Guess what’s back
China just took an important step to reduce greenhouse gases.
On Monday, China relaunched its China Certified Emission Reduction (CCER) scheme.
Some context: The CCER was established in 2012 to allow green projects to certify avoided emissions and sell them as offsets. But it never really got off the ground and was suspended in 2017.
We’ve been expecting a CCER reboot: The environment ministry (MEE) published rules for CCER trading in October.
Under the CCER, companies in a range of industries can (theoretically) profit from making costly emission reduction upgrades.
- They will be able to sell CCER credits on the national emissions trading scheme – or to any other entity keen to offset their carbon emissions.
Get smart: A CCER scheme is an important piece of the decarbonization agenda. But it will take time for the market to get established and function properly.
Get smarter: For the CCER (and the ETS) to be truly effective, China will need to put stringent caps on greenhouse gas emissions.
- That will raise the price of emissions – and the price of offsets like CCER credits.