Carbon Market For China

Unbelievably, it appears that it will be China that uses market forces to reshape its energy supply regime.  Add in the carbon tax and we will soon discover if this can be applied successfully at all.  At least we can be nervously optimistic.

Success will bring in plenty of other players and that matters.  As it is, the flight from coal globally is barely begun and is presently propped up by frack gas.  It will take serious alternatives to enter the market and a carbon tax happens to be an excellent forcer.

We will watch this closely to see how the market really rdsponds.

China has carbon exchanges now, carbon pricing by 2015 and carbon tax by 2020

OCTOBER 12, 2013

http://nextbigfuture.com/2013/10/china-has-carbon-exchanges-now-carbon.html

China has some carbon exchanges now. They trade carbon permits in seven trial markets. The price is about $7 to 10 per ton of CO2. China will likely add seven pilot carbon pricing systems by 2015. China is expected to add a carbon tax by 2020 and national emissions trading by 2020. These moves will increase the financial incentives for nuclear energy, hydro power, solar and wind power in China.

Carbon permits on the Shenzhen Emissions Exchange, the first of seven trial carbon markets being launched in China, have risen to a price exceeding those in Europe According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) Shenzhen carbon allowances for 2013 increased to US$7 a tonne, up from US$5 a tonne on June 18, the first day of trading.

The chinese carbon emission exchange website is here.

China is expected to have seven pilot pricing systems in place no later than 2015, followed by a national scheme, according to a new survey from Australian National University.

The survey – a joint initiative between the Centre for Climate Economics and Policy in the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific’s Crawford School and Beijing-based NGO China Carbon Forum – collected the opinions of 86 China-based carbon pricing experts.

The survey found strong confidence that China will introduce carbon-pricing mechanisms in coming years, that the price of emitting carbon will rise over time, and that China will have both a national emissions trading and a carbon tax by the end of the decade.

This is the first time that we can put numbers to what people who are close to the action expect to happen,” he said. 

The survey also indicates an expected combined Chinese price for emissions trading and carbon tax of RMB 70 ($12) per ton in 2020, rising sharply thereafter. 

The large majority of experts surveyed were also confident that China will achieve or surpass its 2020 emissions intensity target, and almost all expect that new targets will be set for 2020 and 2025.

"As public expectation of good air quality grows with the demand for electricity, the prediction that nuclear power will account for about 5 percent of China's total energy consumption by 2020 seems far from sufficient," Zhao Yongkang, deputy director of the Nuclear Safety Management Department at the Environmental Protection Ministry, said.

By 2017, the installed capacity of the nation's nuclear power plants will be increased to 50 million kW, enabling the proportion of non-fossil energy to meet the target of 13 percent, up from the 2010 level of 8.6 percent.

Insiders say nuclear power may be the only solution to meeting the 13 percent target, with both wind and solar power facing obstacles such as difficulties in storing the power and transmitting it to other regions.

The Future of China’s Power Sector: From centralised and coal powered to distributed and renewable?, Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Projects about 170 GWe of nuclear power. This would be about 1350 TWh since 100 GWe generate 800 TWh in the USA.