(December 24, 2013) As Europe’s carbon market crumbles, China decides it’s time to set one up. On a side note, this has crazy corruption written all over it!

Chinese carbon market opens to a busy first day

Reuters, published by the New York Times on December 19, 2013

GUANGZHOU, China — The first day of trading in what will be by far the largest carbon market in China started briskly on Thursday with pricing in line with expectations, as Beijing continued its drive to slow its rapid growth of heat-trapping emissions.

The first trade on the China Emissions Exchange in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, was priced at 61 renminbi, or about $10, with the cement firm Hailuo buying 20,000 carbon permits from the new energy arm of the state-owned power producer Huadian Energy.

Early trade volume in Guangdong’s carbon permit market, expected to be the world’s second largest in terms of carbon dioxide covered, surpassed full-day totals that started the country’s three other carbon exchanges.

China, the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, wants to use markets to achieve its target to cut emissions per unit of gross domestic product to 40 percent to 45 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 — at the lowest possible cost.

Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen have already opened markets of their own; Hubei Province and the cities of Chongqing and Tianjin are expected to follow in the next few months.

Read the full story at the publisher’s website here.

Further Reading:

• Criminals see value of intangible carbon market – Interpol
• ‘Trendy, green – and hard to understand’
• The perverse rewards of carbon credits
• Once again, UN pays polluters with carbon credits
• Carbon Credit fraud discovered in Ukraine
• A Carbon Trading System Draws Environmental Skeptics
• Murder on the Carbon Express: Interpol Takes On Emissions Fraud
• Conflicts of interest threaten carbon-trading mechanism
• Who to blame? UN wants to make auditors of carbon credit projects liable for their work
• Devil is in the (lack of) details: citizens left in the dark on carbon credit schemes
• Paying the polluters: The carbon credit way
• Carbon credit fraud makes its way to Liberia
• Scamming the carbon markets in ten easy steps
• It’s official: global warming solutions will destroy the environment
• China’s greenhouse gas vent threat in bid to extort billions