast looks in detail at the market's expectations for carbon pricing in China, based on the results of the China Carbon Pricing Survey 2020, at http://www.chinacarbon.info/. The survey has been around for long enough to provide a view of how market expectations have changed over time and what types of companies are seeing the most changes. We get into a lot of discussion that goes beyond the actual findings in the report, like how asset values are likely to change, what it means that so few respondents view the ETS as having modified investment practices, and how the results would compare if the same survey was done in Europe.

Our guests:

Huw Slater is the Lead Climate Specialist at ICF’s Beijing office and supports the EU-China ETS Platform. He is the lead author of the China Carbon Pricing Survey report.

Dimitri DeBoer leads the china office of Client Earth, a European NGO focused on environmental law, which works with the Ministry of Ecology and Environment. He is also special advisor to the CCICED, the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development.

Wang Shu is lead management consultant at ICF. He is a former director in the Climate Change Department in the Chinese National Development and Reform Commission and has over ten years of experience working on climate change and clean energy, especially related to regional and national carbon markets.

Special note: Due to technical difficulties, we had to re-record parts of the podcast. As a result some (but not all!) portions refer to "this year" as 2020 and "next year" as 2021. The miracle of time travel! If something seems confusing, just mentally modify to the year that seems correct, given that we knew then and still know that trading will begin in 2021, not "next year" as is stated in several spots!