In the past decade, China has also been developing and building a voluntary emission reduction market. Since the Interim Measures for the Management of Greenhouse Gas Voluntary Emission Reduction Trading was issued in 20 12, China's voluntary emission reduction market has established a relatively perfect operation management system, and China's national certified voluntary emission reduction (CCER) trading has also been continuously carried out, which has played an important role in the offsetting performance of the national carbon quota market at the end of 200212.
Promoting the improvement of voluntary greenhouse gas emission reduction trading mechanism will be one of the main institutional systems to ensure the stable and effective operation and healthy development of the national carbon market. Gao Li, director of the Climate Change Department of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, said in an exclusive interview with the media a few days ago that the Ministry of Ecology and Environment will formulate the Measures for the Administration of Voluntary Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction Trading (Trial) and related technical specifications, and organize the construction of a voluntary greenhouse gas emission reduction registration system and trading system.
Voluntary emission reduction market and carbon credit;
The voluntary emission reduction market is an important part of the international carbon market. Unlike the mandatory carbon market, which mainly trades carbon quotas, the voluntary carbon emission reduction market mainly trades carbon credits. The main difference between the two is that carbon credits are generated by greenhouse gas emission reduction projects, while quotas are generated by government departments in charge of carbon market to pay or not control enterprises with high carbon emissions. Carbon credit mechanism is an important supplement to carbon pricing mechanism.
Carbon credit can not only be used as an offset to control the performance of enterprises in the mandatory carbon market, but also be used as a trading variety in the voluntary emission reduction market to help enterprises and individuals offset carbon emissions and achieve carbon neutrality. 1997 the third conference of the parties to the United nations framework convention on climate change laid the world's first carbon credit system.
The Kyoto Protocol adopted at the meeting established three international emission reduction trading mechanisms, among which the clean development mechanism (CDM) is the origin of global voluntary emission reduction trading, which on the one hand helps the regulatory enterprises in the carbon market to flexibly fulfill their obligations and form a "flexible mechanism" in the market; On the other hand, under the CDM mechanism, developed countries obtain carbon credits generated by emission reduction projects by investing or promoting green products and equipment to developing countries, and developing countries also benefit from investment or technology from developed countries.
In contrast, in recent years, the influence of the independent third-party carbon credit mechanism established by non-governmental organizations has gradually increased, and now it has dominated the global voluntary carbon market, which is mainly reflected in the rapid growth of carbon credit issuance and trading volume under the independent third-party mechanism, among which VCS (Certified Carbon Standard), GS (Gold Standard), ACR (American Carbon Registration) and CAR (Climate Action Reserve) rank high.
According to the statistics of the World Bank, in 20021year, the amount of carbon credits issued by independent third parties accounted for 74% of the total amount of voluntary emission reduction credits, which was more than four times higher than that of 20 17% in 20 15 years.
As the world enters the era of carbon neutrality, it is inevitable that the demand for voluntary emission reduction credits from various institutions will increase substantially. According to the research of the Global Voluntary Carbon Market Expansion Working Group (TSVCM), in order to achieve the goal that the temperature rise does not exceed 65,438 0.5 degrees Celsius, global carbon emissions should be reduced by 23 billion tons by 2030, of which about 2 billion tons will come from carbon sinks and carbon removal. It is estimated that the global voluntary carbon market in 2030 is conservatively estimated to be between 5 billion and 30 billion US dollars, and may even reach 50 billion US dollars.