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Beijing to host carbon market

By Wang Zhuoqiong (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-02-07 10:36

Beijingis expected to become the home of Asia's first carbon-trading exchange this summer, giving China a presence in the multi-billion-dollar global carbon market.

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The three-year, $1.7 million project to develop the carbon-trading market in China will feature technical service centers in 12 provinces. It will also develop pilot schemes for carbon-trading and capacity-building in the provinces and provide policy input for the expansion of the carbon market.

Carbon trading is widely seen as a cost-effective way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Other exchanges have been set up in London and Chicago.

China is currently the source of about a third of the carbon credits traded on the global market through the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).

The CDM allows developed countries to fund environment-friendly projects in developing countries in exchange for credits toward meeting their own mandatory emissions cuts.

The technical service centres will help people develop programs under the CDM in 12 of China's provinces.

The centers are to act as brokers between international investors and local partners to kick-start "green" investment projects in China's less developed regions.