On August 16, ChemChina, an enterprise carrying out the research project on energy-intensive product baseline in China’s chemical industry, held the initiating meeting at its headquarters. Jiang Zhaoli, Deputy Director of Climate Change Department of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), attended the meeting and delivered an important speech.
In recent years, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council have made clear statements in many policy documents that China's carbon emission permit trading market (hereafter “carbon market”) should be established to implement carbon emission permit trading, and the decisive role of market in resource allocation should be further brought into play through market mechanism and administrative means, so as to promote the development and application of low-carbon technologies and strengthen the management of carbon emission. In accordance with the unified plans and specific arrangements of the Climate Change Department, NDRC, ChemChina undertakes the research project on energy-intensive product baseline in China’s chemical industry.
At the meeting, Mr. Jiang Zhaoli introduced the important significance of and urgent need for carbon emission permit trading. He pointed out that carbon emission permit trading is an important means promoting the green low-carbon development of the economy, and the development of carbon market, one important task of the central government's reform, is of great significance. Carbon market is designed to transform the growth model and restructure the economy by forcing enterprises to conserve energy and reduce emission. Differing from the EU carbon market where enterprises fulfill their obligations without any economic returns, China’s carbon market adopting an incentive mechanism sets standards to spur enterprises to improve their performance so as to eliminate enterprises falling below the standards, with outstanding enterprises reducing costs through the development of carbon market. Thus, the reform policies of the central government can be implemented well. The development of carbon market is a system engineering featuring many elements including law-making, trading, with a database created and standards constantly fine-tuned. Product baseline, a key element of the carbon market, is of enormous significance. The research on baseline, a long-term dynamic process, should be built on a strong work foundation. Good jobs should be done in data collection, data clean, data archiving and database creation; institutions and their working staff are dedicated to the work; research achievements should be timely made through strict scientific methods to meet the political requirements and the needs of the operation of carbon market in the following year.
The research project on carbon emission trading baseline, a major one of the NDRC in addressing climate change, is undertook by ChemChina for the first time. Highly valued by ChemChina, it will be carried out by a team headed by Fan Xiaosen, Deputy General Manager of ChemChina, with the Planning and Development Department as the designated management department, the Information Center as the project-implementing department and the Central Research Institute of China Chemical Science and Technology as the coordinated unit. Fan Xiaosen required that all relevant departments should keep close cooperation with each other in developing work plans and establishing a working coordination mechanism so as to complete planned tasks with superiority.
Carbon emission experts attending the meeting exchanged views on the methods and schedule requirements of the research project.