What's Up with Carbon Trading in China - with Yan Qin and Stian Reklev

Environment China

You have probably heard China's carbon market described as the largest carbon market in the world. That's only proper, since China is the largest carbon emitting country and the carbon market will cover the coal power sector, which accounts for around half of the country's emissions.

2020 was originally billed as a major year for climate policy, both globally and in China. Where does China's carbon market policy stand and how is it likely to evolve during the 14th Five-Year Plan period? What announcements should we expect this year?

Our first guest is Stian Reklev, co-founder and reporter with Carbon Pulse, which provides news and intelligence on global carbon markets. He is based in Beijing, where he has covered emissions trading markets and climate policy across the Asia-Pacific region since 2009, first for Point Carbon and then for Reuters, before setting up Carbon Pulse in 2015.

Our second guest is Yan Qin of Refinitiv, who is based in Oslo. Yan Qin is a power and carbon analyst with extensive experience in energy market analysis and quantitative modelling. Her work focus on the short-term outlook for power and carbon trading, supply-demand forecasting, and energy policy insights, mainly for clients at utilities and energy companies. She was power market consultant before joining the Point Carbon team in 2011. Yan holds a Masters in Economics from the University of Oslo.

For further reading:

IEA report on China's carbon ETS: https://www.iea.org/reports/chinas-emissions-trading-scheme

Carbon Pulse: https://carbon-pulse.com/category/china-national-ets/

Refinitiv's annual global carbon market report and survey: https://www.refinitiv.com/en/resources/special-report/global-carbon-market-report#form