Systemic issues in China’s fledgling carbon market put brakes on expansion

IN THE year since China launched its national carbon market, data fraud in agencies responsible for verifying emissions at power generation companies — the only type of firm now trading on the market — has emerged as a major issue, hampering efforts to increase efficiency in the market and giving authorities pause before opening the market to other industries.

A string of cases, revealed earlier this year, has put the spotlight on verification issues that can undermine data quality, limiting China’s efforts to cut greenhouse-gas emissions and realise its ambitious climate goals.

Zhao Yingmin, deputy head of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, said at a July press conference that the government’s next step was to focus on data quality, ramping up efforts to build a daily management system for carbon market data.