BEIJING: China launches its seventh and final pilot carbon market in the sprawling city of Chongqing on Thursday, but plans to set up a national trading scheme within three years remain shrouded in uncertainty in the world's top emitter of greenhouse gases.
China has pledged that by 2020 it will reduce its carbon intensity - the amount of CO2 produced per unit of economic growth - by 40-45 percent from 2005 levels.
It has also promised to set up market mechanisms to help meet its targets.
The ultimate aim of the seven pilot projects, experts had said, was to "let a hundred flowers bloom" in order to find the trading system that suits China the most, which would then form the basis of a national scheme.
"How to unify these markets is an extremely complex issue," said Shawn He, a lawyer with the Huamao & Guigu Law Firm in Beijing who specialises in carbon trading.
"I wouldn't doubt the ambition of the authorities, especially the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), to create a unified market in three years, but I'm more concerned about its integrity and quality."
The carbon market in Chongqing follows launches in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Shenzhen and the provinces of Hubei and Guangdong of schemes that force hundreds of local enterprises to buy permits to cover their emissions.
But these programmes cover only a tiny fraction of China's total greenhouse gas levels and climate officials say they are looking at creating a nationwide platform by 2016-2017.
In a speech last week, Sun Cuihua, deputy director of the climate change office at the NDRC, said a national trading scheme should be ready for launch within three years.
She, however, added that there was still a great deal of work to do, including the establishment of national standards. "We first need to strengthen our statistical work and we also need to create a carbon emission system nationwide that covers major enterprises, which is the foundation for any carbon market," she said.
Nearly 20,000 enterprises across the country have already received orders from the NDRC to report their greenhouse gas emissions starting this year.
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