China Steps Up on Carbon Credits

The company, Hille writes, is "an automobile insurer from Shanghai," which "has become the first Chinese company to become carbon neutral by purchasing credits in the country's fledgling voluntary carbon trading market."

Since it is categorized as a developing country in the Kyoto Protocol, China is not subject at present to carbon reduction emissions, though it is said to be the largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world in several rankings.

Shanghai’s Pollution Discharge Right Trade, according to an article by Elizabeth Balkan in cnreviews.com, "will require more than 300 companies, whose emissions comprise over 80% of the city’s total, to purchase a credit that allows them only a specific allowance of discharge."

It is also rumored that the Chinese central government will include goals to lower total carbon emissions as part of its upcoming "five-year plan."

In her article, Balkan quotes Zhang Peijun, director of Shanghai’s main district Environmental Protection Bureau, as saying that in "a market-based mechanism, an emissions trading scheme provides economic incentives for reducing pollution. Companies unable to limit their emissions have to pay a much higher price for extra credits on the exchange.”

If China is beginning to take responsibility for its emissions, maybe we will, too.

Photo courtesy of duffman34, via Flickr