CCER restart attracts attention
In the national carbon market, trading methods are mainly divided into listing agreement trading and block agreement trading, and block agreement trading is the main trading volume. In 2022, the total transaction volume of the national carbon market was 50.89 million tons, of which the annual transaction volume of block agreements was 44.67 million tons, accounting for 88%, and the transaction volume of listing agreements accounted for only 12%. At present, the common carbon price in the market mainly refers to the transaction price of listing agreement.
According to a representative of a carbon asset management organisation, the listing agreement transaction is tiny in scope and can only be referenced with a limited volume and price. Currently, block agreements are used to complete the majority of carbon quota transactions. The supply and demand sides separately negotiate the volume and price, and the price is typically lower than that of listed transactions.
On August 28th, the national carbon emission trading system launched "carbon emission quota 21" (corresponding to the 2021 carbon emission quota), "carbon emission quota 22" (corresponding to the 2022 carbon emission quota) and "carbon emission quota 19-20" (corresponding to the 2019-2020 carbon emission quota).The above-mentioned carbon asset management company said that there is no difference between the current balance quota and the quota during the performance period in terms of trading and performance. However, he is worried that the balance quota marked with the year is added to the label, and the utilization policies such as the offset rate and validity period in the future are still uncertain.
According to the Measures for the Administration of Carbon Emission Trading (Trial), key emission units can use CCER to offset the settlement of carbon emission quotas every year, and the offset ratio shall not exceed 5% of the carbon emission quotas that should be settled.The above-mentioned Notice also clarifies that CCER that have been cancelled for the purpose of performance in the first performance cycle but are not actually used to offset the settlement shall be applied by key emission units, which can be used to offset the quota settlement in 2021 and 2022.
The Ministry of Ecology and Environment has also repeatedly released the signal to restart CCER. In June 2023, Liu Youbin, spokesperson of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, said that he would strive to start the national greenhouse gas voluntary emission reduction trading market as soon as possible in 2023.
In July, 2023, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment solicited opinions on the Measures for the Administration of Greenhouse Gas Voluntary Emission Reduction Trading (Trial) (hereinafter referred to as the "Administrative Measures"), which is the basic system for the orderly operation of CCER market, and stipulated the basic management requirements of greenhouse gas voluntary emission reduction trading and related activities from the aspects of the examination and registration of voluntary emission reduction projects, emission reduction verification and registration, emission reduction trading, examination and verification agency management, and clarified each market.