Interim Measures for the Administration of Voluntary Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction Trading

Last updated: 16 April 2021
The Chinese certified emission reduction credit scheme (CCER) comes to China by way of the Clean Development Mechanisms (CDM) established as one of the Flexible Mechanisms defined in the Kyoto Protocol since 2005. It has enabled emission-reduction projects in developing countries to earn CER credits. This mandate established by the NDRC operated in five major cities including Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Chonqing and under two provinces Guangdong and Hubei. The governments of these provinces determine the local emissions caps, set up local trading rules, and issue emissions allowances to enterprises with their jurisdiction.
As of 2013 118.1 million tonnes of CO2-equivalent have been traded at a range of US$1.7 to US$5.7 per tonne. The scheme resembles the CDM and must adopt NDRC methodologies approved by the NDRC.
Six GHGs are covered including: CO2, CH4, N2O, HFCs, PFCs, and SF6.
Third party validation is required as well as project developers must demonstrate additionality and potential sustainability benefits before the projet is approved and registered. The document assessing requests and registration for project activity is called the CCER Project Design Document (PDD).
This gave way to the Voluntary Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction Trading Registry. The first transaction to be recorded was in March 2015 from Guangdong Province of 68.7 million tonnes of CO2-equivalent in 6 of 7 ETS locations. There currently lacks information on Chongqing and Shanghai accounts for 36.7 per cent of the total trading volumes. CCERs were traded at an average price of US$2.5 in Beijing and US$3.7 in Shanghai.
The China Certified Emission Reduction Exchange Info-Platform is found on http://cdm.ccchina.gov.cn/ccer.aspx and run by the NDRC's Department of Climate Change. A total of 2296 CCER Projects have been approved by third-parties and their PDDs are openly available from the platform.

Want to know more about this policy ? Learn more